My Ebenezer

Ahhh, the world of Couponing. Say hello to that blissful feeling you get when you know you exited a store with a deal. ;) Jen and I have been slowly embarking on this strange and wonderful new voyage, also known as Operation Cut Your Grocery Bills. Jen has been at it a little bit longer than I have, and we both feel like we're just starting to get the hang of it. You definitely have to change your mindset about buying groceries. Instead of buying what I need for this week, I am learning to stockpile groceries based on sales and stocking up on what I will need later . This way you save money by not having to pay full price for something because you need it now and have no choice but to buy it at whatever price it happens to be listed at. Perhaps someday I will be able to post a picture of a week's worth of groceries and be able to exclaim in the caption, "And I got all this for $22.97!" or some other equally unbelievable price. Believe me, there are people out there wh...

We're back from our whirlwind trip to Virginia! We had such a great time sightseeing on Friday morning, and then at my niece Amy's wedding we got to see my family which is always nice. The car trip to D. C. was remarkably uneventful. Praise the Lord our car ran well and we didn't get stuck in any traffic. Noah was a peach! I had brought a bunch of toys and a portable dvd player, and between these things, a nap, and the Patch The Pirate cds we listened to, he was really well-behaved! The last hour of the trip was rough on all of us, since we were eager to Get There, and it had been a longer trip than expected. MapQuest had estimated the travel time to be 10 hours, but we didn't realize that was assuming the car wouldn't run out of gas, and the passengers would never need food or to use the bathroom. PAH! So just like that the 10 hour trip became a 12-hour one. :) The weather was BEAUTIFUL! It rained most of the time we were there (including Amy's wedding day!), b...

Lord-willing the three of us are headed up to Washington, D. C. tomorrow for my niece Amy's wedding on Saturday. I always think I'm planning ahead and going to have everything done in time for trips like these, and then the Day Before hits and I'm left scrambling. Finish Laundry. Pack. Check my list. Fill Car With Gas. Make Sure I Know How To Work New Portable DVD Player. Mow The Lawn.... Why did I not do these things earlier??? Anyway, for now the plan is to head out early tomorrow morning and arrive in D. C. about rush-hour time (yaaaaaaaaayyyyyy!). Friday we're going to try to see some sights since I've never been to our nation's capital before. Saturday is The Wedding, and then we're planning to head home after that sometime. I do believe we're planning to bring a computer, but who knows if I'll have time to blog. But maybe this time I'll actually get more than a handful of photos, what do you think? (Note to self: pack the camera!)

Carrie Bennett and her family are here presenting their ministry to New Zealand at Victory Baptist Church! Mike, Carrie's husband, was the youth pastor here for a couple years and she and I became good friends. We've missed them since they've been gone (left at the end of 2008 to start their deputation), but it was good to get together again at the zoo! Lord-willing, Josh and I plan to attend the Tues night meeting at Victory, so hopefully today wasn't the only chance we had to see them. Champion Rock Climbers: Caleb, Noah, and Titus Noah got to feed a giraffe for the first time!! (Thanks, Pastor Mike!) Sidenote: you all know that a giraffe's tongue is really long....but have you ever seen one up close?? Noah was laughing so hard! Who let the monkeys out? :) Carrie and Abe No visit to the zoo is quite complete without visiting the Splash Park! Unless of course, it's January. But it's not.

Well, maybe we didn't hit the books, but we descended on the Downtown Library for a morning of fun! I had never been there in the 5 1/2 years we've lived in Jacksonville, and I was in for a treat. You go up to the second floor of the library and here's what you see: And it just gets better! You almost forget you're in a library. Mushroom stools, manatee couches, a huge boat, and a circular Crocodile couch...not to mention the outdoor courtyard with a fountain! Noah thought he was in heaven. :) The kids also had the opportunity to make pirate hats, in celebration of National Talk Like A Pirate Day (ARRGGH! did you know that was today, Matey??). We all had so much fun, and were delighted that a new family from church was able to come!

Matt and Jen are once again our heroes, as they watched Noah for us last evening so we could have a date. Dates, I'm finding, are vital to a marriage! For ours last night, we went to Cracker Barrel and enjoyed dinner together. Good food. Uninterrupted conversation. No cutting up of anyone else's meat. Bliss. :)

Believe it or not, the weather has been cooling off here. "Cooling" being highs in the 80's with a breeze instead of the 90's with no breeze. So we're still pretty warm, but at least in the evenings it turns nice. Fall is coming! I took Noah to the park last week with his bike while we were waiting for Josh to come home and I got a short video of him riding it. About half the time Noah still needs a little help to get going initially, but after that he can do it himself. By the way, that's HUGE these days--doing things "all by myself." I must hear that phrase 50 times a day! Sometimes it's fine, such as when he's riding his bike or getting into the car. But when he wants to break an egg into a hot pan or cut up a pear or squeeze shampoo out of the bottle I usually take over. Noah, trust me; you'll thank me later that I didn't let you do everything all by yourself! :)

(I read the following in "Romancing Your Husband" by Debra White Smith, a book I'm currently digesting at the rate of about a page at a time. It amused me deeply; not that I can necessarily relate to this... Oh wait, I can! That's why it was SO FUNNY!!!) BBQ is usually the only type of cooking a "real" man will do. When a man volunteers to do such cooking, the following chain of events is put into motion: 1. The woman goes to the store to buy all the ingredients for the meal. 2. The woman fixes the salad, vegetables, and dessert. 3. The woman prepares the meat for cooking, places it on a tray along with the necessary cooking utensils, and takes it to the man, who is lounging in a chair. 4. The man places the meat on the grill. 5. The woman goes inside to set the table, put out the condiments, and check the vegetables. 6. The woman comes out to tell the man the meat is burning. 7. The man gets up, takes the meat off the grill, and hands it to the woman. 8. Th...

My niece Amy is getting married next week (NEXT WEEK, Ames!) and I guess I've gone all sentimental again. What is fascinating to me is the fact that there are so many people on the face of this earth, and God can choose a certain two and bring them together. From any part of the country or world, from any background, He can work individually in their lives and allow them to meet and find that certain something in the other person that is irresistible and that makes a completeness you can't find every day. Isn't God good? This fall will be 10 years since Josh and I first met and I've been doing a lot of reminiscing about that lately. What would really be fun is to find some old pictures of Josh and me and post them with the story of how we met. That is something I never want to forget, since I can see the Lord's hand so clearly at work. Maybe I'll work on that in my spare time (what spare time?). For now, I've got to get back to the work I have at hand. Have...

Do you ever feel as though your days aren't quite long enough? I have such a noble list of Things To Do, and I genuinely want to do each and every thing on that list (okay, well maybe I'm not dying to call the billing department of my doctor's office to try to fix--for the umpteenth time--a mistake they made which could end up costing us $200! But I want to do everything else.) I've been doing the Flylady thing with rave reviews from myself and Josh (you really should check it out! http://www.flylady.net/ ), but between that and the other things on my list I feel like my days are jam-packed! Among other things, my To Do List includes: Delving Into The World Of Coupons. When Melanie was here, she was very persuasive that "couponing" is the way to go. Melanie is the Queen of Deals! She can walk into a store and check out paying pennies on the dollar, and sometimes getting items free or with overages!! Melanie got Jen started, and I've decided to try i...

This is now Noah's favorite game: He'll walk in front of you, turn around with a twinkle in his eye, and say with a squeal in his voice, "Don't get me!!" and then run giggling away. Of course, this is Noah's first attempt at reverse psychology and he's really dying for you to chase him. :) It is so funny, and if you have the energy to chase him, even better because you'll both end up laughing hysterically. I love it! I also wanted to record some pronunciation foibles he has so I never forget them: Funderdorm (thunderstorm. I wrote that one in a previous post) Truce Ba-Tee Church (Truth Baptist Church) Mufroom (mushroom) Gore (girl) Squorr (squirrel) Bider (spider) Bwana (banana) O-gurt (yogurt) He has also been trying on different laughs recently. He'll say something and then laugh in a way that's totally not him. It could be cheesy, fake, high-pitched or loud, but he's been trying out different ways to laugh and it's been quite amusing...

I've been hesitating to post this because I try to keep my blog upbeat and positive. I try not to make it all about one topic (so as not to bore you and also to try to represent many of the facets of my family's daily life) and I try not to throw pity-parties. But I also want it to be real. When I started this blog, my primary goal was to keep a journal that was sincere and an accurate account of where the Lord has led us; complete with all the bumps, laughter, obstacles, failures and victories along the way. I think it's important to be able to look back on your life and see very clearly that the Lord was leading and answering prayer--for my spiritual benefit, but also just to remember what life was like! It is with this in mind that I write this post. Not to depress you, but to give an accurate account of what I have been facing over the last few days or so. This has been a hard "infertile" week for me. I have these occasionally; days where it seems like everyon...

Last night we started Ladies' Meetings again after taking a break over the summer. The difference? THERE WERE MORE THAN 2 LADIES THERE!!! :) I know Jen was excited, and so was I, to have 7 ladies in attendance!!! We met at Lisa's home and had a terrific time of fellowship, games, a preview to our new Bible study, and of course food! (Can you have a ladies' fellowship without food?) It was such an answer to prayer to see all the ladies that God had brought together. Already it seems as if the Lord is knitting us into a church family, and that is a huge blessing! We can't wait to see what the future will bring and experience the fellowship of other sisters in Christ.

As promised, here is what the dock over at Cellar Circle looks like now that it is "finished." Technically it's still not all the way done because we'd like to add another ramp on the other side, and the very end of the dock still needs a board or two before I'd call it done, but anyway, here it is! Lower tide High Tide. P.S. Doesn't it look like Josh and Noah are standing on the water? :) They're on the other side of the dock on the beams where one more ramp will go.

Despite the heat, we Playpals had a great time at the zoo this morning for our activity! Besides Jen and me and our kids, we had Kelly and her daughter Brooke, as well as Amy (a friend of Kelly's) and her son Aidan. The kids enjoyed all the animals, and the moms enjoyed the fellowship. :) Animals, animals everywhere, and all these kids want to do is climb on the rocks! And jump in puddles. :) Amy on the left, Kelly and Brooke on the right. Lined up at (I believe) the zebra exhibit. Jen has a snazzy new haircut! She was showing Brianne the giraffes. Noah and me in front of giraffes. No caption necessary. :) The girls' side and the boys' side. They learn young, don't they? :) I thought this would be a fun view. My Noah. What a guy!