The high school theater program hosts a camp each summer to raise funds for their UIL program during the school year. One week with a performance on Friday. The children love it. The productions are impressive. 

This year was an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.

​About 10 years ago I went on a mission trip with my husband to Guatemala. The missionary was a very young windower with 5 children ranging in age from early 20's to about 6 years old.

One evening he was talking about his life before he started serving the Lord. Making selfish choices, putting his desires above the needs of his family, and not being in partnership with his wife, nearly robbed him of his joy and his promise.

He told me about his wife who would pray for him daily as she ironed his clothes.  She would approach the throne of heaven of behalf of her husband who was busy seeking other things. She prayed that as the clothes would protect him from the elements that the Lord would protect him from people and places that would do him harm. The Lord would be his protection. She even prayed that he would be uncomfortable in his clothes should he find himself in a situation that was not honoring to the Lord.

Her prayers were answered. One night he was somewhere he didn't need to be and felt the prompting of the spirit so forcefully, it was undeniable. He went home and his life was spared. Had he been where he planned,  he most likely would have been killed that night.

He turned his life around.

This woman who faithfully ironed and cared for her husband for years found herself with a new man living in her house. Her devotion to seeking the will of her Father saved her family.

Today as I ironed the dress shirt that a man who has become like a son would wear at his wedding, I remembered this story and prayed. Prayed that when he stands, he is grounded. When he enters into this covenant, it would be blessed and sacred. That he would know that he will always have people who will take care of his needs, even something as trivial as an ironed shirt. That he is a son,  deeply loved, chosen and adopted. Again and again as an example of the love of God.

I prayed that as he begins his new family that he would lead and love as Christ. That he would bless others around him as he has been blessed. 

An hour and a half before our reservation, and after an email reservation request at least a day in advance followed by an email response and a list of rules regarding said reservation, we left the resort in a taxi bus with some friends for lunch.

​Ocean Grill, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

It was love a first sight. We were taken by the beauty and the ambiance. Lunch in an amazing tree house.

Shrip and Red Snapper.

We have some big plans for this year and we need to be intentional and on the same page as a couple if we are going to accomplish these. To help make it possible, we are budget planning. One thing that we have found that really helps us is naming every dollar so that they all have a purpose. Dave Ramsey has a simple to follow cash flow plan that we mimic. 

It helps us to make an Excel document so that we can see our money and where it's going, where we can cut back or alter our choices. I also found a Dave Ramsey budget template for us to modify and share on Google Docs. (Google Doc is a cloud based file sharing platform that allows us to work together on the budget from our laptops, phones, etc.)   There are quite a few lines on the spreadsheet so we can list every expense imaginable. It keeps us forgetting something. We modified the template quite a bit to just use the lines and categories that are relevant for us.

Happy Budgeting! - Mom

Making breakfast,  hot drinks, soup and more so much fun, we can hardly stand it! This mug is larger than your normal mug. You can use the large setting on your Kureig to get quite a bit of hot coca goodness. We found ours on Amazon and it was a HUGE hit. We got them for both boys and they have used them every day since they opened them.

Santa brought me a Gummy Candy Maker for Christmas and while we are snowed in we thought we'd give it a try. They were delicious and so easy to make. We used knox gelatin and sugar free cherry for our first batch. The entire batch only had 15 calories! The bears and worms only lasted a few minutes here so we are off to make batch #2!

​- Addison

Tonight at Girl Scouts, we made posters about why we love the town where we live. The posters are going to be part of our decoration for our float at the annual Lions Club Harvest Festival this month. We all talked about the same things  on our posters - the fun we have at our different activities and the friends that we have here. It's a pretty great place to live!

- Addison