Church Camp

We did so much this past Summer. I only blogged on a few of things that we did. So much keeps happening that I seemed to have missed blogging about church camp.

Our church camp was the last full week of July. We enjoy renewing friendships each year as well as making new friends.

We arrived at camp on a Monday around 3:00 p.m.
We registered and paid our fee. At 4:00 p.m. we had a sponsors meeting. Scott, my husband was voted to fill in for the song leader who was absent this year due to health problems in the family. He did a really good job coming up with songs last minute.




I lost my voice during camp. It was just starting to leave me on Tuesday. I was able to teach and lead the children's choir. But by Wednesday my voice was gone completely. I really appreciated my brother helping me during the week. He taught my 2nd & 3rd grade class on Wednesday and helped me with the children's choir on Thursday. He was really a blessing!



The kids all had a lot of fun. Besides preaching and classes there was also recreation time. The kids played basketball, putt putt golf, swimming, and all sorts of fun activities.



The food in the cafeteria was good. I really liked the onion fried green beans.


If I had been feeling better I would have gotten in on more of the fun. I usually try to get more pictures as well.



There were 20 saved and 12 rededications.


I have gone to this same camp since I turned seven years old. I was saved on a Wednesday afternoon under the same pavilion that I taught from this year. I always enjoy giving my testimony to my class and pointing to the spot where I sat and repented of my sins when I was 10 years old. The Lord sure has been good to me with blessings beyond measure.

A New Body

We were having our Wednesday night Bible Study tonight at our home. We were learning about Gideon putting out the fleece. Somewhere in our discussion, Scott mentioned how that one day when we go to see Jesus that we'll have a new body.

Jonathan was intrigued by this. "Will I be a girl?" he asked.

"No, you will just have a new body. It won't feel any pain."

"Will I have brown skin, and have the sides of my head shaved?"

Okay, I'm sure you can guess which Rocky movie we watched last. Somehow Mr. T fascinated him. That was the kind of body he pictured himself having in heaven one day. The rest of the night he and Elijah went around making muscles and saying, "I pity a fool!"



1 Corinthians 15:51-58
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

The Adventures of Parenthood

I'm going to stray a little from talking about our summer activities to share with you another adventurous day in the life of our family.

I woke up a little late Saturday morning, having gone to bed late the night before. We drive about an hour on Saturday mornings to go to our karate class, which doesn't leave us much time to dawdle. The kids fixed oatmeal for breakfast, everyone got dressed in our karate uniforms and we started heading out the door. Scott came running into the house as I was just about to go out asking me if he had any ants on him. The front passenger side door had ants all over it. It had been a few days since we had gone anywhere and the ants had found a dead frog on the top of the door and some packages of unopened crackers in between the front seats of the van.

Yes, you counted right there is an extra person in the back of the van in this picture. We didn't have time to evict the ants from the front of the van so Scott moved to the backseat.

It was strange not being able to talk to my husband while I was driving. I actually had to call him on his cell phone to tell him about the truck that played leap frog with us. I hate when a vehicle passes me while I'm passing the one in front of me. They stayed right on my tale while I was passing and barely gave me time to move over before passing me.

Later another car in oncoming traffic tried playing chicken with me as they came into my lane in order to pass someone in front of them. I had to slow down and move over onto the shoulder of the road but I missed them. I told my husband later that it was probably good that he didn't see that one.

We arrived safely to karate only a few minutes late. We had a great class! I'm trying to get back some of my flexibility that I lost while I was pregnant. It's coming back and I feel really good while exercising.


After class, we needed to go grocery shopping. We also needed to find our bank. Our GPS was failing us! It said the bank was in the Walmart parking lot. Scott ran into Walmart while I drove laps around. No bank. But a Walmart associate told him that Kroger had the bank. Our GPS put Kroger in the middle of an intersection.

I have a friend that I knew could help us out because I saw her post that milk was only $1.99 at Kroger on her Facebook wall just a few days ago. So Scott traded places with me and drove while I sent a text message to my friend. (The ants had dispersed at this point and my husband came back to the front seat.)My friend was very prompt to answer and told us exactly where it was. She is much nicer than a GPS.

We arrived at Kroger and all 8 of us got out and headed to entrance. We were greeted by fire fighters showing off their truck to children.
Each of our kids got a chance to sit in the truck.

Elijah wasn't too sure what he thought about it.

Actually Elijah was more interested in the giant chicken that also greeted us. If I were his size, I'd be a little concerned about the giant chicken too. I was proud of him though he didn't cry or holler and he did hesitantly touch the chicken when I told him he could. He was a bit nervous but he kept saying, "Hi, Chicken!"

The chicken passed out water, chicken samples, and a balloon to each of our kids. Scott and I don't know which is worse last week's experience with Buddy Bucks (I thought we would never leave HEB last week with all the kids wanting to play the Buddy Buck machine) or this week's helium balloons.

I knew this would be a test of our parental patience when Jonathan lost his balloon before we even entered the store. Imagine if you can, 5 children (and a baby) following their parents around the grocery store with 5 helium balloons. I felt like I was either dodging balloons or getting hit by them everywhere I turned. On top of all that the bank gave us packages of cookies and we let the kids eat their three cookies.

One of the employees said that they were having some sort of kid appreciation day. I'm not sure how well most parents appreciate the effects of the store's good intentions.

Elisabeth became hungry and Ruth wasn't feeling well, so the 3 of us found a nice sitting area. Ruth and I talked while I nursed Elisabeth. Yes, I breastfeed my babies. I used to feel stressed about finding a private place to breastfeed. That was in my earlier years. Now all I need is a place to sit down. I use a blanket or a nursing cover for privacy. (I need to blog on my take on breastfeeding sometime. There are so many different levels of opinion on that topic.)

I just finished feeding Elisabeth when Scott finished shopping with the other 4 children. We made sure all balloons were secure and that all the younger children held one of our older hands. Scott and I always seem to be doing a head count. We started to leave when Jonathan exclaimed that he wasn't buckled. Why was he not buckled? Because of the balloon!

Okay, I'll spare you the story of our ride home. We arrived home safe and sound. But can you guess whose balloon popped just a few seconds after we entered the house? Jonathan's.

As soon as I heard it pop, I commanded,"Don't cry!" Okay, I may not have come across as very sympathetic but I did tie his string to one of his stuffed animals as a leash.

I guess the Lord must have known that I needed a little more practice in patience. :-)

Romans 5:3 "And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience".

Family Reunion

I'm getting all my posts out of order but I'm just going to get caught up on everything we did this summer in the most logical order I can muster.


My brother, Jason, and his family all came back to America on furlough from his mission work in France. It has been a little over 2 years since they last visited. Three babies have been born during the time they were away. Sarah and I had never met Jason's youngest and he had not seen our youngest children.

This is a picture my Dad took at church camp of the three of us siblings holding the 3 children that had been born since Jason's last furlough.

We really enjoyed seeing my brother, his wife Angie and their 5 children. The first day we saw them this summer we adults expected some really big excited show when all the cousins got back together again but they all just said, "Hi!" and commenced to playing and talking like they had only been apart a short time.

This is a picture of all the cousins sitting on my parents couch.

We've had a tradition before my brother had gone to France of taking a picture of all the cousins together. Whenever we had a new child born it was time for a new picture. Elijah was just born the last picture we took. This time my sister has a child she was able to add to the group along with our niece that was born in France and Elisabeth that was just born a couple weeks before they arrived.

It was nice to find a day that we were all able to get together at my parents to take pictures and visit. The kids had an amazing time building memories with their cousins.

During the week at my parents we were able to enjoy a trip to the zoo and out of the 11 children present not one got lost even once.

I'm glad that we are getting to build memories with my brother's family.
It was nice to have them at church camp again this year. It made this camp extra special for us. I'll try to get a blog in about church camp this week as well.

Summer is almost to an end. It won't be long before I start posting about homeschool activities. I'll try to be caught up before then on my summer posts.