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.

Blue Ridge, Georgia - For the first time in 13 years my entire family was together for Thanksgiving. A friend gave us a great rate on her cabin and we just had a GLORIOUS Thanksgiving. My grandaughter Alicia said "Grandma, you just look so happy". Right on, Sweetheart! This Grandma was the happiest ever. God has truly blessed me with beautiful children, grandcildren and my childrens spouses. Then he gave me a wonderful friend in my husband to walk this life with. How could I not be happy.

A Thanksgiving to Give so much Thanks for

Blue Ridge, Georgia - For the first time in 13 years my entire family was together for Thanksgiving. A friend gave us a great rate on her cabin and we just had a GLORIOUS Thanksgiving. My grandaughter Alicia said "Grandma, you just look so happy". Right on, Sweetheart! This Grandma was the happiest ever. God has truly blessed me with beautiful children, grandcildren and my childrens spouses. Then he gave me a wonderful friend in my husband to walk this life with. How could I not be happy.

Hope's Birthday of Course it's Late....

Hope's Birthday was in August. I am only almost 2 months late in posting it. I just didn't know what I was going to do, the weekend of her birthday was Joel's surgery and Joel and I had been in Jacksonville since the Wednesday before her birthday on Sunday and that Sunday was a meeting for Joel's confirmation class. None the less a pool party meeting with all the parents, the kids and Pastor. I was beside myself. I thought we could go out to eat dinner that night and the next week take her for a movie an something else. However, not only was it a suprise for Hope, but a suprise for Mom, the parents and kids of Joel's confirmation class gave Hope a suprise birthday party along with the swim party. What a special gift for all of us.

A New Photographer

See How Long the Bus is (Not), Flags at National Monument, Kya

A self photo (Hope), Her sister Dawn, a Poster at the Christmas Store

Our Little Photographer, will she be famous one day? Hope took these photos and about 375 more and some of them really great, some silly, but she has an eye. I love some of these of our precious little newest addition to the family grandaughter Rylee.

You All Know Me Well! Late Vacation Summer Posting

Okay, So I said I would stay on top of things..... I am now homeschooling Hope. Only 3 weeks or so into her school year and we had horrible experiences and frustrutions beyond belief. They had changed her program from last year, lost her teacher she adored, her teachers aide as well, her friends from class were not in the program and they made her go from classroom to classroom every 40 minutes. This from a child that was abandoned at age 2 1/2, then in an orphanage not even a foster home for another 2 years. Had no communication skills whatsover when we adopted her 2 1/2 years ago, then received her cochlear implants beginning a little over a year ago for the first one and eight months for the second. Hope began crying and screaming at night to us no more school Mommy, please no more school, home school, please. I met with the new teacher and she was nice enough, but couldn't change anything. Now mind you there was only Hope and one other student in this program and the other student being new to the program. The principal said hang in there we can change it after the semester if Hope can't change. WHAT! Then Hope started having nightmares and bedwetting.... We feel that all security had been pulled out from underneath her and she had nothing at school to give her that security she so needed. Since I was already home schooling Joel, I just pulled Hope out of school and began home school Hope and fighting a different battle with the school district in getting her DOH services.

So all that to say why my vacation pictures are late in posting. I needed to get them on the blog so I can go ahead and get my other photos on.

Also I want to let you know Hope is doing great and we have a coop that the kids go to on Tuesday and they love it. Hope, especially and it has been really a growing time for her. She is just doing wonderful in so many ways.

And Yet Again More Vacation....

More Vacation

Just more videos of vacation. Some awfully cutes ones. These are not only of Joel and Hope, but my precious Grandchildren, Kya, Autumn, Aaron and Lily.

Now the Babies

And More

We spent Joel's Birthday with Dawn and Family. He had such a great time.

We made it to Big Sister Dawns and Washington DC

There is so much to say and yet I don't have the time to write alot, we have been busy busy busy. We have spent two days in Washington D.C. taking in the sights. I have been totally awe struck by the massive size of the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial was absolutely breathe taking and Joel could not get over the size of the White House and Hope fell in love with each flower, bird and squirrel. B etween, the three of us we have over 500 pictures and of course I can't even post that many photos. It is about 11pm and we leave in the morning around 6am for New York City and again I am like a kid in a Candy Store, all my life I have wanted to go to NYC and of course Joel is so excited about going to the World's largest toy store FSO and Hope thinks it's Santa's Toy Store.



These are Hope's Photos from her own personal Camera, a black squirrel we feed goldfish crackers, The Washington Monument looking from the Lincoln Memorial and the flags surrounding the Washington Monument.

Here is some of Joel's photos he personally took with his camera...Hope at the National Aquarium, Andrew Hamilton Statue at the Treasury Building and of course the White House.

Fist Part of Summer Vacation

Okay, So I said I was going to post more and I just haven't done it. My heart is always in the right place I promise, my fingers just aren't. Yes, that's an excuse and I do apologize. This year has been hard health wise for me. I have not been one that has been sick a lot but this year I have been sick for about six or seven months out of a year and that's a lot, I do believe I am finally on the upswing and we are all rejoicing and the vacation Part 1 has been a tremendous help.

I wish I could just post all of the wonderful pictures and I will post a few from each segment and tell you just a bit about our journey and as you can see this was just Part One. We left home on June 12th for Texas to visit family and returned on June 26th. My family and John's family had never met Joel and Hope and it was an adventure for both the children and family and we left many heartbreaks in the trail and there are many photos I wasn't able to caputre.

Our little Hope has turned out to be the best photographer of all of us and I do hope to post some of her photos for you, but it maybe when we return from Vacation Part 2. Please enjoy Vacation Part 1's Journey. God Bless.

We had planned on pulling out of our driveway at 5am, but for the three nights prior to leaving, I had jut not been able to sleep, so as usual I woke up at 2am after only going to bed at midnight. I knew I wasn't going to be able to fall back to sleep, so I got up got dressed and woke up John and said why don't you go ahead and sleep in the car and I will drive the first 4 or 5 hours and then we can stop for breakfast. So, we loaded the kids up in their pj's and out we started by 3am. I sipped coffee and enjoyed such quiet and peace in the driving and communing with the Lord, it was a beautiful start to the vacation. We had breakfast somewhere around Gainesville, FL and then drove on into MS and it was hard to find roadside parks for us to have lunch. We packed a picnic lunch for that day and all the parks were closed due to Hurricane Katrina devistation. We were on beautiful back roads, we finally found a small campsite and asked them if we could just come in and eat our lunch, they had a beautiful pavillon down by the river and it was so cool. Here's some of the photos from lunch.

Reached Texas and Grandpa John's

We did stop and spend the night in Jackson, MS. However, after being up since 2am after eating dinner, John and the kids went for a swim and I went for a tub soak and then crawled in bed thinking it must be about 10pm and fell asleep only to find out that when I woke up and thought it was about 11am the next morning it was only 11pm. John said you went to bed at 730pm. We had reached Jackson, MS with the time difference about 4pm and then had dinner by and back to the hotel by 5pm and I was out. So no photos of Jackson. We got up the next morning had waffles in the hotel and drove on into Grandpa Johns around 2:30pm and it didn't take the kids an hour to get their swimsuits on and get in the pool. We stayed there for about 3 1/2 days and the kids lived in the pool the entire time. John has like 8 brothers and sisters and just about all of them where there with children and grandchildren there where about 35 to 40 people over most of the time and John's sister and her children and grandchildren from Oklahoma where there. John's son Darren stationed in Washington State in the Army got leave because he is going to Iraq again August 2nd and he came down with his girlfriend from Oklahoma and John's daughter and her baby came down from Oklahoma and they all stayed at Grandpa Johns as well. Then John's niece Lexi stayed there. Totally spending the entire time in the house with us was 16 people and Grandma Earline cooked breakfast for us each morning and wouldn't even hear of any help, what a WOMAN. She was wonderful! Talk about a Proverbs 31 woman.....

Crystal & Rylee (Rylee is our 8th Grandchild) She is precious.

We did get photos of Joel going off the dive board but he always did belly flops and he was in the water so fast all we got was waves.

On we traveled deeper or should I say further out West....

Yes, we are still in Texas, but we are on the way to Weatherford to Grandpa Dixon and Nanny Parl's. No, Swimming Pool, but there are SHEEP! Hope took countless pictures of sheep and as I said if I can get her photos posted later, it might be about 25 photos she took. We gave her Joel's camera he got for Christmas, because I bought a new digital for me and gave Joel our other one that is really better than the one we gave him for Christmas. We probably should have given Hope our other one and left Joel with the one he had for Christmas. He wants to take photos but he took about 35 our entire trip and Hope took over 400 and about 350 of them really great and some very abstract. Anyone know of a gallery that would support a 6 year old photograher? Anyway heres a few photos at my Dad's. Yep, we had brothers and sisters here as well. I didn't get as many photos because we helped my Dad and Pearl move and settle into their new home, but at night after 9:30pm sister and brother in laws met in the old home and we drank coffee and played games. It was a family reunion and then on Father's Day I cooked, Steph and Kelly and Larry brought Dessert and Turkey to add to the dinner and we had a great feast for Dad, the first gatherin of Dad's kids for Father's Day in over 15 years. We stayed there until our trip back home which was for 5 1/2 days.