Coffee and Bibles

Every Wednesday, I meet with 2 friends for coffee and Bible Study. We pray together, encourage one another and hold each other accountable to consistently be in God's Word. We meet at a different coffee shop each week and we've decided to start a blog together to share what God is teaching us and also to critique the coffee shop we visited. I invite you to view this blog by clicking here.

Giving God the Glory in Hard Times

Some good friends of our family are going through a rough time right now. We love this family that we met through our daughter's swim team. They have 3 daughters, ages 8, 4 and 6 months. The month of April has not been kind to them. At the beginning of the month, the husband was laid off from his job. Then a little over a week ago the wife's mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer after a hysterectomy and removal of a fast growing tumor on the ovary. While her mother was in the hospital, the nurse walked in the room to find her father passed out on the floor due to high blood pressure. In addition to all the stress they're experiencing, the wife's cousin and his new bride are coming to the US from Thailand for their honeymoon. As is custom for their culture, the newlyweds will be staying at our friends' house for 1 1/2 weeks (they arrived today). This may not sound too bad, that is until you know that they live in a very small 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house. Then, just when they thought they couldn't handle anymore, last night their 2 dogs ran out of the house when their middle daughter left the door open and they were both hit by a car when they ran into the street. All of this happened in front of their 4 year-old daughter. One of the dogs died within minutes and the other one was taken to the pet ER, where he should recover after a lot of medical treatment and a very large bill. The oldest daughter has taken this very hard. We had the girls come to our house immediately after the accident so they could swim with our girls and play to try to keep their minds off of what had happened. The oldest daughter spent the night, which was a good thing so she didn't have to immediately return to her home without the dogs there. We ask for prayer for them as tomorrow they will get the results from her mother's surgery which will tell them how much the cancer has spread and what stage she is at.

So, what do you say to someone that is going through one hard thing after another? As I drove my friend to the pet ER last night to meet up with her husband, she shared that she just couldn't take anymore. I ached for her as she cried. It's so hard to assure someone that God is walking with them through this when the pressure just doesn't seem to let up. It took me back to the time 5 years ago when John underwent major spine surgery after being hit by a drunk driver. Just 8 days before his delicate, life changing surgery, I underwent surgery to try to avoid a hysterectomy. I was still recuperating as John went in for a surgery that had a fairly good risk of him coming out paralyzed (praise God he isn't). Then, just after he was home from the hospital, fires swept through Claremont and many other surrounding areas. At one point we had 12 evacuated people and all of their pets staying at our house. Immediately after that, I had the complete hysterectomy that I was praying to avoid. It was so hard to imagine at that time what God was doing. How was He going to use that to bring Him glory??? It took some time, but we slowly began to see God's purpose. I would never want to relive that period of time, but I'm content that it happened. It resulted in us growing much closer together as a family and strengthening our relationship with God. Although John still keeps a busy schedule, it really slowed down our pace of life so that we actually quit just going through the motions of life and really started living. John was home from work for 14months, which allowed him to be there for Kiley everyday after school while she was in kindergarten. We wish John wasn't left with lifelong pain, but that pain is a reminder of how far he's come. Just like the Apostle Paul, it also is a reminder to him to rely on God. There was a time that the physical therapists at Casa Colina said that he would never return to work, but he proved them wrong. God walked with us through every inch of that difficult time and He DID use it to bring Him GLORY! Last night I assured my fried that God IS with her and He WILL work all this for His good. So, as hard as it is, in all circumstances, Give God the glory!

Family Day & Makenna's 1st Rifle

Today was a full day! After a very long, busy week, we decided to dedicate the day to "family time." We started the day with church, which was fantastic, as always! After that, we went to lunch at Outback, always great food, and best of all, we had a gift card that covered our meal. From lunch, we went to Toys r Us so Makenna could use her gift card she's had since Christmas. She decided on a ball, play dough and sculpting foam. After that, we headed to the movies to see Disney's new movie, "Earth." It was a great movie (even with the sad parts as they show the circle of life) and we all really enjoyed it. After the movie let out, we went to Claire's (little girl heaven) so Kiley could use her gift card from Christmas. She got hair clips and a headband. Finally, it was time for John's favorite place, Pro Bass Shop. If you've never been there, it is HUGE with so much to see. Of course, we headed immediately upstairs, after watching the fish in the huge aquarium of course, where the hunting supplies are. We walked through the archery section so Kiley could look at the different bows and she also checked out the indoor archery range they have. Then, it was over to the gun section where John and Makenna were "oohing and awing" over all the guns. What can I say.....she is her father's daughter, she LOVES shooting. Her weapon of choice....a .22 rifle. She took her first shots last year while we were visiting the Weirs at their ranch near Paso Robles. That's when it happened! Makenna spotted herself a pink rifle and John was all over it! The
following pictures clearly state what happened next. Yep! Makenna, at 9 years old, got her 1st rifle! It is perfect for her, it's pink and just the right size. We weren't even out of the store when John started texting a picture of this proud moment in his life to all his friends. I must admit, I'm happy for both of them. John didn't get a son, but it appears that he doesn't have to worry about passing on his love of shooting and hunting to his child. With Makenna as a "shooter" and Kiley's love of archery, J is a happy man!

Women's Breakfast

Yesterday Janet and I went to the Women's Breakfast for our church, CCV. It was held at Via Verde Country Club and the theme was "All Things New." First of all, the Country Club is beautiful and the room was decorated perfectly for the theme. We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast, had our picture taken (they actually had a photographer there that will mail the photos to us for free) and visited the vendor booths. The vendors were all women from our church that have their own businesses...what a great way to support our sisters in Christ! Our speaker was Kathi Lipp from Northern California. She was fantastic, absolutely hilarious and filled with such wisdom. She spoke about the burdens we, as women, carry around with us. As she shared the different burdens we carry (expectations, addictions, comparison, "other people's stuff" and fear) she put a chain around her neck. There was a chain on every table and they handed out cards with ribbons on them and she had us write down burdens we are currently carrying. She then had each person at the table tie their cards to the chain, then we physically took the "chain with our burdens" and hung them at the cross. It was such an incredible, physical reminder that we're to surrender our burdens to Christ. We had a great day!

Makenna Gets Her Braces Off.....For Now

Monday was an exciting day for Makenna, she got her braces off! Before you get too excited (and I know you are), she will have to get them back on. She needs to get 4 permanent teeth removed and she also has 1 last baby tooth to lose. Once both of those happen and all of her permanent teeth are in, then she will get them back on to finish fixing her mid line that isn't lined up and close in the gaps. We compared her x-rays from right before she got them on to her x-rays just before they were taken off and the results are amazing. In just 10 months, the huge gap between her front teeth was closed, her mid line made great progress towards being lined up and her crooked teeth were turned how they're supposed to be. She still says her teeth feel slimy, but we all love her new smile, especially since it made her look younger. That's important to J and I since we don't want our "baby" to grow up! The above pictures show her just before getting the braces off and after getting them off.

Makenna's Long Course Swim Meet

Makenna had her first long course swim meet on Saturday and she did great! For those of you not familiar with swimming, the long course is when you swim the long length of the pool, so when you swim a 100, you swim 2 laps of 50's with just one flip turn. Makenna has always competed in short course meets where she would have to swim 4 laps of 25's to swim a 100. She happily embraced the new challenge. Because of the weekend swim schedule, she could only compete on Saturday. She competed in the 100 Freestyle and the 50 Breast stroke. We don't have the official results yet, but she had good times. An added challenge to this meet is that she had a birthday since her last meet, so she moved up an age group. Now, instead of being one of the older kids in her age group, she's back at the younger end of her age group and she's competing against some girls that are nearly two years older than her. As usual, she swam her heart out and had some great times, so we're not going to worry about where she placed once we get the official results. The most important thing to us is that she has fun and enjoys swimming competitively and that she continues to improve her times. With that said, she's a champion!

My New 2nd Blog

I've been wanting to start a second blog for several weeks now, but finally got it set up today. It's a blog for my daughters and a few other young women in my life that I love dearly. I invite you all to follow it if you like, even if you're not my daughters or one of those young girls in my life. :) I believe with all my heart that God wants to use the events in my life to bring people to Him. Through this new blog, I aspire to be completely open and transparent so that all that I share might help someone, anyone, but most of all, my precious daughters. Click here to connect to my new blog: http://fortheloveofmygirls.blogspot.com/

Annual 3rd Grade Egg Drop

Today was Sumner's Annual 3rd grade Egg Drop. John was extra creative with Makenna's egg and gutted a small hole in a Nerf soccer ball for the egg. He then wrapped the entire ball in bubble wrap and taped it up (by Makenna's request) with camouflage
duct tape. They then attached a plastic grocery bag to work as a parachute. It was a great success! Mr. D (the school principal) dropped all the eggs from the roof of the school and Makenna's egg survived! The pictures show Makenna with her wrapped up egg, Mr. D getting ready to drop it and the "happy face" sign over Makenna's head to show that the egg survived.

Kiley's Project is Finally DONE!!!!!

It is with great joy that I announce that Kiley's State Float project is DONE (at least the hardest part of it, we still have to construct the base)! Wow, it's been a rough week with hours of sitting with Kiley on the computer researching everything Pennsylvania, searching for pictures, cutting, gluing... Finally, last night at 10:15 I told Kiley to go to bed. She had it all laid out, it just had to be all glued together. One whole hour later, with everyone in the house asleep, I glued on the last peace and celebrated it's completion by myself. What relief I felt as I climbed into bed. This seems so sacrilegious, but the words came to my mind, "It is finished." So, it's not the crucifixion of Christ, not even minutely comparable, but the words went through my mind none the less. Now I can rest....until this evening when we have to figure out how to cushion an egg so it won't break when dropped from the roof of the school for the 3rd grade Egg Drop tomorrow.

Christ is Risen! Celebrating Easter

My favorite holiday, Easter, has come and gone, but the best part is that we can celebrate the cross everyday of the year! The day began early for our family as Makenna was scheduled to sing at all 3 morning services at church. The Easter bunny left baskets for the girls with a swim theme (swimsuits, noodles, pool toys, etc.) and candy. Then it was off to church. Once again, our church, CCV, went above and beyond to create an environment where all felt welcome and cared for even though about 6000 people were celebrating Easter there. It was an awesome service standing in the presence of the Holy Spirit. A comical moment in the day is when John showed up to church wearing the same shirt as our close friend, Bill. We had a great time teasing them along with the people sitting behind us in church, but it reached a whole new level of comedy when Pastor Jeff walked out on stage wearing the same shirt too! See the picture on the right of all three of them together. We really enjoyed watching Makenna and the other kids singing just outside the sanctuary as people entered the church. Click here to view the video.

We spent Easter day with John's side of the family (our usual arrangement) at his brother, Bob's, house. As always with John's family, the day was filled with old stories (the Budweiser raft story will never die), new stories and LOTS of laughter. This was an extra special year as our nephew, Earl, was able to join us. It never ceases to amaze me how well all the cousins get along considering they range in age from 23 months to 21 years. It was also nice to finally meet our niece, Piper's boyfriend, John (who I found to be a very nice young man). As usual, the older boys spent a lot of time playing video games and the younger kids spent a lot of time feeding the horses. It was a great time....I love John's family!

The day ended working on Kiley's "State Float" project for school. It was first assigned nearly 2 months ago, but here we are, starting it on Sunday when it's due on Thursday. Kiley is doing Pennsylvania, so we spent lots of time on the internet gathering information and flipping through photos of our trips to Pennsylvania. Hopefully, we'll finish it before Thursday and won't be up late Wednesday night finishing the project......hopefully!

My Close Encounter with Death

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had a "near death experience" in the ocean on our camping trip. Last year I competed in the La Jolla Rough Water Swim for the first time. Although I trained a lot in the pool, I only trained two days in the ocean and for those of you that are ocean swimmers, you know there is quite a difference! I successfully completed the course last year, but it didn't come easy. Determined to start training earlier this year and beat last year's time, I decided to take advantage of the time at the beach on our camping trip. Since the ocean water is still EXTREMELY cold this time of year, I brought my wetsuit along to help me handle the freezing water. As stated in my previous post, John and Bill expressed concerns about the ocean conditions, but there seemed to be a consensus (at least from my view) that I could handle it. I had a good 30 minute session of swimming and was feeling confident in myself that I will do better this year in La Jolla. Before I even knew what was happening, the current began to pull me down the beach and further away from the shore. The already big waves greatly increased in size and I found myself being sucked into them, unable to fight my way out. Where before I was able to go under the wave and pop back up, these waves had such force that as I dove underwater, the water began whipping me around and pulling me so far under that I could hardly hold my breath long enough to surface to the top. I would have only seconds to catch my breath, before yet another wave would come and repeat the scary ordeal. Within a few minutes of my leisurely swim, I found myself in complete survival mode. I tried to remain calm, but my overwhelming predicament was pulsing through my mind. Reality was setting in quickly, we were in an area of the beach with no lifeguards and besides my group, there were only two other groups on the beach. As I tried to turn towards the shore and find my family, I could see them in the distance, John playing in the sand with the girls. I couldn't locate Bill and Janet. Although I knew it was impossible for anyone to hear me, I began screaming for my life every moment I had above water and wildly waving my arms. Soon, I found this was a hopeless cause and was only exhausting me more. My brain was telling me, "this is it, you are now at the end of your life." I live much like the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians chapter 1. I desire to be with Christ, but I also live with joy, living out God's purpose for me and enjoying every moment God gives me with my friends and family. As stated in Phil. 1:21, "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Therefore, I don't think about death that much, but I have thought enough about it that I knew there were two ways I didn't want to die, by burning in a fire and drowning. Now, here I was, about to drown. I began praying for peace with my predicament and for some reason that I do not know, I wasn't praying for my life. I took one last look at the beach and my family I most certainly believed I was leaving behind, my eyes scanned down the beach and I saw Bill and Janet walking along the shore looking out at me and even though I know it was only a split second, the expression on their faces penetrated me and I began repeating my favorite verse in my head, "I can do all things through Christ, I can do all things through Christ..." (I live this verse so much that I've tattooed it on my body). I continued to let the current pull me down the beach, but I slowly began the extremely difficult task of fighting my way to the shore. Before I knew it, I was coming out of the water, beaten, EXHAUSTED, sick from all the salt water I had taken in, shaking from shock. I walked back with them to where we were set up, going over the events that had just taken place over and over again in my mind. I was met by all with, "You shouldn't have gone out there." Still in shock and unable to express it, also knowing they all had NO IDEA what I had just been through, I began grabbing all my things and telling them I needed to go back to camp. I reached the trailer, dropped everything outside, went in and took a hot shower as I broke down into tears.

The rest of the evening I was quiet. Although I wanted desperately to curl up into a ball in my bed in the trailer, I didn't know how to explain what I was experiencing in my head, I did my best to join the group for dinner around the campfire. Finally, I got up to use the restroom in the trailer and as I shut the door behind me, I began crying again and realized I couldn't fake it anymore, there was no way I could go back out there. Still in shock, I couldn't ration with myself that these people are my family and best friends, I should just try to explain how I was feeling, they would understand. But, when in shock, nothing is rational. Eventually John came in to check on me and I broke down in tears and said I just needed to go to bed. Of all nights, this was the night the fuse panel broke and we couldn't get the beds down. I curled up on the couch as everyone tried to fix the beds until they eventually gave up and we pulled out the sofa beds. I didn't sleep well that night or any night for the rest of the trip.

I'm still going over the events in my head, wondering if I'll ever get over it. No one knows this (well they will now, writing is often my only release), as I didn't know how to explain it, but I'm still in a state of shock. I went on with the trip, enjoying myself and my time with my family and friends, however, the events of that day were never out of my mind. Even today, 4 days later, I'm anxious inside, still trying to process what happened.

I know this is no coincidence that today is Good Friday. I'm praying that the shock and anxiety of that day will die today, just as our sin died with Christ on the cross. I want nothing more than to move forward, allowing God to free me from the shock and use it to grow my relationship with Christ as we celebrate my favorite holiday of the year, Easter!

Coming out of the water after my ordeal

The Good & the Bad at McGrath State Beach

We have just returned from our 2nd annual camping trip at McGrath State Beach with the O'Malley family. Last April marked our first McGrath trip and first ever camping trip with the O'Malleys. Since then, we have camped with them way too many times to count. We always have a BLAST with them and can't imagine camping without them. In fact, we've grown so close to Bill, Janet, Kate and Conor and we spend so much time together as families that we've become one happy family that we've named "The Mooralley's."



While this trip was yet another fun time camping, this trip also posed many challenges, one after another, after another, etc. There were plenty of fun times, like celebrating John's birthday, getting Shadow and Boomer to the point that they could actually run around off leashes together (well, not all the time, but definitely much better!), lots of yummy food, endless rides in the golf cart, daily walks, digging in the sand at the beach, nightly bonfires with s'mores, I could go on and on. However, we certainly seemed to have our share of setbacks!!! Where do I even begin? We arrived safely on Sunday and LOVED our location with a nice open field in front of us and a walking trail just beyond that. We got set up and enjoyed the day. Then came Monday.....let the fun begin! After a yummy breakfast of "Egg Mc Mooralley's" we decided to hit the beach. During this time of year at McGrath, the lagoon hasn't dried up yet between the campsite and the beach. This isn't a big deal, it just requires a little more walking to find a dried up path through the lagoon. After watching Conor and his friend, Stephen, make a successful shortcut across some logs making a "bridge" through the lagoon, I thought I would take the shortcut too. Why I decided to do this, I DO NOT KNOW, especially since there was a clearing about 10 yards away (at the most). All the other adults and kids chose the safe route. Not me! Now, let me state, that both of my arms are full with my beach bag, carrying all the towels and the camera in one arm and my wetsuit in the other. Two logs made up this "bridge" and I was at the tail end of the first log, ready to step onto the second log, when I lost my balance and fell into the lagoon. Now all of our nice dry towels are soaked, as well as me and the camera! We quickly removed the memory card and battery from the camera and were successfully able to save it, praise God! We hung the towels from the umbrellas to dry and I gathered some sticks to hang my clothes and bag to dry. I didn't worry about the wetsuit since that was going to get wet anyway. As I'm getting ready to enter the water to do some training before September's Rough Water Swim, John and Bill questioned the safety of the surf conditions. The waves were rough, but since no one said I absolutely should not go in, I entered the freezing water knowing that within 5 minutes or so, the warmth of my wetsuit would set in. I enjoyed about 30 minutes of successful training before my "near death experience." Yes, I mean that literally, which I plan to go into further depth in my next post. So let's just leave "beach day" alone and move onto problems with our trailer. First we had some water pump problems, which Bill and John fixed rather quickly and then came the most major problem, the electronic beds! Let me start by saying our trailer, which is actually a "toy hauler" is only 1 year old and we are the original owners. Since the trailer is a toy hauler, the two queen sized beds are on an automatic switch that we press to lift the beds to the ceiling so we can open up the back ramp and load our golf cart, and press again to have the beds come down for sleeping. The fuse panel for the beds must have been a lemon as it went out and our beds were stuck in the up position. After over an hour of going through all the wires and it getting to be a late hour, we decided to make up the 2 sofa bed conversions and sleep there instead. Long story short, a call to a local RV retailer told us it would take 4 weeks for the replacement part to be ordered. We figured out how to manually bypass the the electronic system and manually get the beds up and down (not an easy task, but it worked).


Next I come to the "bird nest" incident. Let me start by saying that Janet and I together are TROUBLE! Separate, we are fine, but together we manage to get ourselves in trouble....frequently! This is such a joke with John and Bill that they have come to call us Lucy and Ethel. We were walking on a nature trail when we came across a bird nest that appeared to be abandoned. We are normally not this stupid, but we were intrigued by the interesting appearance of this "abandoned" nest and we began poking and dissecting the nest with sticks. To our horror, we uncovered 3 TINY baby birds, not more than a day old and one unhatched egg. We did our absolute best to return the nest to it's previous condition and prayed that since we never touched the nest with our hands, the mother would not abandon the nest. We stood back for awhile and it didn't take long for mom to return. She stood all around the nest, but we didn't see her go in it. We returned the next day to see if we could find mom in the nest, but she wasn't there. I was completely prepared to run to the closest pet store and purchase everything I possible might need to care for these baby birds just in case mom chose to abandon them to death. Janet quickly talked me out of it and Bill convinced me that this is the circle of life and leaving the birds for mom is the best option. This last event is so heart wrenching that I'll spare you of the tedious little problems, like burnt bagels and John's ice cream cake in flames, setting off the smoke detector.

So this might sound like a bad trip, but no time with the O'Malley's can be considered "bad." There was no shortage of laughter and FUN, FUN, FUN. When it came Thursday morning, we were all disappointed to pack up and head home.

Kiley Takes on Archery

After trying archery for the first time at summer camp last year, Kiley decided she wanted to try lessons. She had her first lesson yesterday at the CMC Archery Range. She did a great job! She worked on form, proper holding of the bow and her stance. Once she has that mastered she'll work on her accuracy. She'll contine her lessons each Saturday for an hour and a half for 10 weeks. She's hopeful to become as good at archery as her Mamaw.

I Love Hope Grace

Today I finally got to visit Hope Grace Howard. I say finally because she's 3 days old! I have been so excited about the birth of this baby since the day I found out Carissa was pregnant. It was very difficult for me to wait 3 days to get to see her because of my busy schedule. She is the very adorable daughter of Jaye and Carissa, two very special people in our lives. Carissa used to be the Children's Pastor at our former church. Now they are our hockey buddies and have season seats just to the the left of our seats. She is one lucky little girl to have Jaye and Carissa as her parents. They are incredible people and Hope is just as blessed to have them as parents as Jaye and Carissa are blessed to have Hope as their daughter.


This evening I had the privilege of taking this new family of 3 dinner and get to spend a couple hours holding Hope and loving on her. She is absolutely precious, and that's a great complement from a mother of 2 girls! As the plan stands now, I will be babysitting Hope at least some of the time when Carissa returns to work as a Child Life Specialist. Hope will be a very special part of our lives and we feel so privileged to be a part of her life. We praise God for the birth of this little miracle!