2010 Reading List

This is a glimpse at what's on my nightstand, bookshelves, floor....a running list of books which I'm reading or hope to read in 2010. Books in red have been READ....If I've reviewed it on the blog, the title should be a different color. You can click the title to read the review.

The Holy Bible

Biographies
Stubborn Twig - Lauren Kessler

Ten P's in a Pod - Arnold Pent III
Gift from Mikado - Elizabeth P. Fleming
Molly Brown: Unraveling the Myth - Kristen Iversen
The Romanovs - Robert K. Massie
Dawn - Elie Wiesel
Night - Elie Wiesel
The Testament - Elie Wiesel

Family
Heartfelt Discipline - Clay Clarkson

Biblical Parenting - Crystal Lutton

A Turansky Book

Sacred Influence - Gary Thomas

Health
The Maker's Diet - Rubin - Maybe. LOL
What the Bible Says About Healthy Living - Rex Russell

The One Day Way - Chantel Hobbs

 Parenting
The Out of Sync Child - Carol Stock Kranowitz, M.A.
The Joyful Home School - Mary Hood

The Out of Sync Child has Fun - Carol Stock Kranowitz, M.A.

Christian Life

Dug Down Deep: Unearthing what I believe and why it matters - Joshua Harris

Understanding and Applying the Bible - Robertson McQuilkin

The Ever-Loving Truth - Voddi Baucham, Jr.

Un Christian - David Kinnaman

Primal - Mark Batterson

The Enemy Within - Kris Lundgaard

Watchman Prayer - Dutch Sheets

Sparklng Gems from the Greek: 365 Greek Word Studies for Every Day of the Year.... Rick Renner

A Place of Quiet Rest - Nancy Leigh DeMoss
Flashpoints - Stephen Arerburn
Daring to Dance with God - Jeff Walling
A New Kind of Christian - Brian McLaren

Non- Fiction - Misc

The White Horse King - Benjamin Merkle

Tea with Hezbollah - Ted Dekker

Fiction - pure fluff for enjoyment!!

Death of a Garage Sale Newbie - Sharon Dunn

Books I tend to read annually:
Sally Clarkson
Leading Women to the Heart of God - Lysa Terkeurst
Intimate Faith - Jan Winebrenner

Choosing Joy!
©2010 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Welcome 2010!

From 2010-01-01 New Year

Unbelievable. The past ten years have raced by. Ten years ago we had 7 children...our oldest was 14 and our youngest was a newborn. Mike was newly returned from a deployment. We lived in San Antonio, TX. Mike was a Chaplain (Capt) in the USAF. Today we have 9 children. Four of them are adults...our oldest is 24 and our youngest is 4. Mike is a Chaplain (Maj) in the USAF and prepping for a new deployment. We live in Misawa, Japan and have all nine children here to celebrate.

I look forward to the next ten years.

Filling the last hour before mid-night...

Stacia obviously had a plan when she bought this for Mike for Christmas

From 2010-01-01 New Year

From 2010-01-01 New Year

From 2010-01-01 New Year

From 2010-01-01 New Year

A NEW YEAR!!!!

From 2010-01-01 New Year

From 2010-01-01 New Year

From 2010-01-01 New Year

From 2010-01-01 New Year

From 2010-01-01 New Year

Happy New Year to you and yours!

EVERYONE IS HOME!
Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Contentment

is going from this size (8 inch)

From 09 December

To this size! (huge size though it doesn't show)

From 2009-12-31

Chili

From 2009-12-31

Stacia invented a new dance....Cy stands still and she runs around him

From 2009-12-31

From 2009-12-31

From 2009-12-31

We walked to the pond - it's frozen

From 2009-12-31

EVERYONE IS HOME!
Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Making the Most of the Day

Yesterday was another full day. We arrived at the photo studio at 10:00 a.m.

We left there at 12:30 and went for lunch. We were back at the photo studio at 1:30 p.m. to view proofs. They told us our photos would be ready at 2:00 p.m.

Stopping traffic in Misawa - you know I realized yesterday that my Identity is "mom of 9" and I'm used to the stares that go with that...both on base and off. I'm still adjusting to being a "mom of 5," which is my identity at this base (sorta, you KNOW what I mean don't go spiritual on me).

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

Playing at Chuo Park while we wait for photos

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

Found an elusive geocache on the train

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

Picked up photos and headed for Tonomi Clan Memorial. I CHECKED on the website to be sure of times....but they were closed when we got there. Bummer. That's it in the background.

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

We came home. Played with Zander's new pogo stick.

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

Yowzer - better think about protecting future grands...

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

Krista made a wonderful dinner. We cracked up at the sink height again.

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

We found our last two advent hides.

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

This photo led to us doing stair step photos, Liz.

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

We used to have stair steps......and we would often take photos with them lined up oldest in the back to youngest

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

...but we can't see the last two in this arrangement any longer. ::snort::

Our "stair steps" with oldest in front....note the skillet Bre got Stacia for Christmas. ::snort::

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

We decided to do a stair step photo according to height....and Arielle is welcomed in to the "taller crowd"

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

Only to have her position challenged by Krista

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

Ah, here we go. The heights look off, but Bre has more fluffed up hair. ::snort:: You can trust the arrow...which was called on several time in the arranging of this photo.

From 2009-12-30 geo, stairsteps, etc

We're not sure what we'll do today. We KNOW everything will be closed on New Years Day. The girls leave early on the 2nd. We may try to find a souveneir shop that's open...but I fear that most things will be closed today.

EVERYONE IS HOME!
Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Family Photo "2010"

We were quite the object of awe at the photo studio. This was a blast! Wearing a kimono is an amazing experience. Instant posture...instant 15 lbs added. ::snort::

From family photo - 2010

The guys made quite a few jokes about their attire, but I thought they looked incredibly handsome.

Samurais of the G clan

From family photo - 2010

The ladies got a kick out of the men folk clapping and cheering for each of the finished ladies. They dressed us, did our hair....accessorized us. Note our proper Kimono stance...one leg straight, one bent, both at peculiar angles.

From family photo - 2010

We debated on spending the better part of a day on a family photo, but I'm glad we did. A few eyes were misty as we saw the girls all dressed up....Arielle and Stacia did me in....they grow so quickly. I could think of some great shots...but they seemed to have standard shots and aren't into creativity. I thought Stacia standing in front of the men with their swords would have been great.

The ladies and photographer made many nice comments about the children and ME having nine of them. ::snort:: The dressing process to wear one of these things is incredible. WOW. We felt a bit strange running around town afterwards with teased and poofy hair... ::grin:: This was the ultimate dress up party.

EVERYONE IS HOME!
Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Showa Daibutsu - Big Buddha in Aomori

Warning, this is a very photo intensive blog post, we had five cameras.

Josiah got off the plane and said, "Show me Japan!" This was GREAT to hear as we need to do a lot in the next three days so that the girls know they've been in Japan. ::snort::

We now have to drive two cars everywhere we go. No storms were in the forecast. Mary had sent us a big file of driving directions to various spots around Japan. We have a few ideas of things to check out. We set out for Aomori. My general observations of the trip: there is more snow up there, I don't want to drive up there alone to fly to Korea in March (maybe I'll fly from here to Tokyo to Korea), Japan is gorgeous, lots of long tunnels - which the kids love.

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha Mike

Here are 9 + Mike looking like they are in Japan. ::snort::

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha De'Etta

The Showa Daibutsu (Big Buddha) was built in 1984. It's made of bronze, is 70 feet tall and weighs 220 tons. The Big Buddha is located on the grounds of the Seiryuu-ji Temple (Blue-Green Dragon Temple). The local phone number is 017-726-2312. We got the feeling they were closed today. They are CERTAINLY gearing up for the New Year celebration. They took our money and allowed us to walk around and look. We had the place to ourselves, which was nice for photos. Buddhists journey here to pray for the repose of their ancestor's souls and to pray for the peace of their dead children's souls. I'll have to write more about that later.

The Blue Green Dragon Temple - as you come into the parking lot.

From 2009-12-29 Jamin Big Buddha

We'll go back when it's warmer and take a long look inside. Next we happened upon a pagoda.

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha De'Etta

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha Krista

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha Mike

There were statues all around. I'm sure we'd take more photos in warmer wheather.

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha Mike

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha Krista

The windmills are left in memory of dead children, miscarried and aborted babies.

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha De'Etta

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha Krista

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha Krista

The Big Buddha

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha Mike

Mike took this photo to show perspective - compare the Buddha to our 6 footers

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha Mike

This is dedication....get the shot at all costs. ::snort::

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha De'Etta

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha De'Etta

Hat

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha De'Etta

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha De'Etta

Fingers

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha De'Etta

Big Bubba - not to be confused with Big Buddha

From 2009-12-29 Jamin Big Buddha

Yes, I explained that if there were other people around he could not do this. LOL

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha De'Etta

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha De'Etta

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha De'Etta

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha Mike

New car model

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha Mike

Did you make it this far? Do you need a sign to tell you this is a male bathroom? The urinals did that for me. ::snort:: And WHY are they in front of a glass, sliding door? We've seen this before. This photo was taken from the OUTSIDE of the men's bathroom.

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha Krista

Jared had the idea that he and Jamin could sit in the back seat, put the middle seat down and have leg room.

From 2009-12-29 Big Buddha Krista

If you are local, you can find driving directions to the Big Buddha here. If you have a GPS the coordinates are N 40 40.611 E 141 21.270.

EVERYONE IS HOME!
Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...