exalt His Name...

Saturday, 18 June 2011

Family and Friends

In the month of May Renee's folks took Joshua, Rachel, and Madelynn far, far away to their home. Over a ten hour drive away. For a week. No kidding. It was just Joel, Renee and Hudson and boy, was it quiet! The time together was great, not only did Renee get to make breakfast when she wanted to, but both Joel and Renee got about a month's worth of projects done around the house and property.

We are still in amazement at Nina and Papa's generosity for taking the kids. Thank you!!

To pick up our kids after the week "vacation" we drove to Renee's grandparents' house to meet Papa and Nina. On the way we stopped and saw some good friends:

Brenda (Alfie's Mom) was visiting too, so we got to see her also!:

After a lovely visit with our friends we continued our travels. It is so easy to travel with one child. Wow.

We had to make a quick stop here, out of a non-traditional tradition (anyone know where this is? If you can guess correctly, we will clap and cheer for you):

It was such a joy to see the kids again! They hadn't changed one bit, and I (Renee) realized how much I loved and missed them.

Great Grandpa and Great Grandma had not seen Madelynn since she was 6 months old and had not met Hudson yet. This too was a joy to see them hold and play with their great grandchildren:

It was a great visit and a great trip. It is amazing to see family members grow and mature in Christ. My cousin is going on a missions trip to Italy! She has such a heart for God and for people to know Christ. I don't know her very well, but it was so great to hear her talk and catch up with her a little bit.

I wish all my family (blood and non) lived closer, but I remember to cherish each moment that I do have with them and to pray for them when I am not with them.

Thursday, 16 June 2011

Some Good Reads

These are some books we've been reading lately...

This is a good one:

The book title is "Radical" by David Platt. The subtitle is 'Taking back your faith from the American Dream'. Really good read. It's worth the time, and it doesn't take that long to read. The author is quite humble and wrestles with the conflict of being a pastor of a mega church yet following a leader of a mini church. At the end of the book he gives five different challenges to the reader; challenges that will change lives, world views and faith.

Here's another good book, well, actually it's a bible:

Biblica came out with a TNIV (Today's New International Version) bible with no chapter headings, no verse numbers. It's just the text. And the books

are arranged in a chronological (when they were written) fashion. They are also grouped together according to the author. Joel and I have only experienced the New Testament version so far. But I've really enjoyed it. It's like reading a book, you just read it.

The downside: It's hard to find a specific passage or book.

A friend gave this one to me:

I've been drooling (well, ok, eyeing it) over this one for awhile.This book will tell you how to live off the land, raise cows and other livestock, grow a veggie garden, live without electricity, make candles, have a bee farm, how to cook, and so much more. It's title? The Encyclopedia of Country Living. Here's the blog.

What about kids' books? Yes yes, we've been reading those too. Here is one of my favorites right now:

The Llama Who had No Pajama. The book contains 100 poems. 99 of them are great! Well written poems that are easy to understand and talk about things that children are familiar with. There is one poem that I would caution about. But it provided a spring board for discussion about evolution. So maybe it's not all bad! Always learning, even about things we don't agree with.

This has been Madelynn's favorite book right now: