Grace

I was listening to yet another great podcast from my favorite preacher, Patrick Mead, when the line that is in BOLD down below caught my attention.  I really liked it...  so much so that I took my life in my hands as I was driving to look down at my phone and take note of where he was in his sermon so I could go back to it later.  :)  I found it when I got home and listened more closely to what he was talking about and just had to write it down because it speaks to my heart and what I so often feel when I consider the grace that has been shown to me, even as I look back with sadness over those I have hurt along the way in my life.  I don't deserve it, that's for sure.  And I do struggle with grace, at least in understanding why it has been shown to me.  But it has, in abundance, and I am so very thankful.  I'm trying to think about that a lot in this month where we often focus a bit more on 'thankfulness.'  So even as I am often haunted by my mistakes, I love this idea of 'fighting back' by reminding the devil who has the victory in the end.  And I am thankful for the extravagant grace that bought us the opportunity to be on the Victor's side.

"We have a hard time with grace. 

Many of us are still haunted by things (we've done) that God has forgiven.  We know that God has forgiven us because He has promised that He would, but the scar of what we've done is still there...  

We have repented; we have been forgiven; but we still see the faces (of those we have hurt.)   Do I believe that God will hold (what I did) against me?  No, not at all.  But I understand why people have difficulty with the concept of grace, because even with my faith, it does not erase the memory.  Our sins are always with us...

Now, my general rule of life is this: 
Every time the devil reminds me of my past, remind him of his future.

You need to have a comeback to the devil for these things.  What I do when I'm woken up in the middle of the night and I'm plagued by this is I spend my time thanking God for forgiving me and then asking him to send His Spirit out to do the same for the people that I hurt. 

That's all you can do at that point, and that's probably enough."

If you are interested in the whole lesson, check it out here...

http://eastsidechurch.us/listen-online/    (If that doesn't take you straight to the lesson, it's Theology 101, Part 17) 

California Dreamin'

 

OK, so our trip to California was back at the beginning of August and I'm just now getting around to updating my blog and posting about it. To be honest, I think I've spent the last 2 months feeling like it was going to be too much of a project to get all the pictures up and actually write about it.  Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill!  ha  :)  So anyways, here's the trip in pictures...  and there is no way I can capture how much fun it was to spend the week away with my family or how incredibly beautiful the California coast was, but it was all just breathtaking.  Couldn't have asked for a better vacation! 

 

The flight out was quite early in the morning...  but here's the airport selfie showing that we were mostly awake and happy to be on the way. 

 

 

We flew into San Jose and arrived around noon.  Then we made the short drive up to San Francisco.  My sister had told me not to miss the ride on the Cable Cars down to the waterfront, so we parked our car near the start of the famous Powell/Market Street line and had a good view of how they manually turn the cable cars around while we waited in line for an hour to ride it.  :) 

 

 

I do have to say that, despite the faces being made below by my children who did not want their pictures made, we had a lot of fun on the ride. It was definitely a unique experience and the view riding down to the waterfront was spectacular!

 

 

 Once down on the waterfront, we walked way out on this very long pier out into San Francisco Bay and I took this picture with Alcatraz out in the background.  And as you can see, it was pretty chilly.  Even in the first week of August, San Francisco seems to hover around 65 to 70 degrees all the time.  With the wind always blowing, it feels colder than that!!

 

 

We spent the first night just south of San Francisco, got up the next morning, and started our trek down the famous California 1 Pacific Coast Highway.  Our first stop along the way was Santa Cruz. They have a fantastic boardwalk there with an amusement park, arcades, roller coasters and a gorgeous beach.  We made it there just in time for lunch and a very lively "Step Up" kind of dance and acrobatic show.  The weather was beautiful, but again, not very warm.  That was one of the interesting things about the Northern California coastline...  after years of Florida beaches and vacations, this was so different because it was just so cold most of the time.  This particular day was probably the warmest at, maybe, 75 degrees!  But it was still just so pretty, as you can see.

 

 

After Santa Cruz, we continued on down PCH 1 and I just have to mention here that I was amazed at the miles and miles of produce farms that we passed thru along the way.  Somehow I just didn't expect to see so much farmland sitting right on the edge of the Pacific ocean.  And again, I think this is my Florida bias...  just about every inch of beach property in Florida is used for tourism and vacation homes.  It was just weird to see the lack of commercialism along the California coastline.  And it was all just so beautiful... 

 

A funny moment along the way was when we were passing thru an enormous strawberry farm and saw that it was the GIANT strawberry farm.  I can't remember if it was Jack or Anna that realized that those are the very strawberries that we buy at Walmart every week.  haha.  So we stopped at a fruit stand along the way and bought some fresh strawberries and I swear they tasted like candy.  They were the sweetest strawberries I have ever tasted.  It was amazing!  Of course, now I have a very hard time enjoying the ones that we get from Walmart because they just aren't even close to being as good!!! 

 

One last funny story...  as we were driving along, suddenly, right in the middle of one of the strawberry fields, there was a lone port-a-potty just sitting there.  It was very odd looking.  But what was more funny was Anna pointing it out and saying, "What is that 'pot-a-porty' doing out there?"  Maybe you had to be there, but we got a good laugh out of that.  :)

 

Anyways, moving along.  Our next stop was Monterey and the Monterey Plaza Hotel and Spa.  And yes, it was just as nice and fancy as the name sounds...  this was our 'splurge' for the trip and it was so worth it.  I think we all are agreed that we could have stayed in Monterey forever...  I'm running out of adjectives to describe how nice it all was.  Here are the girls outside of the hotel just before we went out to dinner. 

 

 

This won't mean much to anyone but us, but this is the view from where we ate dinner out on the end of a pier in Monterey.  Off in the distance, as the sun went down, there was this mountain that was still all lit up and honestly, it just looked fake.  Like it was part of a Hollywood set or something.  It caught our attention for a while and I tried to capture it but I think I needed a better camera than my iPhone.  ha  This is one of those 'you had to be there' kinda moments.  :)

 

 

One of our best adventures on this trip was a kayak tour of Monterey Bay.  The guy in the picture below, whose name I can't remember now, (John?) was our guide and he was so much fun!  We spent 3 hours in kayaks paddling around with sea otters and seals popping up around us (so cute!) and all sorts of amazing birds and other sea creatures that we got to see along the way.  We stopped at one point and our guide pulled some star fish out of the water and let us hold them - along with a weird creature that he called a 'sea bunny' that looked more like a big (really big!) slug that leaked purple ink when it got upset.  My hands stayed purple for a while.  :)

 

After the kayaking adventure, we stopped at a beautiful beach and took these pictures...

 

We hadn't really planned on doing this, but a couple that was part of our kayaking trip told us that we HAD to go to the Monterey Aquarium.  So before leaving town the next morning, we took a trip thru the aquarium and it was great -- this is one of my favorite pictures from there... giant octopus! :)

 

So from Monterey, we continued south on PCH1 and traveled thru Big Sur.  This was the stretch of road that I had pictured in my mind of what it would be like to travel along the pacific coast highway.  On one side of the road were the mountains of Big Sur and on the other side of the road were cliffs down to the beach and out to the ocean.  It was breathtaking!  The two pictures below were taken by a waterfall that falls out into the ocean -- so pretty! 

 

This picture just turned out funny because it was so windy.  We were trying to get a picture of us with the really awesome bridge in the background, but Mackenzie's hair ended up being the most interesting thing about this picture!  :)

 

As we were nearing our next destination, Cambria, we saw all these cars pulled over in a parking lot by the ocean and people lined up at an overlook pointing at something.  We were curious to see what everyone was looking at, so we pulled off and took a look...  this is what we saw -- elephant seals!  Everywhere!  There were all just laying around on this beach - huge ones and babies, all over the place.  I don't know if you can see it, but there are two really big ones right in the center of this picture that were fighting with each other.  It was funny to watch. 

 

This is the girls posing in the really pretty garden at our hotel in Cambria.  We were headed out for our tour of the Hearst Castle.

 

I can't take credit for this photo, but this is a photo that we bought of the Hearst Castle.  It is perched on the top of mountain and the view in the OTHER direction from this picture is out to the ocean - this place was beyond amazing!  

This is a view of the roman themed outdoor pool.   Apparently the Hearst family loved to entertain movie stars and politicians - I was trying to imagine the parties they must have had around this pool!  Crazy....

 

Here we are with the view from the front of the castle out to the ocean... How would you like to wake up to that every morning?  Wow... 

 

And as if the OUTDOOR pool wasn't enough, this is the INDOOR pool...  really?  And my picture really doesn't do it justice... 

 

I loved the Hearst Castle.   It was all just so over the top - like a fairy tale.  The only drawback for me was that the drive up to it was fairly terrifying!  The only way up was on tour buses that took about 15 minutes to wind their way up what was sometimes a one-way drive to the top of this huge mountain...  it was a little scary for those of us afraid of heights.  :)

 

SO, after our morning at the Hearst Castle, we left Cambria and the Pacific Coast Highway and made our way inland to take the interstate back up to San Francisco.  (it's a lot faster than the PCH route!)  Another nice surprise along this route was traveling thru Paso Robles and the Central Coast wine region.  I wasn't aware of all the beautiful wine country that we were going to be traveling thru.  I would have loved to stop and tour one of the wineries, but our schedule was tight that day.  But they were pretty to look at as we drove thru!  :)

So we made it back up to San Francisco and this is a picture of us driving over the Golden Gate Bridge...  in the fog.  :)

 

So our last destination on this trip was Muir Woods just north of San Francisco.  We wanted to see some GIANT trees and we found some!  This was a very popular destination -- we had to park about 1/2 a mile away - but it was worth it.  The trees were huge!  Again, it's hard to do it justice with pictures, but I like this one of Jack, Anna, and Mackenzie cause it gives a little bit of perspective on how big the trees are....

 

And this last picture is another one that probably won't be as cool to anyone but us, but the 'hands' are a big mural on the side of the parking garage at the San Jose airport.  If you saw it up close, it's a big wire mesh screen with what looks like ping pong balls that make up the 'hands.'  From a distance, this is what it looks like and it's pretty cool...  :)

 

I left this for last cause it was the best family picture we got on the trip...  and it was the one we had to buy from the gift shop at the Hearst Castle..  ha.   That's us, superimposed on the really amazing gathering room in the castle. 

So that was a quick tour of our trip to California.  It was great to be away with just our family - the older the girls get, the harder that is to do!  So I will cherish this time and these memories -- and I hope to make it back out to the west coast one of these days and see more!! :)

 



So it's been 10 years...

...since our plane touched down in Huntsville and we moved our family 'home' (for me anyways) from Boston.  It's hard to believe it's been that long. Amazing how time flies.

I found this picture that comes pretty close to that long ago.... here's the girls (with Mandy) a few months after we moved in...  ages 6 and 10, oh my. 

 

 

And today...  16 and 20.  Yikes. 

 



A lot happens in 10 years.  Kids grow up, dogs get old, parents get older.... ha.  Graduations, college, the mention of weddings in the not too distant future...  it's hard to imagine all the changes that the NEXT 10 years will bring! 

It made me start thinking back in 10 year increments.... 

2003 we were just moving here

1993 Mackenzie had just been born

1983 I had just moved back home after my first year of college and was headed to UNA for a semester

1973 I was 10 years old.  Who knows what I was doing then?  Awkward elementary school years.   haha.

Anyways, I just wanted to take a moment and remember the day because I'm glad that we made the move back here those 10 long (and now feeling very short) years ago. 

I'll share a quote that I'm going to steal from my favorite preacher these days that sums up what I'm feeling as I look back:

"The older I get, the less I am certain about things I used to go to the mat defending or attacking but the more certain I am of Jesus' love." ~ Patrick Mead

Backyard Progress

So it's been a little while since I last talked about the backyard project.  A lot has happened in the past couple of months and the end is actually in sight.  Here are some pictures to show what's been happening....

 

By far the most difficult part of this whole journey has been getting the retaining wall built:

 

 

Yes, this is a cheesy posed picture to show that I did do something on this project!  My job on this day was driving almost 20 pieces of rebar into the ground.  Apparently I'm pretty good with a hammer and steel.   :)

You can't imagine the 'happy dance' that we did when we got to this point and the retaining wall was done!  What a job that was... 

 

We 'capped' the cinder blocks and dug out the center where the fire pit is going to go:

 

Jack putting the finishing touches on the fire pit construction!  :)

And this is what it looks like as of last night....  There is some 'tamping' to be done to make sure all the dirt is packed and level and then we have a driveway full of pea gravel to spread over the top.  We stained the concrete to give it a more natural look and that has to be sealed.  Then all that is left is to pull up some chairs, build a fire, and roast some marshmallows!! :)

 

And all was going well till last Sunday when we actually bought the fire pit kit and brought it home...  I was helping Jack unload the stones and that was fine until I went inside to do laundry, bent over, and something totally went out in my back.  THAT was not good.  So I ended up in the ER on Monday morning.  They said I had probably strained a muscle and recommended a steroid shot, a round of prednisone, some muscle relaxers and pain killers.   I think I should have skipped the steroid shot... something apparently went wrong when they gave me that and I had a terrible reaction.  It hurt bad enough that I almost passed out... it freaked out the poor nurse who gave me the shot.  :)  Well, that landed me in a trauma room and I ended up having to stay another hour or so for observation, so that was fun...  not.  All turned out OK in the end...  I've spent the last week mostly on the couch or in bed, out of work, and taking it easy.  Today I am finally feeling better and we'll see how work goes tomorrow...  My job isn't exactly easy on the back.  But I'm looking forward to getting out of the house.  :)

 

And that is the latest for now.  I hope that by the time this weekend is over, I might be able to post finished pictures of the fire pit!! :)

 

 

Milestones....

Wow it's been a long time since I posted last...

I was finally figuring out how to get pictures from my new iPhone to my computer and realized that I have missed posting about so many things... Mother's Day, Father's Day, Mackenzie's 20th Birthday, Jack's 50th Birthday...  etc.  So, here's a quick update in pictures:


Mother's day was a very nice day spent with my girls, along with Becca and Jessica for lunch, and my parents for dinner.

 

Mackenzie and Anna ordered these specialty M&M's that had hearts and their names on them... very cute and unusual!  :)

We detailed Dad's truck for his Father's day present...

 

Then we headed down to Birmingham to spend some time with Jack's family...

 

We celebrated Mackenzie's Birthday by visiting with the Burgesses at church at The Rock on Sunday morning, then lunch at their house, a nice afternoon of singing at Central with good friends, and then a day at the lake with all the girls... Jessica, Becca, Sarah, Mackenzie and Anna.  :)

Jack's 50th Birthday was fun as we spent some time with his family...  his sister certainly had some fun (at his expense) putting this nice 'gift' together to help him get on with the next half-century of his life!  haha   It was really quite funny... 

We spent his birthday night at The Melting Pot with our good friends Rich and Jennifer...  It's been a very long time since I ate SO. MUCH. FOOD.  It was yummy! :)

And in the midst of all of that, we were lucky to have Andrew here with us for a few days, too, and got to take him out on the town to Conner's to celebrate HIS 20th birthday!  Good times...  :)

 

I know I'm leaving other stuff out, but these were the major happenings.  Of course, I had started blogging about our backyard project and I have much updating to do on that.  But it will have to come in the next day or so...   it's not done yet, but we're close!  :)