Sermonizing

On Father's Day, John preached at a friend's church in Charlottesville. If you would like to hear his sermon, you can check it out on their website. Enjoy!

Babylon

We just finished our week of VBS 2012. It was the boys' second year of attending and my second year helping out. We all had a blast! The theme of the week was "Babylon", all about the story of Daniel. It was a lot of fun to watch Brennan really start to take an interest in what he was learning and begin to ask questions about it at home. This is definitely one of my favorite weeks of the summer!

 

 

Summertime!

I love lazy summer days...fewer places to be, more time spent just enjoying the days. Lots of playing at the park and riding bikes on the trails and around our neighborhood. Lots of backyard playing and fun in the water table. Trips to the Stoney Point Fountains to cool off. Lots of creating with the train set and with homemade play dough. What a great time of year!

 

 

Summer Tradition

Having gone three summers in a row now, it's become tradition to take the boys blueberry picking. We braved the 90+ degree heat to get our berry treat and had a great time. Brennan loved helping pick the berries. Owen picked a few, but did a pretty good job just simply staying relatively close by, which is a successful outing where he's concerned! Now it's time for all the fun blueberry treats!

 

 

 

 

Everyday Life

About a week and a half ago, a friend from college passed away from cancer. You can read more about his story at his CaringBridge site. Our paths only crossed for a couple of years, but it was long enough to leave a definite impression on me. He was a musician and speaker by trade, and his music expressed a great depth that I truly appreciate. It's poignant to listen to his songs now and realize that he's singing in heaven now, enjoying the wonders and glories that we can only dream of here.

One of my favorite songs by him is called "Everyday Life", a prayer for the presence of God in our daily lives. It's easy to press in to God during the really big highs or lows, but it becomes more difficult during the daily routine challenges of life. As a stay-at-home mom, I find there can be a lot of mundane things in my day-to-day. This song expresses beautifully just how much I need Jesus in the midst of my daily mundane.

"I wish that I could be as set as stone.

Unmoved by all the things that tear my soul.

Held together by a word of hope.

In everyday life.

I wish that I could only hear the voice,

Whispering to me love's only choice,

To bring salvation to this lonely boy,

In every day life.

Everyday life is where I need you most.

Everyday life is what tears my soul.

Everyday life-God I need you close to me.

Breathing only just to stay alive.

Dragging my soul out into the light.

Well aware the biggest fear I fight 

Is everyday life.

All the joy I've known is cast aside,

By all the foolish things that fill my life.

Still I wonder will I survive

This everyday life.

Everyday life.

Everyday life is where I need you most.

Everyday life is what tears my soul.

Everyday life-God I need you close to me."

Father's Day 2012

What a busy day this has been for our family! But what wonderful time we've gotten to spend with family and friends. We started out our day pretty early, heading to Charlottesville where John was scheduled to preach at a friend's church (our former pastor from Orlando is now the senior pastor there). He did a fabulous job preaching on fatherhood!

Since we were in Charlottesville, we opted to head to Carter Mountain on our way back home. We've only ever been there in the fall in order to pick apples, but this time we trekked up the mountain to pick peaches. Our neighbors went last year and brought some back for us, and they were the most amazing peaches. So...11 pounds of peaches later, we are already looking forward to some peach cobbler and peach pie and simply eating peaches.