They will know we are Christians by our love!

Romans 12:9-21

1. Be Authentic vs 9

2. Be Unselfish vs 10

3. Be Alive vs 11 see also Colossians 3:23

4. Be positive, patient and prayerful vs 12

5. Be hospitable vs 13

6. Be a blessing vs14

7. Be Available vs 15

8. Be humble vs 16

How to Respond When Wronged

1. Resist your natural instincts vs 17-18

2. Leave all revenge to God vs 19

3. Turn your enemies into your friends vs 20-21

“I will never allow a man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.” George Washington Carver

Urs and I took the girls school clothes shopping today. Oh what fun we had. No really. It was fun. I mean it. Really. I do. The girls are at the age now where it is fun to go shopping with them. They like to try things on, see what looks good, what doesn’t. So off we went today to Sears to hit the clearance racks to see what bargains we could find. And bargains we found! (Sidenote- we left Buddy home with Steve. Buddy is not so much fun to shop with, he just wants to play in the clothing racks)

So after a couple hours of shopping we came home with a bunch of new things and we saved a bundle. Who doesn’t love to save money?? One shirt that we got for the girls had a $9.99 pink sticker on it. It rang up $2.49 and then we had a coupon that took an additional 20% off our entire order. How is that for a bargain?? All of the kids are good to go for school now. We have clothes, backpacks, school supplies and new shoes. (We are still missing that YELLOW folder, dumb yellow folder).

Meet the teacher day is on Thursday and we are all looking forward to that. We drove by the kids new school today on the way home from the mall and the girls we very impressed by the building. They can’t wait to see the inside.

Well now I think I am going to take my aching feet to bed. Good night. And God Bless!!

Went school supply shopping today. My step-mom and I braved Wal-mart to get all the things on the three lists for the kids. I think we have everything on the lists except a YELLOW, 2 pocket folder with prongs. We went to 2 other stores on our way home and still did not find a yellow folder. At least we still have time before school starts.

The kids have been enjoying time with Steve parents, swimming everyday and just hanging out. They will be coming home tomorrow. We have been talking to them on the phone each day but we miss them. So it will be good to see them tomorrow.

I just had a reminder that God is always beside me. He never leaves my side.

Just wanted to share. Especially since traffic is up on my site this week. There have been over 100 views on my blog each day for the past couple of days. I am glad people are stopping by.

God loves each one of us. Remember that always.

Today when we left the house we had a lot of things to accomplish and that we did.

• picked up registration forms at the kids new school
• went to the bank
• went to the post office
• went to eat some lunch
• I registered fro my fall classes while we ate lunch
• Steve made some phone calls while we were at lunch
• went to the library to print out a form we needed to have notarized
• went back to the bank to have the form notarized
• bought some envelopes
• back to the kids school to fax the form to request their records and we got a tour of the school
• back to the post office
• to the storage unit to look for Steve’s birth certificate (didn’t find it)
• went to Vital Statistics office to get another copy
• went to driver’s license office and got our FL licenses (our DL #’s are the same one we had from when we lived here before)
• came back to the house and filled out all the paperwork for all the kids
• after dinner watched Juno (was a pretty good movie)

So you see we had a pretty busy day. But we got a lot done. Steve even filled out a few job applications online while watching the movie tonight. So we are getting some things in line. Prayerfully we will both have jobs soon and we will be able to get back on our feet. All in all today was a good day. Now I am tired and going to bed.

Well life has thrown us a curveball. I still don’t really know which way is up or how it is going to turn out in the end. But this I do know, God will never leave my side, my family is here with me, my extended family is a great support system for us.

So we have come full circle in a sense, back to the place that we started, home. Steve and I went to church yesterday and just felt loved on by the people.

There are a lot of things I want to say, yet I can’t seem to find the words.

So I will tell you a funny story about the dogs. We have two dogs, my parents have two dogs, one inside dog, one outside dog. When I first brought our dogs here we tried to bring them inside the house since they are used to being inside. Well that didn’t work too well with Princess, the inside dog. So we put them out in the front yard. Well we were sitting, talking later that evening and Princess could here our dogs just outside the front door and she went over and jumped up and opened the door with her paw. The front door handle is one of those lever handles not a round one you have to turn. My brother saw her do it. He could not believe his own eyes at first. So the dogs got moved to the backyard yesterday morning with Ziggy. And that didn’t go too well either since Ziggy is protective of his area. So now our dogs are sharing the back half of the yard with the two goats. There doesn’t seem to be any problems between the dogs and the goats so hopefully all will be good. My dad built Angel and Allie a dog house yesterday so they would have shelter. I saw Angel go in it on her own after we were all in the house but I have not seen Allie go inside. But the food is in there so when she gets hungry she will go in, that I am sure of. Later I will post a picture of the doghouse. My dad says he just threw it together. I think it is pretty impressive even for being “thrown together”.

Well lots to do today, phone calls to make. Things to get settled.

I pray you have a blessed day.

We had a great time at Hollywood Studios last week. Then on Thursday my friend Cyndi and her family came to spend two nights with us in our condo. It was a little tight with 11 people in our 2 bed room condo but it was night to see them and we had a nice time hanging out. We swam a little Thursday afternoon. Then Cyndi, Patrick and I took the younger kids to IKEA to play in the play area while we browsed. Steve stayed back at the condo with the Bean, Bug and M. They had a little as there was a kitchen fire in a condo two doors down from ours. Nothing major but they had to walk down 12 flights of stairs and hang out downstairs for awhile. We then enjoyed empanadas for dinner.

Friday Steve’s parents came for lunch and then took Steve to the airport for his flight home. After that we swam for a while and then played a round of mini-golf. Then Cyndi and I went to see Mamma Mia. It was a great movie. We really enjoyed ourselves. It was really nice to spend some girl time together.

Saturday we had to clean up and pack up all our stuff and check out of the condo. Once that was done we headed to the Orlando Science Museum. We had a blast. They had a Norman Rockwell exhibit that was enjoyed by everyone. We all had fun in the category one hurricane wind tunnel, with 74 mph winds. The kids had fun seeing how much they would weigh on other planets but only Patrick was brave enough to get on the scale. And then he only got on it when no one else was around. The kids also learned about dinosaurs. Then we finally headed to kid town so they could just play and the adults could talk. Jill, a dear friend that I only get to see once or twice a year met us at the science center, so it was nice to get to sit for a while and chat.

Then the kids and I loaded up and headed to my dad and step-mom’s house where we are spending the rest of the week. When we got here I learned that we were going to Sonny’s BBQ for dinner. YUMMY!! Bean cleaned her plate in record time.

Today my grandparents came over for lunch. It was a nice time of visiting with them. There were four generations of our family here today. That is rare for some families today. I treasure that each time I get to come home and see my family. Tonight we must have spent an hour or so with Bug asking the adults questions out of her Guinness Book of World Records book that she brought  with her. We learned some interesting facts. And it was a fun way to pass the time. Oh I did play one round of Super Smash Brothers against my brother on the Wii. Bean and Buddy have been playing a lot of that game with their uncle since we got home from dinner last night. Bean has gotten pretty good at in a very short amount of time.

Well it is late here. Tomorrow I think we are going shopping so I need my rest so I can keep up with the kids. I will post some pictures from the trip soon.

Tomorrow we get to go see the mouse, you know Mickey Mouse and all of his friends. The kids are really excited. All Buddy has talked about today is, “when are we going to the Toy Story Mania?” That is a new ride that they have at Hollywood studios, which is the park that we will be visiting tomorrow. Thanks to a friend that works at the House of Mouse we will not be spending big bucks to get into the park tomorrow.

Yesterday we went over to one of the other resorts run by Westgate to play mini-golf and have lunch. Lunch was really yummy!!(Free didn’t hurt either…lol) We had chicken wings, rice and pinto beans, fried plantains and all the soda you could drink. We have really been enjoying our vacation. It could not have come at a better time.

This morning we had breakfast (free again) by the pool before heading over to visit the IKEA store. I have been to the IKEA store in Chicago and it is something else. So I decided that Steve really needed to experience it too. The store in Orlando is nice, not as big as the one in Chicago but it has FREE childcare!! Yes, you read that right. There is a play area at the front of the store where there are IKEA workers that will watch your children while you shop in the store. You can shop for up to an hour child free. We didn’t leave the kids today but I thought that was a GREAT idea.

The other thing I wanted to tell you about is if you have a science museum anywhere near you, you need to look into getting a membership. My friend Cyndi has had a family membership to her local science museum for a couple of years now. Her family is coming up to visit us here in Orlando on Thursday and they were planning on going to visit the museum here. A lot of the science museums around the country are part of a network and if you are a member of your local museum then when you are out of town you can visit other museums with your membership. So as a gift my friend bought our family a year membership to a museum close to where we live for get this, $35 for all five of us for a whole year. So on Saturday our two families are going to visit the museum here in Orlando together. Then when we are back home we can go to Nashville or Knoxville and visit the museums there. I was looking at the list of museums that participate in the program and we can even go to museums in Australia!  If you want to check it out here is a link of the museums that are in the program.

Well I am headed to bed. I need to get my rest so I can be ready to walk, walk, walk, walk tomorrow!!

It is so nice to be on vacation. And I think other than our honeymoon, this condo is the nicest place that we have ever stayed. It is well worth the pennies that we paid over the past two years for it (Long story, I will tell it another time).

We have had a great time already spending time with family. We stopped at Steve’s parents house for a night on our way to the condo. The kids got to see some of their “summer” friends while we were there. There are some other kids that visit their grandparents every summer that our girls have gotten to know the past couple of summers. Grandpa took them over to have ice cream with Melissa after dinner on Friday night. And they got to swim with her on Saturday before we left.

Yesterday we went to church at Eastpoint Fellowship. The pastor there was our pastor when we were first married and he is the pastor that ordained Steve into the ministry. I wanted to share my sermon notes from yesterday because it as a great reminder to me that there is great freedom in Christ.

DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT: The Sounds of Legalism By Danny Strickland

Colossians 2:16-23

1. Let no one judge you. v 16-17

A life that is centered on Jesus and what He did on the on the cross has no place for legalism.

2. Hold fast to Jesus to be truly spiritual. v18-19

There are few things more dangerous among Christians than spiritual pride and arrogance.

3. Let the laws of God rule your life, not the legalistic rules of man. v 20-23

This is a perfect description of legalistic religion defined more by what we don’t do than what we do.  All legalistic rules have the appearance of wisdom but have no real value. Legalism does not restrain the flesh, it it feeds the flesh in a subtle way.

Self-imposed religion is man reaching to God trying to justify himself by keeping a listing of rules. Christianity is God reaching down to man in love through Christ.

This sermon was a good reminder to me that if I can’t find something in the Scriptures, then it is not something that I need to to follow.

After church we spent the rest of the day with my dad, step-mom and brother, having some awesome Italian food and a great time just hanging out and relaxing.

Today we are heading to to pool and maybe a little miniature golf. We shall see what the day brings.

Maybe I will post some pictures tomorrow.