Looking Back: LA TRIP: Home & Trailer

I am finally posting pictures of my trip to Louisiana in March!

Grampy & Grammy's home in Louisiana

While I did almost everything in the house I actually stayed in their fifth wheel trailer just outside the back door. It was kinda like having my own apartment while I was there! :D 

My bedroom

My nightstand

My living room inside the trailer

I even had my own couch! :D

Despite such wonderful accommodations, I did not spend an enormous amount of time in there during the day, it was just to much fun being inside the main house with Grampy, Grammy & Aunt Zula. 

Need A New Car?

Introducing the all-new Cadillac Sumptuous...




Good job, Andrew! :D

Cleaning my room...

On my agenda for tomorrow is...cleaning my room! Why? Well...besides just the fact that it DESPERATELY needs to be done, there is also a small flash drive somewhere in there that contains my pictures of Louisiana! Since tomorrow is a holiday where I live, and I am off work, I plan to upload my pictures of Louisiana tomorrow...or at least get started...I have a lot of pictures to go through!

I read something today that I would like to share with you. 

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Many years ago, Matthew Henry, a well-known Bible scholar, was once robbed of his money. Knowing that it was his duty to give thanks in everything, he meditated on this incident and recorded in his diary the following:

"Let me be thankful, first, because he never robbed me before; second, because although he took my purse, he did not take my life; third, because although he took all I possessed, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed."

Matthew Henry (1662-1714)

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This story made me think of several things, including how we often hold onto temporal things too tightly (as my overstuffed room can testify). What if someone took away all the things you owned? Would you be able to respond with this kind of gratitude? 

I'm going to spend some time thinking that through tomorrow...while I clean my room! 

Psaltery, Packing & Procrastinating...

I guess it's about time I brought ya'll up to date....

We had a wonderful visit with Grampy & Grammy from June 15-21. They are now safely home in Louisiana.

I had a long awaited package arrive in the mail on Monday...my psaltery!! For those of you who don't know what a psaltery is, don't feel bad! I just learned about it for the first time in March. A psaltery is a really easy-to-play musical instrument. How easy? Well, I took it with me baby sitting the other day and by the end of an hour and a half Josh (5y) could play over half of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," Ali (8y) could play "Silent Night" & Jeromy (9y) had a good start on "Joy To The World!" They had never even seen one until I showed them! If you want to know what a psaltery looks like you can see pictures HERE

This week has been full of packing! We are leaving today for a weekend trip to Vermont to visit my Grammy and a few of the many aunts, uncles and cousins on my Mom's side of the family. We plan to arrive back home in the wee hours of the morning on Monday, July 5. Then I have to unpack, do laundry and repack by 10 am when Andrew & I are going for a week of camp at Windcrest. I am really looking forward to that! It is hard to believe that this will be my last year as a camper.

So that is what I have been up to this week. After camp (yes, I am procrastinating again!) I plan to do some picture updates of the last few months, starting with the long awaited pictures of my trip to Louisiana in March (thanks for your patience, Mariah!), then moving on to pictures of my Dad's 50th party, Grammy's hospital stay & recovery, as well as pictures we took of their visit here. I will also post a picture of my psaltery.

Until later...

God is Faithful!

So sorry that I haven't been posting on here. As many of you know, for the past 3+ weeks our family has been walking through a health trial with my Grammy B. Here's what has happened...

On Saturday, May 15, while traveling from Louisiana to attend our Dad's surprise 50th birthday party, Grammy experienced heart problems and went to Eastern Maine Medical Center where she had a mild heart attack. At that time, the doctor's felt that that her condition was fairly mild, so Grampy called that night and told us to go ahead with the party and not to tell Dad until after he had enjoyed the surprise element of the party. That was hard to do, but we did. Our family traveled to Bangor on Monday, May 17, to be visit with Grammy while she waited for her Angioplasty procedure. The doctors tried an angioplasty, but were unable to fix the problem that way because her condition was much worse than they had originally thought. Two of her main arteries were over 90% blocked and another smaller vein also had significant blockage. On May 18, Grammy had a triple by-pass surgery.

Since then, there have been many ups and downs in her road to recovery which we have documented on a prayer blog for her. Penny's Progress (See, I have been bloging recently, just not on here!) We went and had supper with Grampy & Grammy on Friday. They are staying about two hours from here at a B & B while she continues her recovery, then they will probably be coming and staying closer to us for about a week before heading back to Louisiana.

We are so thankful for all the Lord has done for our family during this time. He has been so faithful! Thank you to all who have been praying for us.

No, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth!

For those of you who are wondering if I am still alive, I AM!! I am just extremely busy right now and haven't found the time to update my blog. 

Here's just a few things that have happened in the last few weeks. These are all kind of in a random order, sorry about that, but if I waited until I could get it all typed up perfectly, you'd never hear from me!! :) 

I arrived home from visiting my grandparents in Louisiana on April 6th. I had a wonderful visit with them!

I had a job interview on April 7th, was hired on April 9th, and started my first job on April 17th., as a cashier at Sobeys. At this point I am only scheduled for 6-12 hours a week. However, last week several of my co-workers were sick or had family emergencies and I filled in for them and ended up working 31 1/2 hours! (Are you still wondering why I haven't been blogging recently?) 

April 14 was Charity Rose's day. Twelve years ago, the Lord called my little sister home to be with him before birth. 

I have started gardening a couple of days a week for the Estabrooks again this summer. 

Nathanael & I will be having our last bible club before summer break this afternoon. 

The church field of three churches where my Dad has been pastoring for almost 10 years is separating next month due to financial reasons. My Dad's last Sunday preaching for the field is May 30. He may continue preaching at one of the churches to help them out while they decide what they are going to do. What this means for our family is that we may be moving sometime in the not so distant future. Our house is not ready to sell so we have a lot of work to do on it in the coming months getting it ready to sell. If we do end up moving it will be a big adjustment for all of us. My parents moved into this house 21 1/2 years ago when Joshua was 2, Timothy was 1, and Mom was expecting Rosanna. This is the home that has all the memories for us kids. I have lived my whole life in this town, and this house. This is where my little sister Charity and brother Daniel are buried. It would be a big adjustment if the Lord calls us to move, but he knows what is best for us! 

Yes, I still plan to post pictures of my visit down south soon! Keep watching for them! :) 

Until next time...

Spoof Life Insurance Commercial

My brother, Andrew, recently created this life insurance spoof. Enjoy! :)

(You will need to scroll down to the bottom of my blog and pause the background music so that you can hear this)