Happy 25th Lindsey!!!

25 years ago today our lives were changed – Lindsey was born.  Was she a trick or a treat?

After 24+ hours of labor, Lindsey was born and immediately whisked away. I never got to see her.  Within 30 minutes I was signing all kinds of papers for tests for them to find out why she was having breathing difficulties, among other things.  It was all happening so fast and was just a blur.  She was transferred to St. Francis Hospital in Peoria, IL.  She spent the next 10 days in neonatal intensive care.  When she finally got to come home she was in and out of the hospital every 6-8 weeks until she was about 18 months old.  The funny thing is, once we moved to North Carolina she no longer had breathing issues and hasn’t been back in the hospital since.  Allergies remained, but she has survived and thrived…even is she is a skinny as a stick and has no body fat (I have often offered to give her some…).  We are SO proud of her and what God has done in and through her.  Happy Birthday, Linds!  You are a TREAT….

Long, but productive week.

This has been a busy week, but I finally feel much better. I didn’t realize how bad I had felt for a few weeks until I started feeling better.  When you get two loads of laundry done before you head to work, you know you are feeling better =p.  Today was a 6 hour One Voice retreat. My drama cast just amaze me.  They are off lines! We went through the entire drama with music filled in where it goes before lunch today! I am so proud of them!  My youngest cast members were spent by about 2 PM.  I needed to take care of some paperwork for the group, so the adults kept them going by having them do each scene using a different voice (whisper, robot, etc.).  There were a lot of giggles, but they were able to continue lines and blocking…so thank you SO much Chris and Carrie.

John stayed in Meredith for their Mission Banquet to hear our friend, Sean Donnelly, speak. I came home, cleaned, mopped, did laundry, got music ready for worship tomorrow and worked on some One Voice stuff.  It feels good to have SO much done!

I hope you had a great Saturday!

Two Cute Couples ;oP

I found this picture of Hil and Andrew taken last weekend. It is very similar to a picture on our refrigerator of me and John taken at Nubble Lighthouse in 2004.  I thought I’d put them together…

John and I appear to be incognito…

Pictures and More Pictures…

Hilary and Andrew were in Ogunquit and York, Maine over the weekend taking each others Senior pictures for the College yearbook. Here are some of my favorites…and yes, there are more of Hilary, after all, she is my daughter…

I think they did a nice job.

True friendship is a rare thing.

After church yesterday, John headed to New Durham to go fishing with his best friend, Mark. They met in college and have been connected ever since; even when we have lived hundreds of miles apart. They have 7 beautiful children who we love dearly.  We are Aunt Joy and Uncle John…except when Mattie calls us the “alligators” (long story) and Hilary is “celery alligator:.  I had to run a few errands, so showed up at Camp Maranatha around 4:30 pm.  I could hear laughter on Little Merrymeeting Lake and knew it was them. I expected to find them in a rowboat, but instead I saw this…

(Sorry photo taken with my phone)…Not only were they in a peddleboat close to shore – the steering wasn’t working on it so they were just going sideways. We enjoyed supper and a visit with the family and then headed home. Good friends are hard to find; we have been blessed with Mark, Denise and kids.

A lovely day…

Hilary and Andrew came home last night. It was nice to have them around. I had a ladies prayer breakfast at the church this morning and then we all headed to the Sandwich Fair. For those of you not from NH, it is not a Fair of Sandwiches, it is in the beautiful town of Sandwich. I love this fair because it reminds me of an old fashioned country fair.  We enjoyed watching the horse pulling, saw my favorite alpacas, even watched a few horses shows…Melodie-are you proud of me? It reminded me of going with Uncle Hal and Aunt Rachel to horse shows and sitting with Beth and Mandy and shouting “there’s your horse, judge” when Kay and Chip were showing.  We went into the really cool Gothic Arch houses, saw many friends and loved on a couple of the cutest baby boys (thanks to Chris and Kim for Caleb, and Nate and Erin for Aiden). Hilary and Andrew bought knives…a little scary. Actually Hilary got a Swiss Army knife and I’m not sure what kind Andrew’s is, but it is too big for a pocketknife. John and Andrew always try new “critter” foods. This year John tried the buffalo sausage and said it was very good. Andrew had an ostrich cheese burger. He said the cheese overpowered the taste of the meat, but that it was good. I had my once a year lobster roll (eat your heart out Mom) and Hilary had…….a hot dog (she is so creative in her food choices…). We shared onion rings and fried dough – such healthy delights. Hilary and Andrew went on the ferriswheel. After about 4 hours there we gave up and headed home taking the long way to see the gorgeous foliage in Wonalancet.

It was a lovely day!

It was a lovely “explore”. Warning: Long post with lots of photos.

For a few weeks we have been trying to get away for the day. Rain, John working 2 jobs (and preaching keeps us from getting away on the weekend) hadn’t made a getaway possible. I took today off and we left at 7 AM for Lake Willoughby, VT. Why Lake Willoughby? 2 years ago I bought a book called Scenic Backroads of New England. In it was a gorgeous picture of fjords and this lake in Vermont. Long before seeing the gorgeous fjords in Alaska I wanted to go see this place.  We head across the Kancamagus Highway to Lincoln, NH where we had an amazing breakfast at Flapjack’s. We’ll definitely go back there; John had strawberry/raspberry flapjacks and I had the “hungry cub” which had a delicious flapjack with maple cream and maple syrup, an egg, bacon and homefries.  The menu also offered things like “fluffernutter” and “Reese’s peanut butter” flapjacks.

From Lincoln we head north to Vermont.  Our first destination was Burke Mountain.  The drive was beautiful and we climbed to 3,267 feet at the top. The problem was we literally had our heads in the clouds. We couldn’t see anything.  We had Pippin with us, so we walked him a bit (even though it was 40 degrees!) Maybe someday we’ll go back and it will be clear. We stopped at Bailey & Burke’s Country Store and got some coffee and maple pecan biscotti and also checked out things at the Northeast Kingdom Trails office (mainly for biking). From Burke we headed to Crystal Lake; the scenery was lovely. It reminded us of the drive from Mapleton to Portage Lake. It was beautiful.  We discovered that the maps we had of the area were fine, but Vermont has a LARGE shortage of road signs…we missed several turns and one of them led us to Derby Center and also Seymour Lake where we had to turn around and head to Lake Willoughby I took pictures at the north and south end of the lake. The south end is the view I saw in the photo.  It was windy and cold!! Then we went to Island Pond and Brighton State Park – there was not a lot there.

We then headed southeast back into NH and meandered through various routes until we came to Lancaster. Once on Route 302 we found a trailhead and took a short 1 mile hike to a waterfalls. Pippin loves hiking. John went back to the car for something and Pippin and I forged on. When we got to the falls I went down closer. Pippin found a stinky mudhole. I took him down closer to the water to get some of the mud off; the problem was he slipped on the wet rocks. He had planned to go in; however, the next thing I knew he was completely under water at the base of the waterfall!!! He came up, turned around and looked at me like “what just happened?” He tried to climb out of the cold water, but the first rock was 18″ up – he got his front paws on, but couldn’t get his back legs. I was able to carefully (I didn’t want to fall in too) move him to another spot where he could climb out.  Poor baby – he just kept leaning into and rubbing up against me when he got out. We continued to wander on the rocks, but he didn’t get too close to the water anymore. Back in the car Pip slept and we headed to Conway where we enjoyed supper at Moat Mountain. We made a few stops in shops and were back home by 8 PM.  It was a great day – we just enjoyed being together.  John is already asleep (on the couch – surprise, surprise). Here are some pictures of our wonderful day!

Near Canon Mountain, NH

Through the cloudy drive.

Taken through the windshield…

Crystal Lake

Seymour Lake – this is one of my favorite photos.

North end of Lake Willoughby

South end of Lake Willoughby

Waterfall near Lancaster, NH. We were on the rocks on the left when Pippin fell in.

On Golden Pond…

It’s been a busy week, but a great one. The One Voice retreat yesterday was amazing. The music is coming together, the choreographer was there AND my drama group was able to present Scenes 1-3 OFF LINES!!! They have only had the script for less than 3 weeks!!! I was SO proud of all of them.

We had a good day at church. God has brought a few new famiies in and they are such a blessing. We went from one children’s Sunday School class with 3-5 kids to TWO with 4 kids in one and SIX in another.  When we started the first children’s class my friend Jenna said, “There may only be a few now, but when you pray for rain, you’d better carry an umbrella.” God is showering us with kids again.

We were supposed to go with 2 other Pastors/wives for a motorcycle ride this afternoon; however, John’s bike was in the shop for minor repairs.  The shop had the bike apart so they could pop the pieces in and we could have it for today; however, the wrong parts came in. They offered to put it back together so we could ride, but John told them not to worry about it.  As our friend, Steve, said, “I guess you weren’t supposed to ride today.” We went by truck instead. I am sure some of you will not remember the Henry Fonda/Katherine Hepburn/Jane Fonda movie, “On Golden Pond”.  I remember watching it and (besides hating all the swearing) being in tears as Henry Fonda got lost in the woods he had known for years. This was long before Alzheimer’s was talked about much.  Walter was the BIG, legendary fish of “Golden Pond”.  The movie was filmed on beautiful Squam Lake in Holderness, NH. The 6 of us enjoyed a delicious meal and relaxing time at Walter’s Basin on Squam Lake.  We had a beautiful view of the lake.  I really like the Veggie Quesadilla there.  After lunch they headed back to their homes in Alton and Loudon, NH. Thanks for a great visit Steve, Cindy, Bryce and Barb. We’ve got to get together again soon!

Katie has learned to Swing Dance while at Eastern U. This year she is secretary of Ethel’s Swing Dance Club. Here is a picture of her in action and I thought the quote fits it perfectly! Have a great night.

Wordart compliments of MMDC

Jehovan Jireh – Our Provider…

A quick John update – he saw the Doctor Monday AM – got prednisone and some type of cream. He is feeling MUCH better. One Voice rehearsal Monday went well and God is putting all the pieces together just the way HE wants. I am amazed at how far along we are with the drama. Last year we didn’t even have the final script until 11/1!! This year we will be off lines for the first 3 scenes by Saturday!!! God is good. ALSO, God has provided a choreographer for us. Dona Lynn and I are SO excited! We had a 5 hour meeting yesterday and Erica was able to join us for part of that time. She is excited about doing the show – we are MORE excited and are trusting/believing that God has a plan for ALL of this. HE is our great provider!

I saw this wordart today and thought it was great – I will leave you with this thought…

Wordart compliments of Melanie’s Digital Creations