Saturday, December 20, 2014

Hobbits, licenses and bread.....and a Christmas Letter?

In our home you have to read certain books before you can see the movie version. Stacia has worked hard to finish the Hobbit before it was released.

The result of Stacia's accomplishment was that we all found ourselves at the movie theater bright and early this a.m.  It was a good movie. We still think the books are better. ::wink::  After seeing this one Stacia asked if the Lord of the Rings movies were like this. When we told her pretty much - she responded, "I'm not sure I'll keep reading the Lord of the Rings books."  ::snort::  Seriously they spent a whole, long movie on things that took one or two chapters in the book. LOL 

Other exciting news of the day is that Arielle received her FOR REAL license!!!!

 We're a bit "off" today.....I'm feeling a bit numb. This has been a challenging year for our family. I was trying to write our Christmas letter yesterday morning and couldn't figure out what to leave out and what to put in.....and was telling God  we'd really like less challenges in 2015.....I decided to think about it a bit more and write it today...then heard Mike the Elder has passed away.

Michael has slept, talked with Bre and worked on sermon prep.  The kids have read and played games. Arielle and I cleaned and ran a couple of loads of laundry.

Stacia and I baked bread - two whole wheat oatmeal, one cinnamon, one garlic/herb and one braided garlic herb.....the smells are amazing as I sit here and blog. Stacia formed her first loaves all alone today.....this is serious business!  She actually did her first when she was 3, but she doesn't remember.
 
This is our second try with this recipe. I used my technique and their ingredients. Two of the loaves rose like I expect. The two with add ins didn't.......I guess I'll have to keep playing with them.

I'm going to have one of my favorite dinners....and then I'm going to sit in the hot tub, look at the stars, sip a cup of tea and remember a conversation I had with Pat yesterday. Before hearing of Mike's death....the take away is that sometimes there are things we really want to do, or things we know we are called to do - those are the things we should quit stalling on..... Really another aspect of the "word" I've been meditating on since the spring...."Live Life Fully...."
 
The "Christmas" Letter can wait a bit longer.  
Choosing Joy!
©2014 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Still Traveling

Here are a few more glimpses of our traveling wise men. Each day they remind us to worship Jesus. 
 
We worship Jesus because he became one of us and walked in our shoes! 

We worship Jesus because He saves an accurate perspective of our past (camera bag).
 
We worship Jesus as He is the entrance to the Kingdom and relationship with Father God.
 
We worship Jesus as He is always with us (suitcase).

 
Standing on a stack of vacuum sealed blankets - We love Jesus because He's a soft place to land and He lights our path. 
 
We love Jesus because He warms our hearts.

I didn't do so good this week after our trip. We had SO MUCH to do...and we entered the door running.....but I remembered this a.m.  A good thing to remember on this day of sadness.

We worship Jesus because He stitches together all the threads of our lives. 


Choosing Joy!
©2014 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...