Just a few more pictures of our vacation. One of my girls with Noah, the Serendipity house from Nights in Rodanthe with Josh, Jenny and me helping Noah walk on the sand that he didn't like and two of my boys on the deck solving the problems of the world. Well maybe not quite. What a great time we all had.

Just a few pictures of our family vacation. What a wonderful time we had. We spent part of it on the Outer Banks beaches and part of it in our Nation's great capital. The history in DC is simply amazing. Too much to see in just a few short days. We saw lighthouses, dolphins and the house from the Nicolas Sparks' movie at the Outer Banks. Don't know exactly why I am so drawn to that place but I am. I will have to go back in a couple of years or so. Sigh.

Girls, I have something today burning on my heart. This is not my usual posting about my family but it is about families. As I have grown older and been married longer, I feel I have learned so much about what God would have us as wives and mothers become. I have always wanted to be the best wife and mother I could be but when I was young I didn't know how. I'm FAR from perfect so don't get the idea that I think I have "arrived." I am still striving every day to accomplish what God would have me be and will until the day I die. But I feel I need to pass along the life lessons I have learned. Girls, we need to first and foremost be women of God devoting our lives to Him, loving Him, worshiping Him and getting to know Him better. Our next duty is to our husbands. This is one of the hardest things to do in this day and age. We as women have become so independent that sometimes we forget that we aren't the head of our families but that job is for our husbands. This is so important! But here's the catch. We have to ALLOW them to be the head of our families as God wants them to be, following them and trusting in their decisions for your family. Even sometimes if you don't fully agree with your husband in a decision he makes you still must follow his lead. If a mistake is made, your husband is responsible to God for it, not you. Girls, one of the worst things we can do is to nag our husbands into doing what we want. We must pray for them, love them, never talk negatively about them to others. We must make the home his retreat, a place he comes home to for rest and renewal of strength not a place he dreads coming home to because he knows when he gets home he is going to be constantly nagged into doing a "honey-do" list. Yes they do need to help around the house, especially if you are working outside the home. But nagging them NEVER works. It only brings friction to the home. Lovingly ask them for help and if they don't help you, don't go away mad or in a huff, just pray for God to intervene in them. Show them that you love them no matter what. Go about your chores and I guarantee you when your husband sees you working he will eventually begin to help. Love him into this DON'T NAG. All that does is make him rebel against you. It is up to us girls to make our homes peaceful, restful, joyful places for our husbands and children. We have a HUGE responsibility as women and this should never be taken without much prayer. If you are having friction in your marriage, don't give up. Never give up. Go to your pastor for help, begin praying together as a couple, just don't give up on each other. Go to the Word of God. When you show all of this love to your husbands, you are going to see wonderous changes in his attitude toward you and his life in general and he won't really even know why. Your husband may be the head of the family but we wives are the spines that hold him up. Go to Thirsty for Him for more on this subject.

It seems I have been gone forever but not really. ALL of my family, all four kids, one daughter-in-law, one grandson, one husband and me have been on vacation. This is not something we have done in a very, very long time. I don't have pictures up yet but soon will. We drove, yes I said drove with a 10-month old baby from Arkansas all the way to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. No we didn't stop and spend the night anywhere except for a few short hours at a rest stop somewhere along the way. That is 24 hours in a car there and 24 hours back home again. Whew! Next time, and I hope someday there will be a next time, we go anywhere that far away we will definitely be flying there. We went to the Outer Banks for a few days, drove up the coast to DC for a couple of days and back to our little beach house in Kitty Hawk for a few more days. I absolutely love the Outer Banks and I kind of think some in my family loved it too. It is so non-commercial there. None of the high-rise condos just mostly lovely little beach houses. Ours was right on the beach. In fact, the first night we were there because of Hurricane Bill some ways out in the Atlantic the waves were huge and the water came right up under our house. The kids said if we were anymore on the beach we would have to be a boat. We loved it. Got to see the house that was used in the film Nights in Rodanthe, got to see waves so large they were coming over the dunes and flooding some of the streets, saw several wonderful lighthouses and many historic sights in DC. Once I get the pictures up I will show you some of what we did. But for now just let me say we had a wonderful time but are very tired.

Wow this summer has just flown by. I can't believe it is almost over BUT we still have a little bit left and are going to take advantage of it. We will be leaving on Thursday night for the Outer Banks and DC. I can't wait. I will have tons of pictures to post when I get back.
Noah is feeling so much better. His Papa took him to Chick Fil A yesterday to play in their play yard and to have "brunch". Then they went to Toys R Us and Gary said his little eyes just couldn't hardly take it all in. Of course, Papa had to buy Noah something there. And they met another Grandpa and his grandson, Noah. Isn't that funny? Noah just loves to be with his Papa. What a fun time they had.
Saturday, Karen and I went to this huge garage sale...Bargains Galore on Highway 64. Wow, there sure was lots of stuff to sift through. We did find quite a bit of Fire King glassware and I bought a fireplace mantel that will be going in my new patio area after it is rebuilt. We had a storm about a month ago that ripped part of the cover of the patio off and left it on our roof. So now the entire patio cover will have to be replaced and the builders are supposed to start on that today. When they are finished I will post before and after pictures including storm pictures if I can figure out how to download them from my phone. Gary has been painting the exterior of the house and when the patio cover and roof is completed our house will look great. It should all be done by the time we get back from our vacation.
Well, of course I have to post new pictures of Noah so here they are.

Hasn't he changed in just a few short months? Wow. He is into everything now and he is not even walking yet. I can't imagine how much more he will be into after he starts walking. The first picture was when he was just 7 HOURS old and now he is 9 MONTHS old. Poor little thing has been sick this week with some kind of viral infection. This is the first time he has been sick.
BTW, I have found a great place to have my entire blog printed out in book form. This gives me a journal of the last two years including all of the pictures I have posted AND the book is great quality. I am so pleased with it. It is called Sharedbook. Tons better than me trying to print out the entire blog.

Yeah! Stellan has gone home and is looking great! Thank you God for your wonderful healing power.
Wow. How fast this summer has gone by. I can't believe school starts in just two weeks. I don't have any children of school age but I am involved with elementary age school kids at church. In the summer we do a VBS but with a twist. We take a 5-day VBS program and break it down into an every Wednesday night program for 10 weeks. It actually works out very well for our needs because of needing some kind of program for Wednesday night worship. My DIL has been teaching the same group of girls for about 5 years now and last night she was saying how some of them are going to be promoting up into the youth group this fall and how sad she was going to be to see them go.
Also it is just two weeks until we go on our family vacation. We haven't taken a vacation with all of our family in a long time. Everyone is really getting excited. We are going to Kitty Hawk, NC and then on up to DC. AW, the beach. I don't know what it is about the beach but my sisters and I absolutely love the beach. We don't really care about going in the water just being on the beach. And we love the Outer Banks which is where we are going this year. I can't believe I got my family to follow me out there. WooHoo.