Fall in VA

Happy Thanksgiving!

This being the last day before "it's okay to put up the Christmas stuff," I figured I'd post the pictures I've taken of our gorgeous VA fall. Most of the pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago, so the colors are nowhere near as vibrant now. Hope you enjoy a little taste of VA fall around town and our apartment.

A pretty sight right next to our church/seminary.

Views from our porch.

Fall in our apartment

Our thankful pumpkin, a new tradition we started this year. It is now full of strips of paper we filled out during the week leading to Thanksgiving. Today we hope to read all of them together.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful time with friends and family thanking the Lord for all His wonderful gifts!

Weekend away

This weekend Roderick and I spent our first time apart. We have been married for almost a year and a half so that's pretty good! Sure did miss him, but I did have fun. Melody and I went to the East Coast ladies retreat in North Carolina with her Mom and some ladies from her church. There were 1200 ladies in attendance. The conference was very encouraging with the main speaker being John Bishop. He is a preacher who lost complete memory in 1995 after a bout with Meningitis. His wife had to teach him EVERYTHING...eating, walking, talking, reading... What a lady and what a story. He is now completely blind from further complications from the disease. However, he is one of the funniest and real speaker I've ever heard. On Friday night we crammed 5 ladies into a small hotel room. (Everything else was booked even though they tried to book a hotel "early.") I sure wish I had a picture! We were able to sell some of our Whimsical Welcome creations during the breaks...about 5 different times. AND we really did sell stuff this time! YEA!! Not everything, but a lot. It was really fun.

Saturday after the conference we went to visit Melody's grandma. She amazes me. She's 91 years old, lives on her own in a good sized house, still drives.... and made me some homemade applesauce!!! She gave me lots of hugs and reminded me of my Great Grandpa so much it brought tears to my eyes! Again, I don't have a picture of this wonderful lady, but I sure wish I did.

Saturday night we spent the night at Melody's house. We tried on formals, ate at Cracker Barrel, shopped, talked, and generally had a great time. Sunday we went to Melody's home church. In Sunday school we talked about Jehovah Witness', their beliefs and how to witness to them. It was very interesting and informative. The message was about money's affect on our relationship with Christ... Easier for a Camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich person to know Christ.

After the sermon we went to Bojangles's for a little snack and then some shopping. (I know ironic after the sermon!) It was Christmas open house in an area known as Arlington village. All the stores with full of Christmas shoppers and lots of goodies to eat. (Hence the little snack instead of a full meal.) I definitely fell in love with a little shop called Tickled Pink. Polka dots everywhere... I could have bought a lot in that store. Amazingly I walked out without buying a thing. My favorite was all their polka dot luggage in all different sizes a colors. They are definitely on my wish list, especially the carry-on sizes! I also really enjoyed another store called Pizzaz. It also had a lot of bright polka dots, but no luggage. It did, however, have a whole section of awesome ribbon and yes, I did purchase some. It was SO much fun!

The best part of the whole weekend was coming back home to my wonderful husband!! Who had straightened the whole house, vacuumed, folded all the laundry I didn't quite finish, plus wash a few more loads. He also had some flowers waiting for me. (I love flowers and thought I knew a lot about them, but I've never seen these ones before. I do love them though!! Anyone know their name?) I was happy just to see my husband again, but all the work he did made the reunion even sweeter!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend!!

A Wonderful Man...my Great Grandpa

A precious picture of my Great Grandpa and I. Just as I remember him!

Today I got the phone call that my dear sweet Great Grandpa went to be with the Lord last night in his sleep. I am deeply saddened, but so glad he didn't pass away in a lot of pain. I am so glad to know he is in heaven now with his Savior and free from any need for medication or oxygen. Isn't it such a joy to have confidence in life after death. Knowing completely that if a person accepts the free gift of salvation the Lord has given us, he/she will be with Him for all eternity in paradise. There is such comfort in knowing your loved one has accepted this wonderful gift, even in the midst of sadness!

I am so thankful to have had the privilege to know not only my grandparents, but also my great grandparents. "Grandpa" Hilliard had recently celebrated his 89th birthday. Over the years he had numerous "close calls," including a couple heart attacks and fluid on the brain. We used to call him the energizer bunny because he kept going, and going, and going......

I have so many fond memories of "Grandpa" Hilliard. However, my fondest and most vivid memory is the time he flew out to Colorado, only a few years ago, to spend a week with our family. I don't think we've had that much laughter and crazy jokes in our house since then. His laughter was so deep and contagious! We loved to the hear the story of him forgetting his suspenders when he went to Walmart and losing his pants at the front of the store as he reached for something on the top shelf. He did, however, have a belt on and it prevented the quick fixing of his mishap. He never forgot those suspends again! He loved the outdoors, and up until recent years, would spend many hours with a hose hand-watering the grass!

My parents and sisters were able to visit him in Oregon this past August when they went to celebrate my grandparent's 50th anniversary, his daughter and son-in-law. It was so much fun talking to "Grandpa" on the phone and hearing his wonderful laugh. My only regret is my husband never got the chance to meet him. I'm confident they would have got along so well and would have had lots of long fun talks.

Please pray for my parents as they make decisions regarding travel to Oregon and the funeral. Especially pray for my grandma, Norma, her sister and brothers. The funeral will be on Monday.

Some fun pics of us!

We never seem to have pictures of us together that are not "self-portraits." These pictures were taken by "Tuna" at the Grace Gathering on Sunday. I thought they were nice and decided to share them! Don't I have a handsome husband!!! Hope you enjoy.

Whimsical Welcomes **Edited**

This has to be a quick post. Melody and I are leaving soon for Virginia Beach for a Christmas Craft show in a Catholic church....

Last year around Christmas we decided to have fun and make some Christmas wreaths to sell. We purchased all the items really discounted, boxed them all up to store until we had time to make a few wreaths, and realised they were going to take up quite a bit of room! So about March or April we decided that we would only do this once. We had so much fun decorating them and preparing for our first big sale. (Listening to a little Christmas music in 80-90 degree weather to get us "into the Christmas mood.") We had high expectations that it would be an awesome day. Well, the first sale was a few weeks back. We woke up really early and were in Virginia Beach a little after 6 in the morning! As it began to get light and we started to look around the CRAFT/Flea Market we decided to sell in was really just a really big Garage Sale! = ( We found lots to be thankful for that day. However, making money was not on the list. We did end up selling a wreath hanger at the end of the day, but that didn't even cover the initial cost of setting up. It was also really windy all day, so we found ourselves standing holding our screens to display products all day thinking of lists of things to be thankful for.

Needless to say we are looking at this event with great interpretation. We did learn a lot from the first event so we made sure 1) it was a Christmas craft event 2) that the event was indoors! So we are praying fervently that today is a much better sale day. We still have a couple more events scheduled in the upcoming weeks. By God's grace I hope to have wonderful news of a great sale this evening! Otherwise, all of our family and friends should be prepared to have new wreaths for Christmas, and their birthdays, and..... Please pray with us that it is a great event and that we are able to be a testimony for Jesus Christ to those around us at the sale.

Hope ya'll have great plans for your weekends!

***Edited: Yeah we made a little money this time and we definitely had a good time! It wasn't a really busy show and a lot of the other vendors complained about the lack of profits. For us, however, at least selling something made the show a great one!!! Now on to another show next weekend at a ladies retreat. You may not all be getting wreaths for Christmas after all!!

Spirit Week

When I went to post on our election day, I realised I forgot to post these crazy pictures! A couple of weeks ago it was spirit week at my school. Even though I'm not there all day I decided to dress up. I thought the kids would enjoy it....PLUS I got to wear jeans every day if we had "at least 2 spirit items on." Not sure what the thrill is with jean, but I DID want to wear them. As you can tell in the following pictures, I arranged all my outfits around the wearing of jeans!

Monday- Sports Day

Go Ram's...our Alma Mater CSU's mascot.

Tuesday- Mad Scientist Day

On a side note: Notice all of the paraphernalia attached to me. I decided to take my old organic chemistry model kit out of the garage sale pile and add it to my outfit...because it fit the theme! One of my students LOVED it and when he heard it was in my garage sale pile he wanted it. About a week later, after I made completely sure his parents were okay with it, I sold it to him for a GREAT price. I guess I should have "accessorized" with more of my garage sale junk!

Wednesday- Dress from the Decades

I attempted the 50's

Thursday- Tacky Tourist Day

A Colorado Tourist... It was pretty cold that day. I was very happy for the gloves when we took the kids outside. Yes, it does sometimes get chilly here.

Friday - Gator day...or in other word School Spirit day

Special thanks to my wonderful husband who held a fashion show every day that week. He took all but the last photo. A couple of them right before we ran out the door, and later than he would have liked to be leaving! (HA HA... I am the perpetual late one around here!) Thanks for humoring me, Baby!

Our Voting Experience...

Roderick and I decided to head out to vote around 10 today. We reasoned that it would be the perfect time because everyone would already be at work and it would be too early for lunch. Well, unlike our friends the Branine's we did not "walk in and walk out." We walked to the end of an enormous line and waited it out. All in all we stood in the line for a little over 2 hours! It took our good friend Ulys almost 3 hours in the same line. (He arrived at 8:20, so maybe our idea of waiting until 10 was a good idea!) What an experience...but hey we still got a chance to exercise our right to vote.

Since I had my handy-dandy camera along, I was able to chronicle our experience. Hey, at least I got 2 hours with my husband....plus these great experiences.

About 45 minutes into the wait...the line in front of us....

...and the line behind us. Believe me it goes back further than the eye can see! While waiting in the line we got to shake the hand of a Congressman. He also hopes to still be a Congressman after the election! ( I said at least we get to see a "celebrity" while we wait!) And yes I did vote for him, but I was planning on it any way.

Getting Closer... Everyone still waiting, even in the rain! After we finally were able to cast our vote.

It will be interesting to see how this election turns out. I'm so glad we have confidence that our Lord is completely in control no matter what! I was reminded of this morning in Romans 13..."Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God."

After waiting so long, Roderick and I decided it was a Red Barron day! So I'm off to eat some pizza!