Thoughts

So that's it for my pictures.  Unless I start deleting blogs that I haven't published into books I won't be able to download anything new.  Good incentive to make some blog books over Christmas!! 

It may take me awhile to get to that so I thought that until then I would write more and share some thoughts with you.  A bit dangerous but what's life without a few risks right?

Right now I'm at home with the four children.  Will took one son to church to do some work and the rest are here with me.  They are waiting very (im) patiently for me to finish so that we can have lunch.  Nice hay??  It's good to be in high demand and have people waiting for you to wait on them:).

Therefore the really deep and amazing thought for today will be rather simple and perhaps old and tired.  You be the judge. 

Today, as on every Saturday morning we were doing chores.  I feel content about this process.  We all sit down once breakfast is done and make a list.  Every Saturday we change the way we choose who get's to do what.  Since I am rather big right now, more tired, grumpy, out of breath, and what ever other symptom for this ever so natural process of pregnancy, I feel very priveleged to have the least number of chores.  What a great deal!!  It's a great example of cause and effect.  The more I do this pregnancy number the more children I have to do chores and the less I have to do!!  This plan should work for oh maybe 15 to 20 more years.  Not bad, not bad.  I am truly blessed.

On Sunday, our minister was preaching about our sin and how we all have sin addictions.  Wow.  That got me thinking.  What is my sin addiction?  Things that we have a hard time letting go of.  And...we may start to eliminate that addiction from our lives in a certain way only to discover later that it was more deeply rooted then we thought and we have more digging and discarding to do.
One I will share is my discontentment.  Never truly content with how things are going - never showing the true thankfulness that I should.  I will be going my merry way doing something and then realize that the true motivation for doing that thing is because I actually am not happy with what God is doing with me.  I want bigger and better, I want to be the best.  Being obedient and trusting is easy when you don't have lots to lose but when you are older and have more to lose and perhaps feel like you deserve more, it get's harder.

So, it happened again this morning with the windows... As I'm washing I'm grumbling for everyone to hear. "Ughhh I can't believe how wet these windows get, and it doesn't wipe up very well. (quick plug: I used my new eco-cloth I bought from the school and LOVED it!!)"  Mesnwhile I am thinking "We need new windows, this is ridiculous, I can't believe we live like this, this can't be healthy!!, How much longer are we going to have to wait??  NOTHNG every get's done blah blah..." Pretty rotten hay?  My husband heard my grumbling and HE was blessed with a thankful spirit this morning and said "Yes, isn't it great how we have so many children to breath the air in this house to make our windows so wet?"   The part that I am most ashamed of is that he didn't have to say it once - he had to say it twice!! Twice, before I started to take it to heart and change my thoughts and my words.

Lord, help all of us to get to the heart of our sin addictions and repent when we need to.  Help us all to repent and smile knowing that in Jesus all of our miserableness is covered in Jesus' blood and that you love us despite of ourselves. Continue to work in us your Spirit of contentment so that no matter what our circumstances we can be thankful for all YOU do for us and never bitter.  AMEN

Thursday July 12th

We spent the night in a hotel because the temperature kept rising the further north we drove. 

Our thermometer in our van hit 42 degrees at one point.  Yikes!!!  We asked at a gas station if it cooled off at night and if we should tent and the answer to both questions was "no".  Don't argue with the locals is my mentality.

The next morning we let the kids play in the pool for awhile before we toured the Redwood Forest.

A map of the route we took to ensure we saw all the interesting sights the Redwoods had to offer.

I see these pictures of Ethan from 5 months ago and I can see how much he has grown since then - WOW!!!

Driving through a tree is really cool!!

Am I going to make it??

Yes!  But barely!!

Dad and Mom in love.

See his foot out the side?

Magnificent!!!

We stopped for a one hour hike through the forest.  We started at the end and I had a good laugh when we got to the beginning.  "Stay off the trees!" the sign warns.  Oops!!  At least we didn't let the kids pick the flowers!!

Nadia lovingly carried her doll on the whole hike.  So cute!!

Nope, we didn't climb on the trees at all!!!

We stopped somewhere past Medford OR at about 8pm that night. 

It was a very off day.  We had lunch at 3pm and dinner at 9pm. 

The next day we drove 10 hours to get home and surprisingly took no pictures of that day.

So it took 3 days to drive California (up the coast) and 1 day to drive all of Oregon and Washington on the I5.  We were quite sick of driving by then, but we had had a great time and were glad we were blessed to see that part of North America.  We were also blessed that no one was injured and that we were keep safe in God's care the entire time.  Thank you LORD!!!

Wednesday July 11th - Back in SanFran

This is where we spent the night - somewhere in the redwood forest.

We had relief from the heat.

It was a foggy day which made for stressful driving.

I want to frame all of those shots above!!

We stopped for a treat and Nadia even got her toes messy!

Back to where we started from. 

This time we drove over the Golden Gate bridge. 

Due to the fog - it was not that exciting.

See what I mean??

Back to some sun and the fertile fields of northern California.