Wednesdays in the Word

The will of God:

"Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the willl of the Lord is." Eph. 5:17 

This verse caused me to look up all the verses that refer to the will of God and since I'm a person who love lists, here is a very simplified version of His will for our lives:

Never stop praying and to be thankful in all circumstances   1 Thess. 5:17

Be sanctified (set apart) and avoid immorality   1 Thess. 4:3

Do good  1 Pet.2:15

Know that He will equip us with everything necessary   Heb. 13:21

Persevere and receive what He has promised  Heb. 10:36  

It really is all Him! 

~Becky

Nathan's stay

I don't think my boys look that much a like but people mix up Nathan and Zac all the time when Nate is here. And they think that because he lives in CA he must be the oldest. LOL

He was able to stay here for a couple weeks after our trip and it was so fun! (expect for the part where he had oral surgery, I mean)
He needed his wisdom teeth out. Bless his heart. He'd been in pain for weeks!
For the first time ever in my life I have dental insurance! Whoo-hoo! Big fan! So, it was pretty thrilling to save over $2000 on this procedure!
He couldn't feel anything but he could HEAR it all. And he heard when the drill stopped working and he heard when the oral surgeon got mad and left the room!
(Yikes!) And then he felt them give him lots more laughing gas. It was all a bit disconcerting!
He came out telling me he was 'high as a kite.' LOL

Then I got to take care of him!!! Yay!!!
I made mashed potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes and lots of smoothies and bought blueberries and every soft flavored blueberry thing I could think of.
It was so much fun to care of my grown up kid, who has lived on his own for the last 4 years. And he was THE most grateful patient. : )
He was sure he wouldn't have survived on his own. Aww!

When he felt better he threw a little beach BBQ to watch the sunset. Then he and I had a date night to eat crab from a crab shack. (that was an adventure!) Next time I want a crab-opener-thingy! LOL

 We went to the movies and caught up on our superhero  with our dear friends a couple times.

So, including this fun and the 19 hours we were driving together on the trip chatting and listening to each of our favorite books on CD, I feel like I had a lot of quality time with my sweet boy that I hadn't seen in 8 months! Yay!
And now the countdown to Christmas begins!

A dear friend bought me this mug after he left, which I LOVE!

I'm so proud of who he is and what he does.
He leads a youth ministry, goes to school and he wants to use his future marketing degree to support himself as a missionary to Iceland someday.
(but I'm totally OK if that Iceland thing doesn't actually work out -LOL!)

~Becky

Photos of the fun

So, today was the first day of college for Andrew! Whoo-hoo!

Now, my homeschooling season really feels done! 

And here are the pictures from our celebration!
 (AKA my home school retirement party)

Road Trippin' with my girl!

Our cabin in the woods! 

This is where I get to joke that my kids are brighter than your kids! Just kidding!
The sun was setting and they look photo shopped in! LOL but they were all there! Being the shortest I ended up in someone's shadow.

They took me our to dinner to celebrate! 

We visited a National Park and these two did some Pokemon hunting

 Nathan and Andrew did the full 3 mile hike up to the waterfall because elevation is apparently not a thing when you are young and in shape! : )
 -Unlike when you are not so young and not so in shape! And you think you might pass out after walking up these steps. LOL

This is us looking down from the very top of the waterfall

And this is our top-of-the-waterfall-selfie

And here it is in all its majesty from down below

Then there was a day that we rented a pontoon boat because we got a partial refund on the cabin due to the broken hot tub. Yay!

Joy and Nate spent a whopping 10 minutes getting certified to drive boats in Georgia and did a GREAT job! This girl loved it!

I forgot to ask the question all Floridians know to ask! So, as we were driving around this gorgeous lake, I was calling the marina to find out about ALLIGATORS! LOL

And since they had never seen even one, we spent the day diving off the boat and swimming! Something we will never do in our state! : ) 

Happy New School Year, Everyone! 

~Becky

Mountain vacay

Nathan flew in on Tuesday and on Wednesday we hit the road for the nearest mountains to celebrate the end of my homeschooling journey!

I rented a car for the trip online (because my Prius has over 200,000 miles) and when I went to pick it up they said they didn't have anymore compact cars. They offered me a 2017 PRIUS (YES, PLEASE!) and started telling me all about the great gas mileage it would get! I didn't need any convincing! LOL
(the 8 1/2 hr. trip home only cost $15.50 which was one tank of gas!Glory, glory!)
How fun is that?!
And let's just say the 2017 is way more fun to drive than the 2005! : )

It took us 11 hours to arrive at our destination and since I had never driven more than 3 hours at a time, I was toast somewhere around hour 9. Nathan would have loved to have driven! -And all his LA traffic skills would have come in handy in Atlanta but I had to do it all since my kids aren't old enough to drive a rental!

The mountains weren't like any we've seen in CA or CO. They were so green and lush! Just beautiful. And our cabin was at the top of one.
I was a little worried that a cabin I found on the Internet wouldn't be like the photos! LOL
But it was better! We loved it!

On the first night, the kids took me out to dinner for my 'retirement' dinner! : )
And then having a blog for all these years, really came in handy! I found out that I had almost 100 posts about our homeschooling adventures on here, so I printed out some of my favorites and read them aloud and we reminisced and laughed like crazy! So fun!
Then I was surprised by Joy and my sweet daughter-in-law, who strung lights and hung lots and lots of photos of those precious 19 years of homeschooling all across my cabin bedroom! So sweet!

As we celebrated together, it hit me that THIS was what my hubby and I had worked so hard for all of these years. To have this family full of young adults who love the Lord, and who deeply love and respect me and each other, who don't fight or bicker anymore  LOL
and who did actually grow up to be one another's best friends!!!
Yay!
 It worked! LOL!
Whoo-hoo!
 God is good!
Can I encourage you to trust the plan and direction that God gives you for YOUR family. Don't worry if it doesn't look like other people's families. Follow His plan. He is faithful!

~Becky