The Earth Spins No More...

We arrived at the Bible Conference yesterday after an 8 hr drive. Here are some pictures of our first 2 days here at the Amish Door in Ohio.









The reason for my blog title today: The Earth Spins No More

One score and one year ago…

Just a few things before we go to the Bible Conference in Ohio - AND MEET HANNAH!

I am so thrilled to announce that Ryan has again made the Dean’s List with High Honors (3.91 avg)!! Wow! That is a testimony to the goodness and mercy of God, because it is not by anything I have done! Indeed God uses our weaknesses to show His glory! Where I utterly failed at being a teacher, God stepped in and saved the day! All glory goes to Him! I find humor in the fact that God used a high-school drop-out who decided to homeschool her kids to accomplish this.

In other news, Kyle is about to release his Rethinkyoyo 2 year anniversary “Special.” He is holding a competition for other tutorial makers. He’s hoping to gain a lot of attention in the yoyo world. He has worked so hard at coming up with the contest rules, writing the announcement and designing the advertising, and planning and obtaining the prizes. Some awesome prizes have been donated! Can’t wait to see how it goes.

Oh yeah, happy anniversary to me… haha

Positvely O

What a lovely day this has been. I think it was one of my top 10 days of the year. Ryan and I went food shopping to get some stuff for our new Blood Type Diet. Since all 4 of us are the same, it should be pretty easy. I’m so excited that red meat is actually beneficial to type O+! So we stocked up on lots of steak and other stuff that we RARELY ever eat. We also bought stuff we’ve never had before, like figs, veal, lamb, and even….are you ready for this?....... LIVER! I know, gross, right? But it is supposed to be very good for us, so Ryan and I are going to try it. I’ve never had it, never even cooked it. We are both excited to be learning about this stuff and can’t wait to try new things. Tonight I made braised short ribs with parsnip and carrots. I’ve never had short ribs or parsnips before. In fact I’ve never braised anything before. It was so excellent!

Here’s a pic of our first blood type diet dinner! This day goes down in history as the day we started eating correctly for US. Yummy, yummy, yummy!
And here’s a pic of my first ever bloom on my gardenia that I’ve had for at least 3 years! So excited to see 3 flowers on there! Yay!

a new beginning

I survived the retreat! It was definitely an odd experience for me to be around a bunch of very talkative women for 3 solid days (even 3 hours would have been an odd experience for me!!). Anyway, I got to know a few of the ladies better and also meet a few new ones. I really enjoyed the times of worship! Gwen Smith was fantastic! I got to hear a lot of good teaching for women. By the time it was ending my brain was in “overload” because of too much material to listen to and absorb.

After I sort out my notes and thoughts about the whole experience and what I got out of it, I’ll make a post about it. Till then, here are some shots of the weekend.

I am so loving being home with my boys!! Ryan is back from Israel, back from college, and here for the summer. I missed his presence! We are entering into a time of learning about Blood Type diets. Can't wait to get started on it.

I have a lot of reading/learning/studying/praying to do. Oh, let's not forget exercise! I was very convicted about how I've let myself go physically. I'm really quite ashamed of myself. I'm trying to learn not to take my depression out on myself by eating tons of chocolate. I must learn discipline again (I used to be so disciplined), must learn patience, must learn to wait, must learn to be content. The list is never-ending. But this is a new journey for me...again.

Advance or Retreat...

I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but I think the trip to Michigan started it. Having 2 run-ins with the in-laws, and being devastated about how my nephew is treated didn’t help much at all. Came home tired and upset. Found out my garden is dying because of too much rain. Found out my daughter is posting bad stuff about me on Facebook. My son is missing his friends in Michigan. I’m too far away from my church to have any close friends there. Feeling left out and isolated like nobody wants me around. Feeling like I give and work and serve, but don’t get much in return. So many things going through my mind. You could say I have been depressed lately.

*although not everything was bad on our trip! We got to participate in the GenerationNEXT retreat with the kids, which was awesome! It was indeed nice that parents were welcome to attend!!

Where do those thoughts come from? I don’t know for sure. It’s either Satan trying to bring me down, or it’s God putting me in a place of needing Him more, which is probably a good place to be because I had thoughts of throwing in the towel. (No, I am not suicidal, just means giving up)

So, here I am at a ladies retreat that I did NOT want to come to. Spending all day in a car full of ladies was pretty tricky. Lots of conversations going on and not entirely sure what to say a lot of the time. Of course I never was good at group situations because my voice doesn’t get heard. When there are “talkers” around, my voice is easily trampled and become useless.

Anyway, last night we had a session on seeing ourselves as God sees us. It was very good. The speaker talked about wrong perceptions and wrong thinking that causes insecurity, inferiority, and inadequacies. Seems to be right up my alley, huh? Even though most everything I’m thinking is true, I need to learn to deal with it better. I think it’s funny that there is a seminar today called Learning Patience in God’s Waiting Room.

I always believed that God didn’t put friends in my life because they would be too distracting for me. I didn’t want to become the kind of woman that always got on the phone or ran to a friend if I had a problem. I think too many times women especially do that instead of running to the Lord. I think in a lot of ways, being alone with my boys was the best thing for all of us because we didn’t have outside influences or other people’s thoughts and ideas weighing on us. I always believed that when it was in God’s perfect time, there would be a good friend for me. I still believe that, but sometimes when I’m sad and lonely I get frustrated and feel like nobody wants me around, and that I’m just being used. And the fact still remains that I’ll never live closer to church, so I’ll never have good friends there, or get invited to things. Such is life. I prayed and prayed to belong to that church, and now that I do, I’m kind stuck in limbo land. I manage to get there to serve and give, but not to have fellowship or grow in personal relationships. You could say I don’t get to do the fun stuff, and it really does crush my heart.

God, when will it be my time to be in close relationships with people? When will things change? Do you want me to be satisfied with where I am now? If this is where you want me, I will try to be content because I can’t change my circumstances.

He passed!!

Before the test...After the test...
Here is the proud owner of a driver's license! Kyle is finally street-legal, even though he has no desire to drive! hehe =) I'm happy he did it! Kinda funny to me that I was his driving teacher.

GenerationNEXT Retreat

We left Michigan and headed into Erie, PA. And as you might be able to tell from this picture, it really was eery driving into it. Hannah’s family was standing in procession line fashion to greet us as we entered their house. It was so cute. So, after the formal introductions and getting acquainted with the McMichael family, there was a time of male bonding. Kyle loved shooting the airsoft guns. Now we’re gonna have to get him one! (I wasn’t so bad with it either, I hit my first target!)

Kyle had a blast at the retreat and met lots of wonderful and friendly kids. Most of them were home schooled, which might explain why they were so nice. He can’t wait to go back again next year to see everyone, and build lasting relationships with other grace believers.

And I had my very first ever time of sleeping in a cabin.


Kyle nearly hit the bullseye! He was a natural! We should have done this years ago!




Hannah’s family was awesome. So glad we went out there for the retreat and to meet them all. Hannah is adorable and lovely, just as I imagined she would be.



Some really cool videos.

last day in Michigan

Here are a few more shots of our last day in Michigan. We had a very nice visit with Cynthia and her kids from Canada. I know Kyle will miss everyone!!

Kyle's vacation

Kyle's been having a fantastic time in Michigan with his cousins and lots of fun friends. They've been doing a lot cool and fun stuff together (yo-yoing, bowling, RPing, video games, movies, playing pool, eating!).
Jon got his Pimpernel hair cut off, but left a little padawan braid.
Here's part of the gang.

Ryan's vacation

There are hundreds of pictures of Israel on Facebook, and maybe sometime I will go through them and pick out some nice shots of things there, but for now I'm just posting some nice pictures of Ryan!!





Father, thank You for taking care of my son, and Your son, while he's away from home.