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!

Wimberly's Annual BBQ

Every year, our friends Jerry and Peggy Wimberly open their home up to an open house style BBQ for singers and fans and families to come together and eat and play and have fun getting to know each other better. Yesterday was that day! And included in the event was a surprise birthday party for Terry Stockman of The Tradesmen, and for Peggy Wimberly, our lovely hostess!

Below are some pictures of the day's activities:

One of the birthday cakes
Bob Hughes of Crossroads during sing-along
A view of only part of the crowd!
Evidence gives us a song
Dick Hilleary and his wife, Reba

A mixed group from various other groups

Our TJ got to help by playing guitar!Harmony TrioOur dear friends, The Johnson Family Quartet perform a song written by Bonnie and Ben!And we enjoyed performing a few songs, too!!

Below is our debut with our instruments included!
Looking forward to next year!!

Homeschool Family Camp 08

HOUSE CHURCH/ HOMESCHOOL FAMILY CAMPOUT '08
Shake Campground in Mountain Home State Forest

Immediately upon arriving back in California at 10:15 PM, we went from the airport in San Diego, dropped off our friend who picked us up, stopped by home for not longer than 1/2 and hour- just long enough to throw our sleeping bags, pillows, and a couple mattresses in the back of the van, and pet our faithful Lollie dog(who was so excited to see us after ten days that she was squeeling!), then off we flew down (or should I say up) the road to central California for the fifteenth annual Homeschool Family Campout(another "first" for us). We drove through the night (about 6 hours)to arrive just in time to find a few campers already up and preparing their morning hot water over the fire!

Three Little Happy Campers!!

Meal Preparations Crew
And don't forget the Clean-Up Crew!! Above and Below: A game of Mad Gab!!

Hanging out, playing games and talking
A missionary family from Nigeria (Africa) were there visiting. They gave a beautiful and dramatic Bible reading with hand motions. We really enjoyed talking with them about their work, and sharing stories about differences in foreign cultures, religious beliefs, and other interesting things. Sunday worship meeting

Having missed the last fourteen annual campouts with this group, we didn't want to miss out again! So, even though it was a long drive and we were tired, it was GREAT to visit with old friends and make some new ones, get in some mountain hiking and other "playing", eat good food prepared by loving hands, worship the Lord with fellow believers, and enjoy the scenery including the DEER family (not DEAR family!) which crossed our path on the way home!

It was nice to get home to a good hot shower and our own comfy beds!!

We are thankful to God for His provisions and care for us during our vacation!

And thankful for so many new "firsts" to get to share with you!

Jammin'

It's always fun to get together with other musical people and do some jammin'.

We enjoyed a few times of doing just that!

At Camp:
And at the Cinncinati Airport!!

We were standing in line at the coffee shop in the airport (yes, a Starbucks!). A man was standing there with a case that looked like my mandolin case, so we asked him about it and he told us it was a mandola. As we stood there talking, the idea of jamming came up, so that's just what we did!! We played about three songs before he had to catch his next flight.

Of course, there were lots of onlookers to our impromptu session. A group of Canadian youth were there for some event. Their tourguide came up to us afterward and said that she told the kids that we were there to welcome them with our "American bluegrass" music!! I thought that was pretty funny considering we were playing gospel songs! Anyway, it was a fun experience!!

VOLLEYBALL!

Guess what! I did end up finding more pictures of the volleyball crew!

Andrew numbering off the guys!

We had so many players we had to break up into three teams.

Then came the fun part-SPEED VOLLEYBALL, where the third team rotates onto the losing side after each point! Makes for a fast moving game, and you better pay attention to when it's your team's turn on the court!!

The girls numbering off

Finding your team members!

Allison's an obvious team 3!

Above: Here's a whole bunch of players

Below: OK, everybody, make a funny face!

SILLY PEOPLE!!

Too Many Fun Activities

There were just too many fun activities to do at camp!

Below are just a few examples:

Mr. Wissmann plays a "mean" game of air hockey with Bethany

I'll not say who won!!



Mikki, Amy, and Mitch had some sore muscles after shooting clay pigeons. This was another "firsts" for us. All of us were able to hit at least one!!
Indoor Hockey was a hit for young and old alike
"Take Two" (otherwise known by the Wissmann's as Take One) was played by many.
The first Kayaking crew
This was also a first for us as we had never been kayaking, nor down the Mississppi River, nor in the state of Wisconsin, which was the beginning point for the kayak trip!!

Mikki kayaking solo on the lake at camp
Above and below- The Mighty, Mighty, Scoop-Noodle Challenge

A very fun game for all ages!! Best when played with LOTS of people!



Archery
Climbing the wall
This was SOOOOO Funny watching Ben, TJ and Mikki on the Zipline!!!

For all you daring folks out there, this is the ride to go on!

There were lots of other things to do, but I didn't get a chance to take photos nor post all of the ones I did take. I think we must have played at least a hundred games of volleyball while we were there. We got some really sore muscles by the time the week was done!! Needless to say, we had a great time doing things we don't usually get to do, and playing with all of the other families who attended. I do have two pictures I'll try to post later of the volleyball crew. What a bunch they were- I think we stayed up til after midnight a couple of nights!