Cake Server

I frequently check out the web site http://www.frugalcouponliving.com, it just so happened that when I looked there today I found another site that is offering this cake pie server for free. All you have to do is go to their site http://www.edendreamssalon.com (this is a tea salon and dessert parlor located in Philadelphia, PA) click on promo and it will take you to the page that has the information for the free cake pie server. You fill in the information it asks for and click submit, then you should have your server in 3 to 4 weeks. I just filled this out myself and am looking forward to getting my server. I know all of you who like to bake and serve up some of those delicious desserts would love to get your hands on one of these.

A Day with the Girls

Several weeks ago as we were coming back from summer camp, we drove through High Springs. As we were passing through, the girls in our youth group said they would like to go back and check out some of the little shops there. I told them that I would like to do that, and so we mad the plans to go back to High Springs. We met this morning, and in my moms van we traveled to High Springs to have a girls day. Let me just say that I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent with them. We walked around and browsed through some of the quaint little shops there. After a while we were starting to feel a little hungry, so we went into the Great Outdoors Restaurant. The food was great, they were a little pricey, but all in all it was a good lunch. These girls sure do know how to have a good time. I was able to get to know them better and even had the opportunity to have them open up to me about different things. Am I looking to be "best friends" with them? No, I want them to feel comfortable enough with me to be able to open up to me and feel like they have someone to talk to who can be there to listen and if need be give council according to the word of God. I feel like I have truly made a connection with these girls and look forward to spending more time with them and having some more of these "Girls Day Out" together. I thank God for blessing our little Church with these young ladies.

Lovin' The Water

Okay, so if you've read my sisters blog, you already know that we went to Crystal River to the condo for a day of swimming in the pool and just hanging out with the family. Crystal wanted to do something fun for her last official day off from work, she called me yesterday and asked if there was any way that we could go down to the condo today. We left the house this morning with some pretty nasty looking clouds looming over us. As we were driving to Crystal River I kept looking at the sky wondering if we were going to get any sunshine for our day at the pool. When we got to the pool, it was still cloudy, (the clouds were coming in off of the gulf, but the winds were pushing them right on past us) but Mr. Sun was trying to peak out for us. He finally decided to show his bright face for us and we were able to have some fun in the pool.

My two little nephews, Waylon and Wyatt had such a good time swimming and splashing around. When we first got to the pool Kaelyn told Waylon that he would have to take his boots off before getting into the pool. As I was opening the gate leading into the pool, I look down to find Waylons boots sitting there and him in his socked feet and swimsuit, too cute. Both of the boys were eager to get into that water and start doing some heavy duty splashing on us. Wyatt just loved that water so much, that he didn't want anyone to hold on to him. He wanted to do it himself. Wyatt realized that he could stand up on the ledge of the pool and jump in. At first he wanted to jump to us, then he would sit on the ledge and make the most pitiful face you had ever seen until we moved out of his way so he could jump in by himself. Mr. Independent didn't need help from any of us and he wasn't shy about letting us know that. Waylon on the other hand was more cautious of what he was doing. Waylon did jump in if we were there to catch him, and he even decided he could float around without any help too. Boy what a big improvement from the last time we took them swimming. My little guys are doing so well and trying so many new things.

Mr. Independent

Tyler and Kaelyn had a good time with their cousins today too. They did a great job with playing with Waylon and Wyatt. My kids love the water and always find ways to amuse themselves while in the pool. Today, Tyler was pretending to be a boat while Kaelyn was his passenger. My kiddos have great imaginations and can pretty much have fun any where they are.

Titus Women

While at summer camp, I bought a couple of purses that they had on display through Titus Women, which is a ministry of Crosspoint of India. These purses are very unique. Each one was handmade by Christian women in India. The money that they receive for these purses helps support church planting in India. For more information on this ministry you can go to http://www.crosspointofindia.org/.

Happy Anniversary

July 1, 1995

July 1, marked mine & Chuck's 14th anniversary. I would have to say that this had to be one of the most memorable anniversaries that we have had. Our anniversary happened to be the same time that we were at summer camp with the youth of our Church. On Wednesday, (July 1) our day started out with meeting at the cafeteria on the campus of Gardner-Webb University at 7:30 a.m. for breakfast. After going through the line we found a table to sit at, it was then that Chuck gave me a sheet of notebook paper folded in half, with the words "I Love You!" and a flower drawn on the front. When I opened it up, I saw that he had written the sweetest message to me. After breakfast we headed back to our dorms to get ready for the morning worship service. After the worship service and our workshops it was time for lunch. We got a lot of Happy Anniversary wishes from our youth and several of the camp staff. We had signed up for swing dance lessons at 1:00, so we met in the Ritch Banquet Hall to learn how to swing dance. There were quite a few people in there to learn with us. We had three of the girls from our youth group join us (Jesse, Sunny and Jamie). We each had a partner(Chuck and I of course), then after learning some basic steps, the unthinkable happened, you guessed it we had to rotate partners. I was so disappointed, I wanted to learn to dance with my husband, instead I ended up dancing with several middle school boys (who informed me that I was doing it wrong, :( like they even knew how to dance!) I did get to dance with one of the staff members (Greg), he was the dorm point person for Chuck's dorm. Anyway, Greg knew what he was doing and was able to help me out. So when time was up for the dance instruction, I went back across the room to my husband. We were able to hang around and dance together along with others that hung back to continue to dance. After the dancing, Chuck and Tyler had some activities that they wanted to do, so I went and hung out with the girls. I started getting ready for dinner, (our time to be in the cafeteria for dinner was 5:00p.m.) my cell phone rings at 4:15 and it is Chuck, he asks me, "Do you want to go out to eat for our anniversary?" I wanted to scream YES!, but didn't. I did tell yes I would like to go. He took me to Georgios, a Mediterranean Italian Cuisine, which was just across the street from the campus. I got the Baked Ziti, which was very good and Chuck ordered the Veal Ala Georgios. It was so nice to have a quiet meal for just the two of us. When we were finished, we headed back over to the campus for our Youth Worker Workshop at 6:00. After the workshop we went over to the LYCC where the evening worship takes place. As we start to walk through the doors all the staff members made a human tunnel (which they had done all week), and yell out "Happy Anniversary!" , let me just say that I was shocked. I looked at Chuck and asked him, "Did you know they were going to do that?", his response to me was "No". I was so surprised by everything on this day.
So not only did my husband give me a card (that he made himself), and take me out to eat for dinner, I also got swing dance lessons and was able to dance with my "honey".
Thank you Chuck for making our 14th Anniversary a special one while away from home. I Love You!

Crossroads Worldwide Summer Camp

We made it back from Summer Camp last night around 9:00. It was so good to be home after a busy fun filled week at camp. We left last Sunday morning at 8:30 heading to Boiling Springs, NC to Crossroads Worldwide Summer Camp. We arrived at 6:30 p.m.Sunday evening. After getting checked in we went out to dinner and then headed to the our dorm room on the campus of Gardner-Webb. On Monday morning we went down to the Broad River and floated down the river. Never in my life have I seen such a beautiful river. There were rocks there that you could walk on and even some small rapids that pushed you a little quicker down the river. You could actually walk from one side of the river to the other, the water was fairly clear so that you could see where you were stepping. I do believe that if I lived in that area I would visit the Broad River as often a possible. After going down the river a couple of times and swimming around, we had a picnic lunch. Then back to camp to get ready for the evening service, which started the actual camp time.

Clayton King, (the camp founder) preached an amazing message Sunday night, his message was taken from Luke 15:11-32. The title to this message was "God is our Father." One thing that Clayton said that really stood out to me was that God is merciful, He takes you as you are. (1 John 1:9). We had an evening worship service every night with Clayton preaching each night with the exception of Thursday night and the message was given by Matt Orth. Matt talked about sincere and surface love, the glory of God versus the glory of man. One question that he asked us was "When you die, will you have testimonies or titles?". You were called to live for testimonies not titles.

Carl Cartee and his band led the music for our worship service. As usual Carl did an outstanding job. He writes his own music and is a very talented man.

On Tuesday my son Tyler played "earth ball" at the Quad. Earth ball is this really big ball that you push around to different people. Tyler had heard about this from other people who had been to camp in years past, and had looked forward to being able to play. This was Tyler's first year going to camp and he had a great time. He said he is ready to go back, (we've only been home for one day). There were so many activities for the students to do after the workshops. Some of the things that Tyler did (I didn't go with him to all of the activities, so I don't have pictures:{ ) climbing tower, outdoor adventure games, this was a survivor type obstacle course, Tyler and his dad went to this together and got very dirty. There was actually a mud pit that you had to crawl through on your belly (thanks guys for the muddy clothes). He also played some basketball and was in a dodge ball tournament with Nick, Lee and Sam (the other guys from our youth group that went to camp).

Tyler playing "Earth ball"

There were great workshops during the day on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. They had the workshops split up into two sections, one for High School and the other for Middle School. I went in with the High School on Tuesday and Wednesday. Our workshop on Tuesday was Ezra: "No Standing without Understanding." then on Wednesday we learned about Hannah: "Being Faithful when things aren't Fruitful". Thursday I went with the Middle School and learned about Timothy: "Going from ME to WE because of THEE". Matt Orth, taught the Ezra study, which was about how we will never be able to stand in our spiritual lives unless we truly grasp and understand the truths that come with our faith. Charie King (Clayton's wife) taught on Hannah and how she trusted God and kept her word, even when it was tough. We saw how her faith was tried by persecution. Then Brian Burgess did the study on Timothy. We looked in Philippians, where Paul gave a great testimony about Timothy, that because of Christ, Timothy now cares more about others than he does his own interests. Every workshop that I went to was excellent. This is a summer camp that gets in God's word and speaks the truth. I highly recommend this camp to all youth groups.

Something that they did different this year, was to separate the guys and girls for one of the evening services. Charie taught the session for the girls. I have to say that Charie is an excellent teacher, she is very passionate about God and teaching to others what she has learned through her study of God's word. I would like to share with you some of the notes that I took during this session. Charie talked about Redefining Love. She first talked about "No one loves me" she went to a passage in Ezekiel 16:4-14. God noticed you, picked you up and clothed you, fed you and gave you an identity. "Love is Hopeless", here she said that "Love becomes distorted when we define it apart from the creator and try to find it in the world around us." We were reminded that God loves us forever, Jeremiah 31:3 The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: "Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.

One more thing before I end this post. For all you coffee drinkers, there is this neat little coffee shop across the street from the Gardner-Webb campus that we visited a couple of times while we were there. It is the Broad River Coffee Company, they have some of the best coffee and they also have a pretty good strawberry smoothie.

Jamie, Robin, Kelby & Kristina

Sunny & Jesse