Baby Becky's Birthday!

Today is my sister's birthday so today she gets a little blogging done about her.
Probably no one would have thought that this darling little baby girl would one day be the mother of 9 children.
I was told that before she was born I called her Baby Becky. She was my baby.
She is one of my closest friends and she can make me laugh like one one else.
Descriptive words: Hardworking, generous, creative, motherer, funny.




Here are some more pictures through the years.
Looking like her granddaughter, Ryan.




















The two of us together on the farm in Prairie Creek, Indiana.
















































































With her hubby, James. 1975



















With Alex and Eli. I love this picture! Only 7 more to go!





Happy Birthday, Rebecca! Hope you have a great day! I love you.

August 22, 2008

The Forest













You So Admire













Goes Up In Smoke













With Just One Fire














The Hayman Fire June 2002.
It is now 2008.
This is what we saw on our trip to the mountains today.

I Am Grateful For My Family

I read an article on LDS Living and I have many of the exact feelings about serving a mission as the folks in the article. I forwarded the article to Robert to read. He IM'd me back with the yellow crying face because he feels the same way. We are going to serve at least one mission and hopefully more.

The feelings are about missing your children, their families, grandchildren growing up, parents getting older, selling homes, learning a language, etc. and not being there when all these life events are happening.

We have some friends who just left to go to Cambodia for two years. When I asked them if they had advice they just said, "Start early." They have had the same issues, selling homes, setting up funds, getting shots, organizing money and insurance, etc, etc, etc. It is really a giant leap of faith and not just as easy as turning the key and walking away from a house or your life.

I have this picture of most of our family at my desk at work and I was looking at it and thinking how blessed I am to have such a wonderful family and how I want others to have the same blessing of eternal family ties. This is enough of a reason to share the gospel not only on missions but also every day.

One of the comments in the article was about the senior couples children's challenges in life (everyone has challenges whether great or small) and how the family would be blessed by the mission. If the blessings that come from us serving a mission are as great as when Jared, Amanda, and Spencer served THEIR missions we will have so many blessings bestowed on our family that we won't be able to contain them all! We can be a blessing to other families too.

I am grateful for my family because I know that they support us in our desire to go on some missions and they will support us while we are gone. I just love them all from teeny to tall.

"Grandma and Grandpa are going away on a mission....I always thought it was necessary, to be young to be a missionary, what a surprise that my Grandma and Grandpa could go!" (Janene Brady)

Sharing the Gospel and the Internet

We had a very interesting Sacrament Meeting yesterday about sharing the gospel and the internet. Elder Ballard spoke in the last conference about this. His talk was the basis of the Sacrament meeting.
The Church has a website, of course. Family History is going to be going totally internet until the work is done in the temple. Missionary work can be done through sending e-pass along cards, referrals, sharing our beliefs, etc.
The whole world uses the internet, of course, and members are not behind in that.
One portion of one talk was about blogs and how they can share the gospel. I already had a link to www.lds.org and other LDS bloggers. My children and others are also linked there. I should also add www.mormon.org
I have my security settings pretty strong for who can find my blog and view it on the internet so not many people may be looking at it. But maybe someone will.
PLUS, I also have a Facebook page and should add more about the gospel on that medium.
One of the "friends" I have on facebook commented on another "friend's" picture. He said something like, "I didn't realize that the Book of Life was going to be facebook." But it sort of is. Afterall, people post their lives there for all to see. Facebook pages have been utilized in job interviews and also in a court case I read about. Why not Heavenly Father's Book of Life?
Interesting, interesting.

Finally!

We started our garden late this year. The weather couldn't decide if it was winter or spring. And since we have a short growing season we almost didn't make it.
We decided on a small garden this year. Just not enough time to take care of it although with the drip line we never have to worry about the watering.
As you can see we decided on tomatoes and zucchini. We love them both. Prior to now we have gotten a couple of nice big tomatoes and some cherry tomatoes. I love the way these cherry toms grow out on a branch. It is so cute. I was worried that the zucchini wouldn't have enough time to develop before cooler weather set in. And it didn't help that we are breaking all records for continuous heat. But finally they are coming on! Yes! These zucchinis are abot 20 + inches long.
The plan is to make fresh salsa and pico de gio. And since we are not eating that much bread we can eat the zucchini fresh but also shred it up and freeze it for later cooking.
Yum Yum. We love fresh vegetables. An added bonus is that we don't like to pay $1.49 or $1.99 a lb. for zucchini and we don't like to eat tasteless tomatoes, and for now we don't have to do that.

Where Are They Now?

My how time flies and look how my babies have grown!

What a trip down memory lane we have been taking! As we are trying to preserve our family's pictures and memories I am constantly being pulled back into the past. On Sundays I hand Robert a pile of photos and he scans them into the computer.
When the pictures show up on the screen and we can enhance them, enlarge them and really look at the details I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. Maybe a little of both.

It was a good time. Good Memories. I love you guys!