Raising the Roof

Finally. At Last. The time has come to begin our patio cover! We have wanted to have some shade in our backyard for 4 years now, and our little trees just 'aint cuttin' it........give them a few more decades and then we shall see.......they are trying though.......I go out and encourage them every day.

Mitch has been hard at it, and if I do say so myself, doing a mighty fine job of it. No really, I am very impressed. It isn't that I thought that he couldn't do it, I knew that he could.......it's just.......why would he want to do it?!! I sure wouldn't want to work out in the heat and use power tools all day long, and I know for a fact that I would never be able to decipher a set of building plans, trust me I've tried! I have to give credit to my son-in-law for his hard work on the plans.......thanks Davie, you're awesome!! I am loved, for you see that is the reason for the patio cover.......Mitch knows that I would love to have one. He knows that I love to be outside. But......The LOVE doesn't end with covering the patio.......he is also building a small BBQ island, complete with a gas burner, and a counter top, and a fireplace too! We will be able to enjoy the out of doors in any season! He did inform me the other day that the fireplace might be a project for next year.........ah well......I will try to be patient. I am planning to promise him a "cuddling session" by the fire........you never know, it might speed things up a bit!

A Bit of Boasting.....

Please excuse me while I brag.......I can't help myself, for this is something to be boasting about! My daughter Stephenie called me earlier this week to let me know that my sweet grand children aced their final exams! All three of them received A's!! My granddaughters Bethanne and Rachel made "Eagle of the Year" and Adam finished well too. I am so proud of them and of their hard work........But most of all, I am so proud of my daughter Steph. For those of you who may not know, Steph home schooled her children up until this past year. She is the one who taught them their ABCs, how to read, and how to do math, but I am most proud of the way that she and her man, David, have raised them to love and fear the Lord. Adam is becoming a man of God and he showed this as he went through a very difficult time with another student. He showed that he could overcome adversity by following the Word of God and I am so thankful for that. Bethanne and Rachel have recently been struggling with some pretty scary health issues......they are in the process of wearing heart monitors to determine exactly what is going on......and yet, they continue to find humor in the situation (see my Steph's blog for a post about this), and both of them continue to grow in the graces of God.

The photo that is included in this post says it all......It was taken at the girls' baptism........

I am remembering today to thank the Lord for answered prayer.....I have prayed fervently for all of my sweet grand babies, and He has once again been faithful to answer me. A long time ago God made a promise to me about having many grand children to enjoy. At the time of the promise, there was only 2 year old Adam and we were moving to Colorado, and I was very heart broken to be leaving my family behind in Washington. In the passage of scripture that He impressed on my heart at that time, is a line that caused me to hope that I would again live close to my family. The verse tells of it only being a moment that we would be separated......And here I am experiencing the joy of this word from the Father being fulfilled!

So, here's to you Adam, Bethanne, and Rachel.........Grammie says, "Well Done.......I am so PROUD of you.....and I love you so very much!!"

"Lucky in Love"

For the last few years I have been going through that wonderful......as I type this word, my tongue is in my cheek and I am rolling my eyes!.....time of life called, Menopause.

Here recently, I had had a particularly bad couple of weeks, and one day my sweet Mitch surprised me with flowers.

As you can see from the photo, they look very pretty in their vase, and the colors were some of my favorite, deep pinks and oranges. It did my heart good to look at them, until..........Mitch came home, so excited to see my reaction, and when he saw the flowers, his face literally fell! I asked him what was wrong, but he didn't say anything for a while. He finally let on that he had ordered the bouquet on-line from Lucky Flowers, a new florist shop in town. He had even taken the time to call the florist and asked for an upgrade......he said that he had wanted it to be a big WOW!! Well, it was a WOW, just not in the way that he thought. I won't tell you what the cost of the arrangement was, lets just say that the 4"x4" vase had maybe 10 flowers, 5 of which had brown petals and stuffed in it were a few fern-ny things, and it looked like it was put together by a 5th grader, was worth maybe $20, but he paid a bunch more.....no pun intended!

And if that wasn't enough the card was full of errors and when read was quite humorous......it read like I had sent myself the flowers!!

We tried to take the arrangement back, since the receipt said that they offered 100% satisfaction, but we quickly learned that the guarantee didn't mean getting your money back, just a new arrangement, with the same flowers, put together by the same person!

Needless to say, we came home with that same little 4"x4" vase of flowers and I proudly displayed it on my coffee table, because each time I looked at it I was reminded of my husbands love for me and of how lucky I am to be his wife!

Welcome to Our Yard

I love to be out of doors, and I love working in our yard.....I don't care for the heat of summer, so spring time is my favorite time of year to work outside.

Mitch took a day off last week and I got him out in the yard to help me move some Barberry bushes from near our driveway, and place them against our fence. And in case you think that it was not very nice of me to ask Mitch to work on his day off, I re-payed him by making his favorite cookies. He was pleased with our trade-off.....now I know how to get him to help me!

Along the fence is a much better place for them.......I don't think that it was very inviting to have bushes with thorns on them so close to the driveway!! I am sure that my girls will be pleased.....they invariably were poked each time they visited (Sorry girls...I really do like for you to visit!)

We had planted some trees last fall, one was an evergreen and the other a Mimosa (Silk) tree. They seemed to be fine........stayed green until the fall, but the deciduous one didn't break dormancy and the evergreen, well.......it didn't stay evergreen...more like an ugly shade of yellow-brown. We called the nursery where we had purchased them and they were very sweet and replaced them. We actually traded the evergreen for a beautiful Laurel bush and I love it, and we replaced the Mimosa tree with another maple tree.

Mitch and I seem to be drawn to maples, we had two beautiful ones in our front yard when we lived in Colorado.

As I looked at our new tree, I was reminded of something that I read in the Psalms.......

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper. Psalm 1:1-3

I love how even nature, the world around me, speaks of my God and in turn, speaks to my heart........May I always stay planted by the Living Water that flows from the throne of God.

This One is for You

You ask why I don't write? Well.....here is my answer!

I really enjoy thinking of things to blog about, I get some fun ideas, but getting the thoughts from my head to the computer is the hard part......they seem to get stuck in my head and they won't come out.....or I get bothered by a certain someone, who interrupts my chain of thought and asks me questions that I don't have answers for because, well.....I am trying to write!

So in honor of YOU.......

I love you more than words could ever express. You are the one who makes my heart sing.

Thanks for always being willing to do my "Honey-Do" list........I know that you would love me to be all done with my DIY projects, but hey, it keeps me out of trouble, and there are only a few more to do........well, a few more to do this week anyway!

Thanks for taking me to "Chick Flicks" and for buying me Kettle Corn, and you even let me hold the bag!!

Thanks for being there for me through these last few years....getting old is the pits!!

Thanks for being my BFF, and for being my very own sweet husband!

Thanks for taking me to the AMS games, and for putting up with me talking "smack" to the refs.

Thanks for loving our girls, and for being an awesome Father-in-law, Papa, and Gramps.

Thanks for loving Jesus, and thanks for helping me to love Him too.

I love you, love you, love you.......

Lost and Found

I was going to share photos of our vacation, and as so I hooked up the camera to my computer but, they weren't there!! I searched and searched for them.......all I could find were a few from the last few days of vacation. I went to look again, and low and behold, there they were!! All of them, but I can't seem to get them to load to my computer.......they seem to be lost somewhere inside of my camera's memory. I can see them on my camera's screen, but I can't get them to download to my computer so that you can see them!

I got to thinking of how this is similar to my heart........I want to do the right thing, the "good"thing, and I want to please my Lord.........I know that the "good" is there, because Jesus lives inside of me, but how to get the "good" to come out, so that others can see it, is another thing entirely.....the "good" gets lost somewhere inside of the sinful, the "bad" part of me.

Paul said that the "good" he wanted to do so often turned into the "bad" that he didn't want to do.....whew, that is a mouthful.........So, what is a girl to do?

Like Paul I am to, "Thank God that through Jesus Christ my Lord........" I can do the things of God!! I just need to get out of the way and let Jesus have His way, and behold.......the "good" is what comes out of me......

And the pictures? Stay tuned, they will be coming.........I think I need the Geek Squad for this one.

Lets Go AMS!!

I love hockey....and not just any hockey.......Tri City Amercians hockey. I do have to credit this love of the game to our good friends, Robb and Maribeth Myers, who so graciously gifted us with tickets these last 5 years! Sharing the game with them and the Woods family is so much fun and I look forward to each and every game.

I do have to say that I am quite the crazy fan......yes, I am. I cheer and encourage "our boys" quite loudly, and yes, I yell at the refs. Mitch has to frequently remind me to not call them idiots and to not ask if they want to borrow my glasses cuz they are so blind!!!

While Mitch and I were on vacation, we had the opportunity of seeing the Ams play in Round 1 against the Bruins, at the Chilliwack arena. For vacation we had planned to drive to Canada and we just happened to be up there and in the area of Chilliwack for one of the games.......how cool is that? The Ams won that game in over-time too. I had taken a bunch of photos of the game, but I accidently deleted them (and most of our trip's photos) from my camera.

Well, the Ams did it again.......they won in overtime, and defeated the Kelowna Rockets (the WHL Defending Champions no less) in Round two of the play-offs!! The Ams were down 3 to 0 until the third period of play when we scored 3 and tied the game!! The Ams scored the game winning goal within the first 5 minutes of over-time play. I bet the house was rockin'!!!

We missed seeing the game in person......we go to Spokane once a month to visit the family and we knew that we were going to miss Friday night's game (I hope they all know just how much we love them, since we miss out on going to the games on those weekends!). So, I should have been in Spokane this Friday visiting with my family, but I got real sick and stayed home, while Mitch went up to Spokane without me.

I tried to follow the game on-line, but didn't know how to, and so I missed it!! It wasn't until the 11 o'clock news that I heard the final score, and even though I was sick, I yelled like a mad woman.....well, it was more like a hoarse squeek, but my heart was yelling for sure!!

Round 3 here we come!! We won't know until tonight who we will be playing, but watch out......here we come!!

Here is what one of our players, Johnny Lazo (Johnny scored the game-tying goal), was quoted as saying (in the local newspaper), "I was just banging away, luckily it just found its way into the net. This place was amazing. The fans erupted after I scored and after Reddick's (game winning) goal. Our fans are amazing."

And, if I do say so myself, we ARE!!