MERRY CHRISTMAS

To all of our friends and loved ones out there in bloggerland...

Our wish for you today:
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Thank you, Jesus!

You came as a child, humble and meek.

You grew as a man, our example

You died as a Savior, our sins to bear, the Ultimate sacrifice

You live as a King, victorious, Almighty

Praise the Name of Jesus- Holy, Faithful, Wonderful!

We love you!

TJ

HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY, TJ!!

Named after his grandfather, Thomas D. Greer, TJ's name means "twin". He is our organizer and is our best cleaner. Noone washes our dishes as methodically as him! TJ loves music and is often heard singing a song or playing his guitar or the piano. He is a faithful son and friend. He has a wonderful sense of humor, which is often expressed in the bantering among he and his brothers! TJ loves "little people" and is often found with someone's child in his arms whenever possible. We are so blessed that God has put TJ into our family.

Fun Facts about TJ:

Favorite food: Healthy food, 'cause "it doesn't ruin your voice!"

Favorite food: Mom's cooking, 'cause she makes the best!

Favorite food: Spicy

Favorite dessert: Donckels Brand Belgian Truffles from Sam's Club, 'cause they melt in your mouth!" (Now, how does that go with "healthy food", I don't know!! He just likes them!!)

May God bless you as you continue to grow in His love by giving your heart more fully to Him!

We love you!

The Family

Yay! A new family picture!!

Last week we finally had an opportunity to take some new pictures of our family. It' s been quite a while since we did anything official!

We were at the beach for a BEACH NIGHT with friends, so taking a few candid shots was easy. We had a perfect opportunity with a little help from willing friends with cameras(thanks Chris and Eden!!). It was fun!

We are in the process of updating our family website, and we got some really good shots, I think!(Plus, photoshop is a lot of fun to work with for editing pictures if you know how to use it!)

I found it!

I found the most beautiful tree of the Fall season!

It's leaves were all at those perfect autumn colors which combine to let everyone in sight know that winter is just around the corner. Rusty, golden, orange and maroon leaves painted it's branches! I even liked the ring of fallen leaves on the ground under it!

(A moment of applause and thanks to God for another grand job well done!)

And just wait 'til you see what He's got planned for next month!!

Gaither Lovin' Life Concert

Bill Gaither & the Homecoming Friends Lovin' Life Tour Concert

Last night, on Mitch's birthday, we were scheduled to help as volunteers at the Gaither concert in Anaheim. We had done this last year when the Gaither group were here in San Diego and Anaheim. It was a lot of fun last year, as we worked in Jeff and Sheri Easter's booth, and we hadn't met them before. Such sweet folks! Anyway, as it turned out, they had enough help after all, so we were able to stay and watch the concert instead!! What a treat!!

The other fun thing was that we got to meet a few new people that we hadn't already met before. This year's roster included Jeff and Sheri Easter and family, Ernie Haase and Signature Sound, Lynda Randle, Janet Paschal, Gordon Mote, Kevin Williams, Lisa Daggs, Gaither Vocal Band (minus Guy Penrod, who is on break for a while) so Jason Crabb is sitting in for him, Russ Taff, and Bill and Gloria, of course!

Below are some pictures of the concert and our family:

Jason Crabb with his cute dimples(which I'm sure he'd love to hear that!)LOL!

We hadn't met him before.

First time we'd seen him LIVE, for one, and in a suit, for another!!


Lynda Randle- We hadn't met her before either, but enjoyed chatting with her for a time. She was here last year, too, but we missed seeing her at her booth . She's a Charming gal with a friendly BIG Smile!

TJ talking with Jeff Easter.

Below Jeff and Sheri with daughter Morgan singing in the final showcase


Below, we were so glad to finally meet Kevin Williams. He was here last year, but we didn't get to meet him then. He is the guitar player on most all of the Gaither Homecoming videos, and Amy really enjoys his sense of humor! TJ and him talked "shop" about guitars, of course!

Kevin on stage and on the big screen, all at the same time!

TJ and Mikki enjoyed some friendly banter with Marshall and Wes from GVBAmy and Janet Paschal

The lovely Janet Paschal sings next to Ernie at the finale.

Amy really enjoyed chatting with Janet. She has a warm and endearing personality!

Ernie Haase and Signature Sound on stageBill leading the performers during the second half of the night The audience holding up their little battery-operated lights that you get when you enter the door. The lights are for you to express your enjoyment or agreement with the song or performance. There were a lot of lights flashing throughout the night!
So nice to see when Gloria joins Bill on stage. She's still got it!!

Gordon Mote next to Gloria

Another great evening with these folks!

As a side note, please pray along with the Easter family for Sheri, who is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. She has one more treatment yet to do, but bravely continues to still perform. She wasn't able to come out to meet the public afterwards, which we missed seeing her again, but certainly understand the circumstances. She did a great job singing on the stage though!!
Blessings to you Sheri!

.

Mitch

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!!! We love you!

King for the Day!



One of Mitch's favorite Bible verses: Hosea 6:6
"For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings"

One of Mitch's favorite foods: Chili Relleno Burritos

One of Mitch's Favorite activities: Hanging out with friends and family and talking and singing about God

Little know fact about Mitch: He nearly died in a motorcycle accident-

Thank God for His mercy, 'cause we wouldn't be here without you!

We hope you have a BLESSED day, Mitch!

(And we hope you enjoy the concert tonight!!)

Have you noticed?

Have you noticed the beauty of God's creation all around you today?

God is such an AWESOME CREATOR, and He puts an incredible amount of details into even the smallest of His creations. Just check out the pictures below! Most people don't even notice the minute details of something as small as a "bug".

From the daily beauty of a crisp morning sunrise to the fantastic hues in the evening sunset, and all the variations of sky in between- He NEVER stops showing off His handiwork! Genesis 1:31 says "Then God saw everything that He made, and indeed it was VERY GOOD..."

The next time you step outside your door, I challenge you to look around you and find something wonderful God has made, be it large or small, and THANK HIM for it!

AMAZING!

Time for God

Take time for God in your day...

An old song from the (60's or 70's?)goes like this:

"Love Him on the morning when you see the sun arisin'

Love Him in the evening 'cause He took you through the day

And in the in-between time, when you feel the pressure comin'

remember that He loves you and He promises to stay.

So, if you think you've got to worry

'cause it seems the thing to do

remember He ain't in a hurry

He's always got the time for you"

A job Well Done!!

To continue our last post (and by request-Hello MR B.!), here are a few more pictures of the flooring job we recently finished.

This is the stairs with two coats of finish on, sanded between each coat,

and ready for yet another coat.

Now, the railings have been re-installed and all of the finish coats applied and dried!

So there you have it! A job Well Done!

Now we're on to our next project, which is also not typical of our usual work-Corbels!

Keep checking back- maybe I'll get some pictures of that too!

Blessings to you from sunny southern California!

Odd Jobs

Not typical of our normal work, lately we have been installing hardwood flooring-solid jatoba to be exact. It has been quite a painstaking adventure. We had to prepare the subfloor which took a while, then install the flooring, then sanding, then finishing. More involved than we had originally planned. Six full rooms plus a hallway and the stairs. Below are a few pictures of the process. We still have a few more things to do to finish up, but we expect to be done this week.

YEAH!
Unfinished

Finally, some finish is applied and the beauty of the wood shows through

California Fires

In our recent posts we have mentioned about the local fires near us. I have finally uploaded only a few pictures for those of you who have never seen our California fires. We get fires most every year, but some are worse than others.

I took the first picture only a few miles from where the fires were located. The flames were pretty tall- taller than the trees in some areas. With so much dry brush as fuel, it didn't take long for a small fire to become a BIG fire! We were also fortunate that no homes were burned this time around. Last year's San Diego county fires were very destructive, with 2000+ homes damaged! We were fortunate to have not only ground coverage by the fire departments, but also air coverage from planes like the one below. I think I heard it takes only 12 seconds for some of these planes to refuel by scooping in the nearby ocean or local lakes. Amazing! We watched these planes flying nearly all day.

Great job, pilots!! And thanks for your hard work!
A smoke-filled skyline for an otherwise beautiful sunset.

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;"
Psalm 46: 1-2

Random thoughts

A strange and sobering thought occurred to me recently ...

When I was the same age as my oldest son, Ben, is right now (22),

I was already married for one year and was about two months pregnant with HIM!

I don't know why that idea popped into my head,

I just thought it was an interesting tidbit of trivia!

More Food for thought

More food for thought!

Seating Arrangements
Where will you be seated in eternity? Smoking or non-smoking?

Which Way?
Man's way leads to a hopeless end -- God's way leads to an endless hope.

Two Ears
Since God gave us two ears and one mouth, He must have wanted us to do twice as much listening as talking.

Stand
If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything.

Praying
When you pray, don't give God instructions. Just report for duty!

Forbidden Fruit
A forbidden fruit will create many jams.

Best Formula
1 cross + 3 nails = 4 given.

The Lord is My Shepherd

I heard a cute joke today...

The Lord is My Shepherd

A Sunday School teacher decided to have her 2 nd grade class memorize Psalm 23, one of the most quoted passages in the Bible. She gave the children a month to learn the chapter.
One little boy was excited about the task, but he just couldn't memorize the Psalm. Although he practiced and practiced, he could hardly get past the first line. The day came for the children to recite Psalm 23 before the congregation. The little boy was nervous. When his turn came, he stepped up to the microphone and proudly said,

"The Lord is my Shepherd and that's all I need to know!"

Another local event

Today's local event,( and I do mean LOCAL!) is that the area where we live is getting a new valve installed on the water lines, which means we'll have our water turned off all day. Now, normally that could be disastrous (OK, well, incovenient anyways!), but it just so happens that God knew this and has graciously made it that we will be away from home for the day on a jobsite where THEY have running water!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Now that's providence!

Our bathtub and kitchen sink are both filled with water right now for "just in case", but I expect that by tonight when we return home, it'll be all fixed and showers as usual. And we didn't have to do a thing!!

Another reason to say "Thanks, God!!"

A local day in southern California

While there's always something to talk about, today, and this whole week, we have a full schedule!! So, I haven't been at the blog to post much of anything lately. Just not enough hours in a day, it seems. Hopefully, we'll be back in the very near future to let you know what we've been doing.

An interesting thing did happen around here (locally) today. I had planned on posting the pictures I took, but that could take days, so I'll just tell you about it instead:
We started a new project today which is located across town. From the view at the house, we could see all across the valley here- quite a nice view! Earlier today we noticed a fire on Camp Pendleton, which is not so special for southern California 'cause we get fires out here a lot! It didn't seem like much of a big deal at first, and it was small at the time. However, as the day progressed, we started noticing the sky was getting all smokey, and the winds were carrying the smoke for a very long ways- perhaps even as far as Palm Springs area. We saw news helicopters flying around the sky, and before you knew it, that fire had grown pretty large. What seemed like it should have been out relatively quickly has turned into an all day and all night BIG fire! We watched as roughly eight airplanes were flying around the sky dropping fire retardant and water. It was amazing to see those guys in action!! The daylight clouds have given way to nightime glowing orangey sky! This has been going on for at least 8 hours now!
Being a typical Californian, I drove by closer to the action on the way home! (Needless to say, I wasn't the only one doing that either! I ran into a crowd of onlookers!) The fire flames were easily as tall as a two-story home! Fortunately so far, this has only been wild brush fires burning on Camp Pendleton area and not houses burning, like earlier this year! We can only now just begin to see from our house the flames cross over another crest on the nearby mountains.
We'll have to wait until morning to see how things progressed throughout the night.

TaTa for Now!

Today's food for thought

Proverbs 14:4 says

"Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty,

but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest"

You may think this is dumb, but I sometimes find myself complaining about my house and my family. I only have five people to deal with here(we know many of you who have a LOT more than that), but it's amazing to me how often we have to pick up the same cups, shoes, tools, instruments, etc. When my guys are busy on their work schedule, they obviously don't have a lot of extra time to keep everything "ship-shape", so the house suffers neglect, and my patience level starts to deteriorate. I get grumpy with them about picking up after themselves. I look around at piles of this or that and wonder why we own so much STUFF!

Then this verse comes to mind, only my version reads more like this:

"Where there are no boys and hubby around to make messes for me to clean up after, the house is empty(and I'm not ready for that yet!), and it's because they are busy and actively doing work that the house is a mess. When they aren't busy, they have time to help keep the house clean, but then the bills start piling up instead.

Their strength and energy is what pays the bills!"

It's all about choices. Everybody has their part in this life. No one is an island unto themselves. And what I do affects others, as much as what they do affects me.

So, when I let the little inconveniences be what I focus my attention on, then I miss out on the bigger picture. In this case, while I don't like the messy house, I LOVE my family! THEY are my most precious gift! And they are worth FAR MORE to me than the messes they make along this journey we travel on together. Not to say they couldn't learn to be more pleasing to the only female in our home (that would be "ME" of course!!)

THEREFORE (at least for today), I'm choosing to enjoy my family AND the mess!!

My house is clean enough to be HEALTHY,

and dirty enough to be HAPPY!

I'm sure when all is said and done, and I stand before God one day, He won't care about how many times I cleaned up after my family nor what my house looked like each day, but rather, did I do it with a GOOD ATTITUDE and LOVE?

Parting is such sweet sorrow...

Today was an eventful day for us!

Our morning began with "mourning" as we had to say goodbye to our big pine tree in our front yard. The poor old thing has been there for over twenty years, ten of which we have enjoyed, since that's how many years we have lived here. It has served us well over the years, not only for it's wonderful shade, but also as home to many chirping birds and our old "Charlie"rooster who would perch on it's limbs every night. It was also home to our tree swing, which has been there ever since we moved in. That tree swing has swung dozens of people over the years and has given a lot of joy and laughter.

Additionally, this tree has brought many memories to our family, including Mikki's carpet tree house (our youngest son, and our little "monkey-boy" who climbed to the top and left a piece of carpet up there for his "special" place). This is also one in the same tree that TJ was trimming when he fell and broke his wrist!(Our only broken bone with all three boys, so far, Praise God!)

Alas, it's body has become decayed with dry-rot and bug damage, so it had to be cut down and turned into sawdust and firewood.


Final glimpses:

The last ride ever on our tree swing, and the last picture of our tree still standing!

Progress picture

The tallest branches getting whacked off!

The man cutting off all of the branches. At this point he said he noticed a lot of neighbors watching the process!

Getting down to the "bare bones" (Taming the Giant)

The last major cuts before...Timmmmberrr! (Below)

THUDDDDD! Below, cutting the stump off

Below, the tree cutting and clean-up crew! A bunch of Samoan guys from a local Seventh Day Adventist Church that were hired to do the job

And last but not least, the end result... BYE BYE OLD FRIEND! Our tree is all gone!

What took God twenty-plus years to grow and mature, man had it chopped down, cleaned up and turned into firewood in about three hours, start to finish!

We went to hear our friends, Greater Vision, sing in El Cajon tonight. It was good to see Gerald Wolfe again, as he had sponsored Mitch to attend Stamps Baxter years ago. Their group did a great job, as usual! Their new tenor is a very nice young man, only two years older than our Ben!

It was very odd to pull into our driveway when we arrived home. It almost seems like we pulled into the wrong drive, not having our big tree there out front anymore!! Guess we're gonna have to find some other adventure to entertain our visiting guests now- no more tree singing!