iPod Survey

Amanda and I got to talking today about what kind of iPod we would get if we could get any we wanted. I think I would want a pink (or any other color) Nano. Oh, and it would need to be one with a camera on it. :) An iPod Touch would be nice in some ways but I really think I would prefer the other. So what about you? Which one would you choose and why?

Florida Vacation

OK, here we go. I finally got the pictures from my trip yesterday, and got them uploaded tonight. I didn't think there were that many until I started uploading them. I left out a bunch!

This was a few days into our trip. It was the first time Jim remembered to bring the camera along. :) We were walking in the woods because we were so sun burnt we decided to stay out of the sun for a day. We walked some trails in the woods on base. It was very beautiful. I was talking to Beckisue when he snapped the picture.
One of my favorite places down there was the "Gazebo Tower" (what I called it anyway). It was just that - a very tall gazebo at the end of a boardwalk. It over looked a swampy area and the in the distance you could see the gulf. There are several pictures from there throughout this post. This was our first visit there.

Jim and me in the gazebo tower

And the three of us!

Can you tell the roof was lattice? :)

On Saturday we had decided not to go to the beach. Jim and Marge said there were too many people there on Saturday. The beach was the private base beach but weekends were still full. We went shopping all morning. In the afternoon we decided that since there were a storm blowing in there wouldn't be many people on the beach. We were right. There weren't people on the beach for good reason. The wind was horrible! Marge staid on a bench on the boardwalk and Jim and I walked the beach. We decided to walk 2o minutes and then turn around. Just one little problem - we didn't think about the fact that we started out with the wind to our backs! When we turned around the wind was so strong we had to lean into it. We couldn't talk to each other because we couldn't hear anything. The sand was blowing so hard it was stinging our legs. The crashing waves were amazing though. The 20 minutes out made it totally worth it (I think). :)

Marge and I when the sun returned.

A pause on the very long boardwalk on the way back from the beach.

Sorry this one is sideways. I rotated it in iPhoto and then accidentally uploaded the wrong one. I am not about to start over again. There is a silly story behind this picture. Beckisue loves to walk on railings. It freaks Jim out. He just worries she is going to fall. So they tease each other back and forth about it. One day he decided he would stand on the railing and get a picture just to tease her. So he did... I left out the picture of me on the rail. :)

One of our little lizard friends. Jim and Marge said they thought it was a gecko.

One of my favorite things on the whole trip was the evening we watched the sunset from the gazebo tower. It was gorgeous. I took up my violin to play while we were there. When I pulled it out and was looking at the beauty the first song that came to mind was "How Great Thou Art." I couldn't help but play it. The sunset was absolutely beautiful. I could never describe it and the pictures cannot show it's beauty.

Jim taking a picture of me watching the sunset when I didn't know it. (in my "adorable green jacket")

The water - just in case anyone was wondering.

This would be me - being me.

I fixed supper in our apartment one night. A very simple meal but it was fun. We went out most of the time.

Jim and I came in from a walk one night and he pulled out the camera while I was sitting on the arm of the chair. So...

...I took the camera and took one of him! :)

This would be what I look like when I have been swimming in the waves.

This was at the Thai restaurant. We ate Japanese, Mexican, Thai, and Chinese on this trip. :)

Sail boats way out in the distances.

So that is the end of the pictures. Hope you enjoyed and didn't get too bored. :)

Rambling thoughts of the day

This is going to be a quick post. A tweet just won't cut it and I don't want to have a million of them running on. So....
We didn't know where to go to church today. We found one Baptist church close by and an other not much further down the road that was an IFB. I didn't know up from down with them. We just randomly picked. We actually drove by both this morning since we had two hours after breakfast and before service.
We choose one, sit out side for half an hour waiting for time to go in. We knew it was a VERY small church by the amount of cars. What we didn't know was that it was a black church. :) Let's just say their song service was a little different than I am used to. All in all the service was fine. Nothing great but we could have ended up in a much worse church. The pastor was on vacation so one of the men in the church was preaching.

While I am posting I might as well go ahead and tell about this evening. After supper we decided to back out to the tower/gazebo over looking the water and watch the sunset. It doesn't just over look the gulf, but also several inlets and swamps. It was amazingly beautiful! Jim and Marge asked me to take my violin up with me like I did last time. When I pulled it out of the case the first song that came to mind was How Great Thou Art. It just seemed fitting. The beauty was spectacular. I could never begin to describe it even if I was good at painting pictures with words. Jim took some pictures but they don't do it justice either. Jim doesn't have a card reader so I can't load any of the pictures. When I get home I just might post some of them. (I am terrible about posting pictures!)

So that is a very rambling post. But! It is a post after all. :P

A quick (or not so quick) over view of my day.

Just going to write a quick post like I would write an email at the end of a day to a friend. So just pretend you are the lucky recipient! :)

Today was Monica's birthday. She asked me to work with her this morning so she wouldn't have to work so long on her birthday. I agreed, of course. We cleaned a house that I have helped her clean several times before. The owners have a little baby and he and his mom were still there when we got there. That meant I got to play with him a little before they left and we started cleaning. (Smile!) He is the same age as my niece Keira. At first he would smile and cry at the same time when ever I would look at him but he cheered up really fast.

Monica kept asking what we should do for her birthday. No one could think of anything. We were going to bike a new bike trail but there were supposed to be wind gusts up to 40 mph today so we thought that might not be the best of ideas. Plan B. I decided we should go bowling.

When we got done cleaning Monica and I went into town to get the ingredients for her birthday pie. We got them all and looked at our cart. We about croaked at the amount of sugar in there! Fudge ice cream topping, chocolate pudding, coffee ice cream, graham cracker crust... you get the picture. Yowsers!

We had the "birthday dinner" at lunch since it was the only time everyone could be together. We had rotisserie chickens, corn, and salad.

We went into town and discovered the bowling alley was closed. What was that I said about Plan B? Now we are on Plan C! We talked about going home and just playing games and then Beckisue thought of going to Jim and Marge's to play horseshoes and other stuff. They let us of course. :) It was a perfect day. We stayed outside the whole time. Steph took some pictures. Maybe, just maybe, I will post some of them.

This evening we went to the Pettit's meeting again. Again I was mesmerized by the bowing arm of the violinist. It was absolutely amazing! All the music was beautiful!!

Steve Pettit preached on John 3:16. It was absolutely amazing yet again. I couldn't begin to describe it. I will just say it was unlike anything I have ever heard on that verse.

After the service I got to play my violin with the violinist from the team and the girl that I teach. It was lots of fun. I thought there were going to be more people but it ended up just being the three of us. The violinist has a twin sister who plays the cello. Both of them are incredible. My mom and sisters talked to the cellist while we were playing and then we all talked for a while. It was lots of fun. They were so sweet and bubbly!

We came home and had Monica's birthday pie and gave gifts. The pie was pretty yummy. It should have been with all that stuff in it! At least it better have been!

So that was my day. How was yours? ;)

Good night. Sweet dreams.

Steve Pettit Team

A church in town is having special meetings this week with the Steve Pettit Evangelistic Team.  We just found out about it last night so we went in tonight. I am so glad we were able to. I got there about fifteen minutes late because mom had to be at the jail for the ladies' Bible study and I had to pick her up.

We missed several songs (Beckisue said we missed the best) but what we heard was fabulous. I LOVE to watch a *good* violinist play. It is so beautiful! I don't think there is an other instrument that is prettier to watch when it is played well. The cellist played beautifully and gracefully, too! :)

And for the sermon: I think if I had a top ten list of preachers, Steve Pettit would be on it! He is phenomenal.

The  sermon was from 1 John and dealt with confession of sin. I had never heard a sermon like that.  

So, aside from the IFB church gimmicks (that I absolutely HATE) the evening was wonderful. Hopefully we will get to go back almost every night this week.  We have two funerals to go to on Wednesday so I know we won't that night. TWO funerals in the same day. That is something I have never done before. Thankfully they are at two different times so we can attend both.

He's Back!

Last year I wrote a post about a stupid bird that bangs on our window constantly. With the return of spring the banging has begun. For about five days now the bird has constantly been banging. It starts at dawn (which is obnoxious because it wakes me up every morning) and goes until dark. You would have thought that this bird would have killed itself by now - but no. It just keeps going. About to drive us all out of our minds! Dad wants to shoot it. I am afraid someone will shoot out the window if they try.... I guess someone will either get rid of it will go away. Hopefully we all still have our sanity.

SGI Conference sermons

Jonathan and I went to Detroit in January to the SGI conference. It was fabulous as I have said before! Today I got an email with the link to all the sermons and workshops from the conference. Yay! I have been waiting for that. I thought I would share with all of you. There were some excellent sermons! My favorite was the one I posted about in January. Session 6: “Our Shepherd” by Matt Hoskinson. So I would suggest that one first. After that would be "The Centrality of the Cross" also by Matt Hoskinson and "The Call to Stand" by Tim Jordan.

So.... here's the link.