A Superb Evening!

Back on January 1st (when we visited Alabama), we spent the day with one set of friends and then headed over to see our friends, the Pace family that evening.

We enjoyed a game of crazy way skip-bo. The rules of which are crazy indeed. My sister and I made it up way back when I was 10 or 12. Being able to exchange skip-bos, pick the number that matches your pile and discard all your cards each turn makes the game a lot of fun.

She's not sure if she should show off her octopus. . .

While her brother is glad to do so!

After the younger children went upstairs, us "older kids" had a wonderful dinner together. We enjoyed ourselves with some great conversation.

I have been so blessed to have a great friendship with this family over the years. They were so gracious to share their anniversary evening with us. We had a wonderful time together!

(This picture is just for fun - I guess you can tell which ones are the engineers who aren't any good at looking at the camera before we're told to smile!)

Our first Christmas and New Years together as a married couple was spent with many friends and family members. We definitely had a great time with everyone we had a chance to see!

Unexpected Guests!

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, I received a most welcome call from my friend Ivory letting me know that they were driving through this area later that day! What wonderful news! We had before us a lazy Saturday without much planned so we were very glad to hear they would come for the night!

As I did a little cooking that afternoon, John put together our new ping pong table so we could break it in with Chris and Ivory.

The table fit perfectly in our basement and we enjoyed some friendly competition!

"The ball was on his side"

Having guests is a joy!

Weekend Guests

From 2008-11-Weekend Guests

Since we are now in a larger apartment, we decided that it was past time for us to invite some people over. So, this past Friday we had a houseful of guests!

We invited a great family with 8 kids over. They were very gracious and played with the few toys we had.


I think they considered our piano to be the very best toy!

Of course John enjoyed taking pictures.

We played the name game which was a big hit!

Overall the evening was a success. We successfully made enough food and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.




As the house was already clean, we had some other church friends over for a Sunday lunch of spaghetti.


Dan and Barb have a cute little baby girl whom we all enjoyed holding.




After lunch we had time to talk a while. It was so nice to spend time with our friends in our new apartment!

Ohio Friends!

Last week we were able to spend the evening with some of our Ohio friends.
We enjoyed dinner and a desert pizza. Taylyn couldn't believe how many pictures John was taking!


The men enjoyed the desert too!


Four Generations of family were there that night!


Taylyn and I helped out with dishes after the meal.



Taylyn's grandma Joyce was busy in the kitchen. She had invited us over so I could learn how they can pears.

Most of the work had already been done that day. She canned about a dozen jars of pear pie in a jar! The canning process doesn't seem very hard - it's the preparing of the fruit that takes a lot of time.
Relaxing after a long day!

We enjoyed the evening with our friends who feel like our family in Ohio!

Shower of Blessing!

Trisha threw a wonderful shower for me at her home on Saturday! I'm so thankful to her for
taking the time to make this a very special and fun time. I had a blast. I'm also thankful for her family for making this a wonderful time! Thanks also go to many who helped with the food and other countless details.

I was amazed at the number of people who took the time to make this a very special occasion. Friends from work, church and our camping group showed up in numbers that I didn't expect. I have been bountifully blessed with so many friends!

We enjoyed a great brunch and then had some fun with a "How well do you know John and Miriam" game that Trisha made up. I was a bit worried that even I wouldn't get all the questions right since my early memories are fuzzy and since I'm sure I don't know everything about John! Thankfully, I held on to my "honor" and got all the answers right. Lori was the winner, getting more questions right than any one else (excluding family members).

The ladies also made a special gift for John. Many filled out notecards filled with information on "How to take care of Miriam." These were put into a book for John's current and future reference. We both enjoyed reading all the suggestions which ranged from the humorous (like "don't buy half the fat stuff" from Jubilee or "Let Miriam run the mouse" from Rob) to the more serious.



I don't have time right now to write more about all the wonderful gifts that we received. They will be perfect for us as we set up for our new life together. I will be very prepared to make some great meals for John! Since a picture is worth innumerable words, enjoy the pictures!

Thanksgiving Pictures

Thanksgiving has been a lot of fun! Luke's family has been here for a week, and the kids have added a lot of excitement and smiles to our time together. The Pace's came over on Thanksgiving day and their children played together well with Luke and Michele's. I think the kid's ages are as followes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 11, 12 (if you count Jubilee as a child!). You would think with all those kids, the adults wouldn't have much fun. But we enjoyed time to play several games and talk together. The food was wonderful! Anna, Mom, Michele, Lydia, Jubilee and Trisha (and her girls) did a great job. Everything tasted great and there was an abundance!

Chuck E. Cheese Fun!

To celebrate Lucas's 5th Birthday tonight (and in fact all of his family's birthdays), we went to Chuck E. Cheese. Everyone had a lot of fun as you can see below. Going on a week night was perfect! The kids had a blast and so did the adults. We had fun just watching everyone enjoy themselves.

New Blog! Kevin's Shadowlands

Check out the Kevin's blog called Shadowlands! I met Kevin and Candi and their family through our church years ago. I think they've been at Fountain of Grace as long as I have. In the last 5 years of teaching sparks, I've thoroughly enjoyed teaching their three oldest children. I've had fun with the whole family on countless camping trips and games nights! Lydia, Anna and I have had enjoyed babysitting their kids many times, and Jubilee and Rachael an inseparable when together. One cool thing about their family is that they love to have fun and take crazy pictures. I don't know too many families who each have their own "funny face" they tend to make for cameras! As a family, they enjoy each other and are real about following God. Kevin may not have time to blog a lot, but I for one will enjoy reading whatever he has time to write!

(Note, you should be able to see the picture better by clicking on it to open it in another window)

Friday Camping Countdown - 3 weeks!

I'm from a camping family. We have gone camping since before I can remember. I guess the camping tradition begin when my parents got married. Actually, it really started many years before that with my Dad's family. We have pictures of Dad camping with his family in Africa. They played games and had fun as we do today.

Thinking about our upcoming camping trip inspired me to take a look at some of the pictures from past camping trips. I've chosen some pictures - somewhat at random that show many different aspects of camping over the last few years. Instead of using all of them in one post, I've made them into 8 collages and will post 2 collages each Friday from now until our October 19th camping trip.

Before moving to Alabama, we always went camping as a family. I know we went to Mount Nebo in Arkansas at least once, and I'm sure we camped at several other places as well. We would spend time as a family hiking and playing games. Camping was always something I looked forward too.

Some things have changed. . . Our camping trips these days typically involve more than just our family. The many people make it so much fun. Many of our camping friends are busy in other towns, churches, and circles throughout the year. But camping brings us together each spring and/or fall. With 50 or more friends, it's usually not hard to find someone or even a group that wants to play a game or hike together. Its fun to see the children getting older and better at volley ball or the card game of the day. Yes, we still play games, but the games now include things like volley ball, kick ball, and ultimate frisbee. Those games are only possibly when camping with friends! I still look forward to the weekend of camping and can't wait for this fall camping trip to be here!

Six Flags Over Georgia!

On Saturday, Jubilee and I enjoyed an awesome day at Six Flags Over Georgia! We met Kevin and Rachael there as planned, and spent most of the day on the rides. We begin and ended the by riding the Goliath. This ride was once again my favorite. We actually rode it four times! The first two times we barely had to wait in line. The last time, we thought we might not get to ride (there was a problem and after that seemed to be repaired, they let other people go in front of us). But the last time was definitely worth the wait as we finally rode in the front and thoroughly enjoyed those steep hills in the cool dark park! It was an absolute blast!

In addition to Goliath, we also rode Superman (seemed short by comparison), Batman (always a nice ride since your feet can swing), Deja Vu (still scares me!), Mindbender (a fun older ride), and Georgia Scorcher (way too short). None of us cared to waste time on the Scream Machine, Ninja or Georgia Cyclone since those rides are quite rough.

We did spend some time in line, but the time flew by with conversation, picture taking and playing more than a couple games of go fish and one game of scratch. Indeed! We actually brought and used cards while in line. Yelling, "Jubilee, do you have a 9?" in the deafening snaking line for batman was certainly a different kind of card playing experience!

Jubilee and Rachael especially enjoyed the water rides. We all rode Thunder River once. I had already decided that if I made it of the boat without getting thouroughly soaked, I would not ride again. The last time I tried to make it through that ride twice, I was drenched the second time I went. I didn't get too wet the first time, so I found a good spot to take pictures as Jubille and Racheal rode over and over trying to get more soaked than the other! As they were both completely drenched, I think they tied!

Later we also rode Splash Water Falls, and were disappointed when we stood on the bridge afterward to get splashed, and the water didn't even touch us! They must not have had quite enough water in there! Overall the day was just about perfect! I wanted to write more, but think that getting to sleep would be even better!

New Blog - HITZ and Mrs!

Check out HITZ and Mrs a brand new blog that one of my best friends began today! If you read comments on this site, you'll recognize Ivory's name. She's been talking about starting a blog for a while, but was having trouble thinking up a name. After talking with Ivory on Saturday, I sent her some blog name ideas I had thought up and today she started the blog! I'm so looking forward to being able to read her posts in the time to come!

I met Ivory in our very first engineering class (from what I remember). . . . [Pauses to rummage through old journals in order to better share how we met] . . . .

Thursday September 10th, 1998: "I made it through my first day of classes. I only have two on Thursdays so it's not a big accomplishment. There is one other girl in my engineering orientation class! I was anxious because I thought I'd be the only one. I should have remembered Phil 4:6-7 . . . ."

Friday September 11th: ". . I know I shouldn't worry. I'm praying that God will give me some good friend because on a campus of 4200 there's got to be a good friend for me. But if there isn't, I'm willing to accept that too"

Saturday September 25th: "College has been going well. I've met a couple really nice girls. Last night I bought Dutch Blitz and Tamra and Ivory and I played for about an hour. . . "

Thursday October 15th: ". . . A couple days ago I had joy. I was so happy! Now, I feel down in the dumps. I know there are highs and lows in everyone's life, but we are supposed to rejoice - always. I don't know how to. I feel so alone here. Everyone I see always is with a best friend. I need to get close to God. But you can't sit at a lunch table with God and have a good conversation, or can you?"

Friday October 16th: "It's funny how quickly emotions change when I spend time with a friend. after band today I went to Ivory's room and we had supper together. After supper we sat outside for a while and then went to the library. There are some really good videos there. We decided that we should go and watch one sometime"

Saturday November 16th: "Thank you Lord for my wonderful friends here at college. God has met my needs and desires (Ps 37:4) more than I could have even imagined. . ."


Sunday January 24, 1999: "I arrived here around 2pm. Now that I'm back at college, it seems like I never left. This afternoon I talked, went to church and ate with Tamra, Ivory and Gema. I really enjoyed spending time with them. . ."

Monday January 25th: ". . . I'll be taking all of my classes except Old Testament with Ivory. . ."

And so our friendship begin. We met as you read in my journal excerpts in our very first class. Ivory probably didn't realize how happy I was to see her in that class (or maybe she felt the same way?)! By the second semester, we were pretty much inseparable. From that point on, we were in almost every class together and spent quality time studying and doing homework in each others rooms. Some thought we must be sisters since we spent so much time together. The pictures are a sample of the many fun times we shared from throughout our four years. Our friendship was one of the best parts of college!

Welcome to the blog world Ivory!