Fall, pumpkins & growing children

Our junior high youth group was suppose to go to a corn maze yesterday evening, but a storm came in; wind & rain. So word of mouth told me it got canceled. Well, yesterday morning it was still nice. Some friends of ours were on their way to above said corn maze, last weekend I believe, when they came across a different farm that had a lot of free stuff, geared towards all ages. With no direction or clue of where we were going, my husband, the girls and I set out to find this place. The only thing we knew was what city it was in. Now I realize being the smallest state in the union you'd think we'd be able to find this place, but no such luck. So we took back roads home and came across my favorite pick your own fruit farm. We decided to stop and get some pumpkins and see if they were still picking apples. To our pleasant surprise, the pumpkins were out in the field so we took a little walk and found two little pumpkins and one larger one that we could carve.
These are my 2 little beauties with their little pumpkins. Rachel is in the pink and Emily is in the blue.

They were also still picking apples, so we picked about a dozen or so. They were very yummy! We let the girls color the two little ones and help carve the big one. Then Dad decided to let them roast the pumpkin seeds. Pictures of the finished product will have to come later.
Hope you are having a great Fall.

Some more birthday shout outs

Well, I actually wanted to post on October 13th, & give a shout out to a dear friend of mine (and former roommate), Sharon. It was her birthday, that day & I am blessed to be able to call her a friend. Also my nephew, Jaden turned 4 last week on the 16th.
Hope you had great birthdays, Sharon & Jaden.
A wonderful bloggy friend is helping me(okay, she's really doing ALL the work!)to update my blog, so look for a face lift coming soon.

I love to read blogs and spend time on the computer, but some how I need to find a balance to doing that and the rest of my life.

God has been showing me lately, just how forgiving and loving He is; and how incredibly blessed I am. Thank you, Jesus for dying for me.

shout outs & dining out

I'd like to give a shout out to a couple of bloggy friends I have who encourage, inspire and pray for me. Thanks Karen & Peggy for sharing your lives through blogs; thus helping to inspire me to be a better wife and mom, but also letting me know that I'm not alone in some of these "battles." Thanks for your prayers and kind encouragement when you haven't heard from me in "forever." It's nice to have blog friends like that.

Dining out:

Last summer when my husband was unemployed he started to do some secret or mystery shops to at least bring in a couple of dollars to the house. This year I decided to get in on the action. Some of these shops are at eating facilities; whether fast food or fine dining. Let me just tell you. I just did one for a fine dining establishment & OH MY GOODNESS!!!!! First of all they allow you $60.00 just for lunch, to give you an idea how expensive this place is. But the food was out of this world. We ordered an appetizer of calamari, our own separate & different entrees and dessert, which was coconut creme pie. From the first bite of calamari, to the last bite of pie, all of this food literally melted in my mouth. If this is what the food tastes like in heaven I can't wait!!!!!

Another year older & other stuff

okay, Okay, OKAY!!!!! A faithful few have been saying oh for about 3 months now, that I haven't posted in a while & when am I going to do so? (see, if you look at the date I wanted to post the video closer to my b-day, but just never got around to blogging. The husband started it for me, so I could have the video.)

Well, to be quite honest a lot of things have been going on. As I'm sure any mother can tell you or agree with me, life has just been busy; and I've been "trying" to spend less time on the computer. (My husband will totally disagree with the last part of the previous sentence.)

My birthday is the end of July & my husband put together this lovely video for me. So I thought I'd share it with y'all. It's a little long, almost 10 minutes. I think for my 2nd mother's day my husband put the video together and I've been asking him to put it on my side of the computer. So he redid it this year, added pix & some new songs. The first song really gets me. Talks about changing the world, one little heartbeat at a time. Thanks honey!



Let me see, quick recap of our summer. The husband has been out of work since the end of June & diligently looking for a job; unfortunately not finding anything. God, however, is still God & has totally been meeting our needs. Thank you Jesus!

Fourth of July (& Columbus day) fireworks are literally in our back yard. So we decided to try to let the girls stay up this year. Unfortunately it was a bit loud for them. This is one of my favorite photos my husband took this year.



I went to the Women of Faith conference, up in Boston, on my birthday weekend. That was a blast.

August was an incredibly busy month. We had a wedding to go to in NH the first weekend in August. Then the girls and I took the train down to Dover, DE to visit my best girlfriend, Renae & her husband, Dan. We were there for about a week & a half. During that time my husband & his best friend took a weekend motorcycle trip up to NH & the Kangamangas highway. (Which is why I got to go to Delaware!) We came home from that, were home for about 2 weeks and went off to western NY to my nephew's wedding. The wedding was lovely and it was great to see some family I hadn't seen in a while.

For those who have been praying for my nephew, Adam he's doing okay. He's finished his first round of chemo & now has a blood clot in his lungs. Fortunately they caught it quickly and are treating it. Our prayer is that he would be completely healed, and be a testimony to our Lord Jesus Christ.

The girls are a lot of fun. Outside of the temper tantrums & attitudes I absolutely love this age. The other day Rae hit Em. Bill told her that wasn't nice & asked her why she did it. Her response was "Emily was antagonizing me." It absolutely amazes me the things they come out with. I will joke with my husband & various friends and tell them they're slacking or call them a "slacker." We were eating breakfast a week or so ago & Emily out of the blue says, "Daddy, you're a slacker!" Funny how it doesn't seem so bad when I say it, but to hear it out of my 3 year old's mouth, uummmmm, it sounds like a cuss word! We also have Yogi Berra living at our house. The girls will frequently say things like: "If I like it, I like it." (pointing their little fingers in earnest) Okay, Yogi! :) Or another one of my favorites; there is a show on Disney channel in the morning called "Handy Manny." If you haven't seen it it's sort of a cross between Bob the builder & Dora. My girls can say both words, but when they put it together, it comes out, "Handy Bambi." Or think- they can say "thank you," but when they say think it comes out "sink." Children -go figure!

Well, that is about all I can think of right now. So yes, I'm still here, & haven't given up on the blog. Thanks for still checking in.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

Happy Father's day to my wonderful husband & all of the fathers, step-fathers & other substitute fathers out there. My husband had a wonderful day/weekend I do believe. Yesterday they had the "Gearfest" at our church. This is the 2nd annual event, where dads, kids & anyone can come in, touch, climb on, in, push buttons, sirens, whatever there is to do on "big rigs." Basically boys toys. Anything you could imagine, from police cars, to fire trucks, to back hoes, motorcycles, etc. was there. Today he rode the motorcycle to church, then went for a nice long ride with a couple of his male friends. Came home & caught the tail end of our friend's b-day party. They had a bounce house, so he played in there with the girls. We had more than enough food at the party, so I ordered him Chinese. Now he's relaxing on the couch. Honey, I hope your father's day was as wonderful as my mother's day!

**Update on my nephew-
My s-i-l & he are going to Pittsburgh, PA tomorrow for a consultation on Tu. am. Then on Fri. the 20th he gets his port put in.

Happy birthday to my brother-in-law, Brian, tomorrow, June 16th.

Busy week coming up.

Going to go relax with the husband now, even though the house looks like a tornado went through it. :)
God Bless, -Gail

Update on my nephew, Adam

To any of you in blogland who've been praying for my nephew, thanks & keep praying.
Here is the update from his oncology appt. from 6/6. His cancer is a stage 4 & very aggressive. He has some spots in his abdominal wall. Rochester is an excellent hospital, but they treat every other kind of cancer except his. The oncology dr. wants to send him to Pittsburgh, PA which has the closest & best hospital to treat the type of cancer he has. Rochester needs to call Pittsburgh & see if they'll take him. If they do he will go down & have more abdominal surgery to remove any more cancer they see. Then they will insert a catheter into his abdomen to administer some very high doses of chemo. After that he can go home to NY, where he'll receive more chemo through a port -46 hours on & then a week off, repeated for a while(don't know time frame). The dr. said this cancer doesn't respond to radiation so he won't be getting any of that. They are looking about 8 mo. to a year for treatment.

Please pray for strength & peace for my brother & his family. Pray the drs. in PA decide to treat him. (not sure what the criteria would or wouldn't be)Pray that he is able to deal/cope with the chemo.

Initially, he was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. My husband & I did not have a peace about this. I felt that it was cancer, but I am not a dr. I also felt he would survive all of this.

*On another note, please also pray for my 2nd cousin, Todd who has been battling lymphoma for a couple of years now. Things are not looking good for him. He is in his early 40's & has 3 children under the age of 10. His parents buried his sister a couple of years ago. She died of M.S. This family could really use your prayers.

Thanks.
-Gail

Also happy 61st anniversary to my Aunt & Uncle, Nita & Kenn Foltz. Yep, you read that right. 61 years!

My friend, Steve **UPDATED**

So, I posted late Saturday night & included some belated b-day shout outs. Get to church Sunday am & realize I forgot a good friend of mine, Steve. So happy belated b-day Steve, on the 27th of May. I like to give Steve a hard time as our b-days are exactly 2 months apart. This makes him older than me! :) But to his credit; we were talking last week about our age, we are in the 40's now; he was saying how he is in the best shape he has EVER been in. I was lamenting the fact I'm in the WORST shape I've ever been in.
See, for the last several years Steve, his wife & older children have been taking kick boxing/krav maga. Well, this coming Saturday, Steve is taking his last test for his black belt. Apparently it is broken up into 3 parts, he has already passed the 1st two parts, so this is it. DO OR DIE! He has been working very hard at his training & getting his time down that it takes him to run a mile. My understanding is this last part is about endurance & memory; they have to execute a bunch of different moves, in a particular order, cleanly.
So, Steve, as they tell Adam Sandler in the movie "Waterboy"...YOU CAN DO IT WATAHBOY!!!! I'll be praying for you & I know you have studied to show yourself approved.
btw- any of you out there in blogland who might be reading this, I know Steve would appreciate your prayers as well.
-Gail


UPDATE** I got a praise report today that Steve passed his 3rd & final test & is officially a black belt! CONGRATULATIONS, STEVE! I knew you could do it.
For all you who prayed, thanks!