Our vacation in numbers

15 - # of hours it should take to drive to Myrtle Beach
19 - # of hours it took us (including 11 thousand bathroom stops)

36 - eggs our family consumed during the week (don't ask me how our family managed to eat so many)
0 - # of meals I prepared in the last week
17 - # of meals Tim prepared in the last week

60 - # of minutes it took after leaving the house before someone asked "Are we there yet?"
11 - # of times we asked eachother "Can you believe the weather we're having?"
30 - degrees Celsius every day
700 - # of pictures taken this week

0 - # of fish Tim caught on the pier
12 - # of shark the old lady caught on the pier

350,000 - # of bikers in Myrtle Beach this week for the Memorial weekend bike rally
3 - # of those people we saw wearing motorcycle helmets
6 - # of times I lost something (i.e. all the money) during the week and thought I was losing my mind
20 - hours spent on the beach

6:20 - time alarm set to wake up for early morning shell hunt

3 - # of stuffed cats Emily purchased with her vacation money
4000 - amount of money Tim could have been fined if he had been caught bringing weed killer over the border
0 - # of bags of weed killer Tim brought over the border
17 - # of times we thanked God no one was sick

He thinks it`s ghetto, I think it`s brilliant!

We're driving to Myrtle Beach for our family vacation.

  It's supposed to take us 15 hours of driving time.

It'll likely take us more than that...seeing as there are four female bladders in our car which equals many many bathroom stops.

But that's ok with me...it's part of the adventure of a road trip.

And plus...with today`s modern gadgets

we have the option of having a tv in the car.

Mazda wanted us to pay an extra $8000 to add the built-in dvd.

Ok...maybe not $8000...Tim`s at work right now so I can`t verify the exact price...

but, believe me, it was not worth the high price they were asking.

So Tim, with his ability to make anything, gave us our very own built-in dvd system.



It attaches to my headrest.




It both pivots AND swivels.




Seriously,  look at the craftsmanship on this thing.



When I told the girls this morning about the marvel that is their dad,

Alison replies:  ìt`s a good thing you married him, mom.

I totally agree.

And then I started thinking about how maybe we were making life too easy for our children.

When I was a kid we went on long long road trips every year.

I didn`t have a t.v. strapped to the back of my mother`s head.

We read books and played license plate games.

But we also sat without booster seats or seatbelts

and lay flat on the floor of the minivan to sleep.

And of course there was the heavy usage of gravol

...which I may or may not also do...we`ll see.  :)

Either way...my kids will get to travel in style...

even if it is a bit ghetto.

It Made me Cry

It's Mother's Day today. 

My family honoured me and loved me and made me feel very special.

Emily made me a tea and biscuit gift at school.

In true Emily form....she ate the biscuits
 when she came home from school on Wednesday. 
Oh Emily...how I love you. 

Alison, our in-house artist, painted me a beautiful picture.

And Hannah wrote me a poem.

It made me cry.

I am respectful and honest.

I wonder if I'll be a mother like you.

I hear your wonderful laughter.

I see you helping the family.

I want it to be easier to take care of me.

I am respectful and honest because of you.

I pretend to be like you.

I feel safe with you.

I touch your soft hand.

I worry when you worry.

I cry when I'm upset.

I am respectful and honest because of you.

I understand when you're upset.

I say you're the best mom ever.

I dream about being like you.

I try to help more often

I hope to be as nice as you.

I am respectful and honest because of you.

I cried because I didn't realize until today how much

my girls really respect me,

and look up to me,

and watch me.

Everything I say...and do....and wear...

(by the way,the girls bought me a new outfit to match a pair

of shoes I bought yesterday.

I had nothing to wear with brown shoes...

so they bought me an entire outfit to match them!!)

And it's probably so dumb that I've never realized this until today.

But you know how sometimes you have these "light bulb" moments.

This was one of those days.

So I've been thinking about it a lot today.

It makes me think of a picture book I read recently.

"The Prince & The Gift" by Janet Surette.

This book tells a story of true beauty. 

A story of a prince looking for his princess;

the one who can offer to him the most beautiful gift.

The tale follows a young maiden and watches as she

shows true beauty thru the virtues of

kindness, courage, generosity,

honour, self-control, and sacrifice.

All the other girls in the village only cared about

having a beautifully decorated gift to give the prince; many of them

wasting their time on wrappings and ribbons.

When it was time to present the Prince with their gifts it was the girl with the

plainest box of all whom caught his eye.

Her true beauty glowed from within.

It's this story that is on my mind today

mingling with the thoughts of Hannah's Mother's day poem.

How am I living before my girls and my King? 

Am I more concerned about my own affairs?

or taking the time to help those in need around me?

Am I yelling at the girls on Sunday morning...

worrying more about their outward appearance and how it will reflect on me?

Or helping them prepare their hearts to hear from the Holy Spirit while in Sunday School class.

Today's poem reminded me today that Hannah wants to be like me when she grows up.

But I want her to be able to see virtues in me like

self-control, generousity, loving-kindness, and courage.

I want her to see a mom whom is prayerful, faith-filled and

dependent on her Heavenly Father.

Just taking a little break...and making some changes

I have given up Facebook, twitter and blog reading for Lent

and by the way.... I've never given anything up for Lent before. 

But lately I have been noticing an increased fascination with others' lives.

It used to be that I fed this fascination with facebook...which is why I took a nearly 2 year break from it.

The last 6 months or so I've been reading a lot of blogs....and obviously there isn't anything wrong with

reading blogs....I'm writing my own blog and hope that others will be reading it

and be encouraged, challenged, maybe amused by my writings.

But for me, the amount of time I was spending reading these other blogs was absolutely astounding - in a sorta bad way.

It was often times keeping me from playing with the girls, cleaning the house, preparing healthy meals and all this reading was taking up a lot of space in my head. 

Space that should have been being filled with eternal things.

So I knew I needed to do something...reset my routines...my habits.

Lent was just around the corner when I was talking with my friend one day.

She was telling me about the things she was going to be giving up for Lent.

It gave me the idea to give up the things that were robbing me of time and mind space.
I wanted the season of Lent to be about meditating on Christ's sacrifice for me and I knew that I needed to make room for Him.  I have been consuming a lot of "white bread". 

 Empty, non-nutrious stuff... filler for my mind

with no eternal value.

Last fall I had given up fictional reading for this same reason.  I felt convicted about the amount of fictional reading I was doing...again I don't think it's wrong or sinful to read fiction...but I was often choosing

to read it rather than my bible.

And now I had replaced the fictional reading addiction (which is really what it boils down) with blog reading.

More white bread.

Last night in bible study we talked about the yoke of slavery. 

Jesus doesn't want us to trade one yoke of slavery for another..which is exactly what I had done...

Rather, He has offered me a yoke of liberty for my yoke of slavery!

I desire to read my bible and remember the things I've read...meditate on them throughout the day..or talk of them with my friends. 

I've made room for that now.

I'm excited to see how God is going to work in me...and thru me

during this Lent season.

I'll be journalling....  :)

New Player in the House

Emily turned 5 years old last weekend. 

Tim bought her a ukelele.

I've always said she's a daddy's girl.

She was so pleased to be singing with him.

Now she lounges on the couch,

in exactly the same position her dad takes,

and strums her uke.

Redeem and Restore

I just finished reading a section from the book "The Hole in our Gospel" by Richard Stearns, president of World Vision" about forgiveness and I want to share it with you.
The story is about a woman named Margaret, six months pregnant, living amidst the violence of Northern Uganda's war against the rebel Lord's Resitance Army.  One day Margaret was working in her garden with several other women.  A group of child soldiers came out of the bush and attacked and killed the women, all except for Margaret.  They believed that it would bring bad luck to kill a pregnant woman.  Instead, their commander instructed the child soliders to cut off her ears, nose, and lips believing that her subsequent death would not be on their hands.  They did the unthinkable and left Margaret to die.

She was found and rushed to a hospital where she survived and three months later gave birth to James.  She was moved to World Vision's Children of War Center where she received trauma counseling, support, and later training as a seamstress.  You can imagine her surprise when months later the commander who had given the order to maim her was brought into the same center.  He had been captured and brought to the center to receive counseling and rehabilitation.  World Vision worked with this man and continued working with Margaret trying to lessen her anxiety and exploring the possibility of forgiveness.

"After weeks had passed, the man confessed to his involvement in Margarent's attack, even as she worked through her own fears and anger.  Finally, a meeting was arranged.  The man asked Margaret to forgive him.  And Margaret, reaching deeply into the source of all forgiveness - Jesus Christ - forgave.  Here again was the power of the gospel to redeem and restore, and to meet evil and turn it back.  On the wall of the Children of War Center are photographs of that day - Margaret and this man who had mutiltated her.  He is holding little James in his arms as she stands next to them - smiling without lips."

Love..or Something

If you follow my blog you'll know that Tim and I have been together for a very long time

 and have celebrated Valentine's Day together many many times.  Last night being the 20th. 

 We both got it quite wrong with our cards to one another. 

I appreciate the romantic flowery card with gushy words inside.  Tim appreciates humourous cards with gushy words inside. 

I'm not sure what I was thinking when I created this for him:

And here's the beauty he chose for me: