Raising Boys

In my catching up on my blog reading after vacation, I came across this post at the Dominion Family Blog. It is a MUST read for those parents who are raising boys.

My Week

We arrived home on Sunday Evening, three of us had head colds (I was one of the three). We celebrated hubby's birthday. The alternator went out on the suburban. My bursitis is still acting up. Hubby returned to work on Tuesday. I have been working on mountains of laundry and laying around in between. I spent time on the phone trying to get some medical assistance for my mom, with little success. Not a very productive week. We did get our wireless network set up again today, after much frustration. So maybe things are looking up. I am hoping to recover my dining room chairs this weekend and work on school scheduling.

Cataldo Mission - Idaho

On our way home from Montana, we stopped at Cataldo Mission State Park. We have driven past is so many times on our way to from other places and never stopped. I was driving and decided it was time to take a break. This mission is the oldest building in Idaho. It was a worthwhile stop and now my curiousity is satisfied.

We toured part of Yellowstone National Park on our free day at camp. We were able to visit Mammoth Hot Springs, the Norris area where Steamboat Geyser is, and the Canyon area. After leaving the Canyon area, we were supposed to head north back to camp. I got us twisted around and we went south instead, but because of the mistake we got to see a great heard of bison.




This is a near arial view of Yellowstone Bible camp. I say near, because it is actually taken from what is called T-shirt mountain. Some of the men, boys and girls climbed this mountain and at the top there are T-shirts that they can sign. Our older two boys really enjoyed this challenge. This was a great vacation.

We're Home

We arrived home from our trip on Sunday evening. After our stop at Glacier National Park, we went for a week to Yellowstone Bible Camp in Pray, MT. It was a family camp and consisted mostly of homeschooled families. Some of which we know from here in the Pacific NW and some of which were new to us. There were just over 60 in attendance of ages 2-87. There was tasty food, great fellowship and also many great lessons on family and relationships. The schedule includes lessons in the morning after breakfast and then again in the evening after dinner. We had free time in the afternoon and then a free day on Thursday. We used our free day to travel into Yellowstone National Park and had a wonderful time there viewing the great scenery that God created along with many different forms of wildlife. (I will post pics. soon). We arrived home tired but grateful for the time we had. On Monday, I needed to go to the store and decided to take our suburban, so I could gas it up after the long trip. Well . . . it died in the left turn lane in traffic. Turns out that the alternator gave up the ghost. Thankfully, it waited until we got home instead of somewhere on our 500 mile drive home. God is so good!

Fire around Glacier National Park

There is a fire burning on the east side of Glacier Park and at one point the Going to the Sun Road was closed halfway up. We were concerned that we might not be able to get across the park and make it to where we had a motel reserved. Well, they got the fire somewhat under control and the roads opened so we made it through. I took a couple of pictures - one of the smoke from the fire, it is taken from an overlook near Lake St. Mary, and the second of some of the devestation that the fire caused. We saw lots of charred trees and even some flames in the top of a tree, it was a terrible and sad sight.

Wildlife at Glacier National Park

Click to enlarge the images, it was if these two were posing for us.

Hidden Lake Nature Trail at Glacier National Park

More Images of Glacier National Park

We enjoyed seeing the Red Tour Buses that operate in the park and couldn't help taking pictures of them. I am including one of a bus going through one of the tunnels in the park. There are also many wildflowers in the alpine areas and I am partial to them so I am including one or two pictures of them too.

Glacier National Park

Yesterday we drove from Missoula up to West Glacier and then on into Glacier National Park. It took us a lot longer to drive up than we thought because there was much road construction. After we went into the park we had a picnic lunch at the Apgar picnic area. It was very pretty there on the end of Lake McDonald. The weather was warm and sunny. We spent the afternoon and early evening driving around in the west side of the park. We stopped at McDonald Lodge and walked through - it is very old and beautiful with log beams and a gianormous fireplace. Today we got up and drove across the rest of the park, we took our time and stopped many places along the way. I have a flair up of bursitis in my knee right now and so we could not do as much hiking or even walking as we would normally do. We did stop at Logan Pass Visitor Center and do a 3 mile hike up to Hidden Lake. I am sure I will pay for that later. We did get to see mountain goats, bighorn sheep, hairy marmots, ground squirrels, and chipmunks during this visit. This visit to Glacier was time well spent.

Today

Today is our 26th Wedding Anniversary. Today we drove about 8 hours and spent time in three states. Today we completed the first leg of our trip to Montana. Today the weather was cloudy and then sunny and warm. Today we crossed three mountain passes. Today we ate lunch at Dairy Queen. Today the boys got to watch a movie because we have a new laptop. Today I got to blog because our favorite hotel has wireless access now! Today was a good day! Hope your today was great!

We're off

It may be quiet around here (nothing new) but we will be off in the morning, heading to Montana. We will be spending a couple of days in Glacier National Park and then travelling on to bible camp near Yellowstone. Dear friends of ours will be at camp with us and it should be a great time! I'll post pictures when we get home.

Busy Birthday happenings

It has been a very busy week. Our eldest child, Plant Lover, celebrated her 21st birthday on the 25th and her very dear friend Tiffany and husband Josiah and baby Anya came to visit from Nashville. We had a BBQ with friends and family this past Sunday and had a wonderful time celebrating with our dear daughter.

Honored and Missed

My grandfather, Clarence Raymond Smith, was born July 13th, 1917 in a small town in Arkansas. He was a father, a husband, a grandfather and great grandfather. He was a wonderful grandfather, who loved to spend time with us kids. When I was in grade school and junior high he used to take me fishing with him and we would catch bunches of fish and then grandma would fry up a mess. He always had a big garden, enough to feed and army and he teased me about my first garden - he said it was a "postage stamp garden". It thrilled him that I was interested in gardening. Grandpa loved to work with wood and was always puttering in his shop and his other favorite thing was grocery shopping and keeping the pantry full. You would find him with all the grocery ads and then he would go all day from store to store getting the good deals. He liked to cook and make a mess. Grandpa had a triple bipass surgery and then lived life to the fullest for about 15 more years. The man was stubborn but boy did he have some spunk. Grandpa loved the Lord and did he sing about it (although a bit off key). He went on to be with the Lord, December 1996 and he is sorely missed.

Books finished this year

I am moving this post to the top as I finish books.

January

A Christmas Carol
Gulliver's Travels

February

Reading Between the Lines

March

When God Writes Your Love Story
Best Friends for Life
Pride and Prejudice
The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax

May

Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom Sawyer Abroad
Tom Sawyer Detective
More Hours in My Day
I Gave Dating a Chance

June

The Scarlet Letter
Robinson Crusoe (with B#2)
Book of Indians (with B#3)

July

Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled
The Hurrier I Go: Finding Time for the People in Your Life
Mere Christianity
Th Man Who Was Thursday

Currently Reading:

For the Children's Sake
Dating with Integrity
How to Read a Book

Quotable . . . on Personality

From Mere Christianity by CS Lewis Book IV, chptr. 11

"At the beginning I said there were Personalities in God. I will go further now. There are no real personalities anywhere else. Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self. Sameness is to be found most among the most "natural" men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints."

Quotable . . . on the church

From Mere Christianity by CS Lewis book IV, Chptr. 8

" In the same way the church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the bible itself are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. it is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose. It says in the Bible that the whole universe was made for Christ and that everything is to be gathered together in Him."

Quotable . . . on Faith

From Mere Christianity by CS Lewis Book IV, Chptr. 7

"But we must not remain babies. We must go on to recognise the real Giver. It is madness not to. Because, if we do not, we shall be relying on human beings. And that is going to let us down. The best of them will make mistakes; all of them will die. We must be thankful to all the people who have helped us, we must honour them and love them. But never, never pin your whole faith on any human being: not if he is the best and wisest in the whole world. There are lots of nice things you can do with sand; but do not try building a house on it."

About Me

Javamom tagged me a long while ago with this one and I just got it finished. It was kind of fun to go down memory lane and scary too since the old memory doesn't work so good anymore.

20 years ago (1986)
1. I was 25 years old.
2. My oldest was almost one
3. I worked for the Federal Aviation Administration in their personnel office.

15 years ago (1991)
1. Our second oldest was 8 months old
2. We were getting ready for our dear friends to move in with us.
3. I was content to be a wife and mommy.

10 years ago (1996)
1. I was 35 and was 8 months pregnant with my fourth child.
2. My grandfather was very ill
3. We went to see a civil war reenactment

5 years ago (2001)
1. Went to my first Apple Cider Press Youth Rally
2. Spent lots of time with our friends the Reddings
3. Listened to our daughter sing with her friends at Youth Rallys

3 Years ago (2003)
1. We camped at Mt. Ranier, North Cascades, Olympic National Parks and Mt. St. Helens
2. I witnessed the birth of my dear friends daughter.
3. Our oldest graduated from our homeschool.

1 year ago (2005)
1. We went camping in Spokane, WA
2. We went to We Care Ministry training
3. We went camping at the Olympic National Park

This year so far (2006)
1. Our two oldest boys have committed their lives to Jesus.
2. We went on a mission trip to Texas.
3. We changed churches after 14 years at the same one.

Yesterday
1. Met some friends at the park
2. I did laundry
3. Planned for our reading program

Today
1. Went to a garden with my daughter
2. Hosted neighborhood reading program
3. Worked on School Planning

Tomorrow
1. I will watch my son at swimming lessons
2. I will fix dinner for my family
3. I will help with Summer Memory Madness

In the next year
1. I will go to Yellowstone bible camp
2. I will work on my scrapbook
3. I will work on decluttering my house

In the next minute
1. Get ready for Bed

Clash of the Cultures

Last weekend we got pulled into a domestic dispute that our neighbors were having. We don't know much about these neighbors except that they came to America from India about 11 years ago. Their 19 year old daughter came flying into our house crying and hysterical asking me to call 911 and saying that "he" was going to kill her. After her came her mother, who speaks very little english and her father or brother, I am not sure, it is all kind of a blur. The girl ran upstairs and the mother was excitedly talking to me, I could not understand what she was saying. I followed the girl upstairs and telephoned 911, the neighbors already had too, and then waited for the sherif to get here. My husband got the others out of the house and I was able to calm the girl. Turns out the father found that she had a "My Space" and instead of talking things over decided to get physical. I don't debate the right of the father to make rules for his household, but I do take issue with the way he and his son tried to enforce them. What I see as an issue here is people coming from one culture that has certain ideas about women and their place to another country, namely ours, that has completely different ideas about that sort of thing. They don't learn the language and they send their children to public school and yet expect that they won't pick up attitudes that pervade our society. To some extent, as Christians, we can have the same problem. We are in this world but of another, trying to remain true to our Lord. Trying to fit one culture into another is truly a difficult thing.