Celebrating Dad's Birthday

We haven't been out on a boat for a few years and all John wanted to do for his birthday was take a couple of days off work (paid of course) and go out on the river. We rented a pontoon boat and did just that from 8:30am until 5:00pm. What a fun relaxing day for the family. The St. John's River is just beautiful and we went up a couple of fingers and at one point I thought I was at Six Flags where they take you on the LaSalle boat ride and tell you that you are in the State of Florida and watch for alligators, etc, it was that overgrown with greenery and alligators and birds, but just gorgeous and peaceful. Nope, we weren't scared our boat was bigger.

The Holy Land Experience

Words just cannot describe this experience. We went with our congregation on a chartered bus and it was about a 3 hour trip. Bus, was old and miserable, the company was just fabulous. We broke into three groups when we arrived since there was close to 90 of us including children. The first thing we did was take the children to the children's section so they could play, make bracelets and enjoy just running around after a long bus ride. We then went and saw the Passion Play. For one of our homeschool lessons during Easter we studied the Passion of Christ so Hope and Joel knew the story and yet seeing it enacted and dramatized was extremely emotional. Joel, looked away at the flogging, the blood was so real and the sounds of the cat of nine tails and the hammering of the cross. Hope cried softly and I held her and we talked and I reminded her that this was for our sins and that we celebrate Easter and that in just a little while Jesus would rise. The ressurection was magnificant and Hope shouted with Joy and Joel was thrilled. We saw the Old Tabernacle and the kids were enthralled with everything, they so enjoyed the Holy Land Experience and can't wait to go back. However, on our way out of the park we had about 45 minutes to ourselves and we got stuck behind the taped line as they were finishing with the last Passion Play of the day. Hope recognized it and began to absolutely bawl, heavy sobs and the cast members standing there told her that just wait the best was to come. Didn't matter all she could say was "They are killing my Jesus twice, they just can't kill him again, it's not fair". I pulled her haid on my shoulder and we prayed. Oh, how that child loves her Jesus. Every since we have come home she tells Him everyday how much she loves Him. I would not have traded this beautiful experience in our lives for anything. It truly was a HOLY Experience.

Easter Sunday

 

Our Little Photographer

Hope is on the move with more photos. There are so many and it was really hard to chose just a few of them to share. I created a little video to show her eye for the various things she sees and how she sees them. We know that when a person loses one of their five senses that the others are enhanced and I would say that Hope's eyes are definately enhanced

To Celebrate Our Move to Jacksonville in January - Disney on Ice

The Never Ending Faces of Joy and Glee of Hope as she watches the Ice Skaters. Not only faces, but actually hoots and hollers. You would think she was at a football game not an ice capade. The audience around us really thought she was cute, all dressed up in her Cinderella Finest and yelling like a quaterback. "That's our Hope".

Joel at Disney on Ice

Joel, is still shy with the camera and would rather frown than smile. Not that he's not happy he just doesn't like cameras. So we have to be watchful when taking his pictures.

Christmas Pagent 2009

What a true blessing for me this Christmas, all three of us Joel, Hope and Mom were in a Christmas Pagent at Church and Dad was the sound engineer. I can't imagine a better way to celebrate the birth of our Savior than acting out his beautiful birth.