New Blogs, New Websites and New A Life!

So as you may know we are in North Carolina and have been for a couple of years. Much has changed, including our blog site. Click on the links below to check us out. Thanks! mike

Here are most of the places on the web you can find us:

Our Websites:







Our Blogs:

Myspace

ONE-online
BurnedByChurch
Mike
Paige
Shadrach
ViVi

Facebook

Mike
Paige

Twitter

ONEonlineORG

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Take No Glory

Today is the day ... Israel!

Tuesday AM, October 30, 2007 – Winston-Salem, NC

Well the day is finally here … we are going to Israel today. We leave from Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTI) around 5:30 pm. We had a huge Harvest Party and combination 5 year anniversary at the church on Sunday and we are still beat. We were there from 8am until after 10pm. It was a nice day, we had a bunch of inflatable rides for the kids (Bounce house, Jousting, Obstacle Course etc.) We had live music inside and outside and recorded some of it to be on a live album that the church is doing.

I’ve got to go to work for a couple of hours today to wrap up some loose ends. A whole bunch of the church staff is going to Israel so we all have people in place to do our jobs. Paige is going to stay at home and continue packing. I guess we are going to the church later today and carpool to the airport. We are really excited.

Things have been going really well here. So well that there isn’t much time for anything else. It’s really rare when we aren’t at the church. I still do the facilities work but now I also get to be on the Benevolence Team (It’s 3 people and we give out food boxes and help with bills) and we both serve with ONEeighty Calvary Chapel of the Triad’s Youth Group. Paige also still works in the Blessing Room (it’s a room that people bring in clothes for others. Anyone can come in and take whatever they need for free.) and now she answers the church’s phones at various times on various days. It’s great and we are so thankful.

We are planning to update this as much as possible in Israel so stay tuned.

Can you believe it.

This time last year we were in South Dakota heading for Nebraska and It's pretty hard for us to believe, but we started this blog over a year ago. This time last year we were eatin' pancakes at a KOACarHenge. It was a wonderful trip and I wouldn't change any of it. I was talking with some of the other staff a lunch and was asked if we had any regrets about moving to NC. I miss my family and friends but other than that NC is just amazing. It really is hard to believe how settled in we are here. Church is going better that we had ever dreamed. It's still hard for me to believe I work there. We love our house and especially the yard. When you have a small house you really have to learn to use the spaces better. The living room doubles as the office, the guest room as the workout area and laundry room but we love it. The deck is coming along nicely (as you have seen) but would still be just a dream if it wasn't for Joe & Gina Floyd. North Carolina is definitely a better place because of them. We do miss Boise but we are sure this is where we are supposed to be. Amazing!

Deck Episodes 2 & 3

These pictures were taken over a 3 week period. Monday is my only real day off so it all has to come together then so it has taken us a while but it is worth it.

Who says building a deck can't be fun.

Meeting of the minds.

Danger!!!

Joe shown' off.

This is as close to me getting up on the knee board as you can see at the moment. I'm going to try again some other time. It was fun.

O.K. ... Back to work!

Board are down on top and we've been using it for coffee, breakfasts and watchin' the FireFlies ... I mean Lightnin' Bugs at night.

Israel Trip

Well … we have decided to go to Israel with our church in October. We had really wanted to and were actually saving to go but were unsure whether we would really be going but we sent our deposit in yesterday. We already have our passports because we have really wanted to go on Missions trips. Our Pastor will be going and teaching throughout so it will be amazing. We will be leaving on October 30th and returning on November 11th. Our friends Joe and Gina Floyd will be going with us so it will be extra fun. I’ve heard a trip to Israel is like a year in Bible College and I’m sure it will be especially interesting with our Pastor teaching in the actual locations we have been studying in the Bible.

It is going to be very expensive and like I had said we have been saving but it is still going to be tricky. I hate to ask but we hope that some of you might be able to donate a little bit to help fund our trip. We sure don’t want anyone to feel obligated to help and we wouldn’t want anyone to give too much but if a few people gave a little bit it would sure help. Thanks.

You can contact us at our home address, via e-mail at mkadams1@gmail.com or at

Mike Adams c/o Calvary Chapel of the Triad

365 W. Bodenhamer Street • Kernersville, NC 27284

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Here is the itinerary:

Day 1 – Depart USA on your overnight flight to Tel Aviv

Day 2 – Afternoon arrival in Tel Aviv, transfer to hotel

Day 3 – Caesarea, Mt. Carmel, Megiddo, Nazareth & Cana

Day 4 – Mt. of Beatitudes, Capernaum, Gadera, St. Peter’s Fish Lunch, wooden boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, baptism, Galilee Experience.

Day 5 – Golan Heights, Mt. Hermon, Caesarea Phillipi, Tel Dan, Headwaters of the Jordan river.

Day 6 – Beit Shean, Gideon’s Spring, Sachene

Day 7 – Mount of Olives, Palm Sunday Road, Garden of Gethsemane, Mt. Zion, Jewish Quarter, Temple Institute, Herodian Mansion, Western Wall

Day 8 – Masada, Dead Sea, Ein Gedi, Qumran, Jericho Road

Day 9 – Day of leisure (with optional activities suggested.)

Day 10 – Southern Steps, City of David, Jeremiah’s Cistern, Hezekiah’s Tunnel, Pool of Siloam, Elah Valley, Beth Shemesh, Philistine Country, Shepherd’s Fields, View of Bethlehem

Day 11 – Western Wall Tunnel, Pools of Bethesda, St. Anne’s Church, Antonia Fortress, Way of the Cross, Calvary, Garden Tomb,

Day 12 – Morning Departure, returning with a lifetime of memories.

It's True.

Our lot and deck.

We had thought we had everything forward of the creek but we found out we have the whole hill and part of the woods next to the driveway.

Click on any of the pictures to make them bigger!

Joe is "helping" us build our deck and it is coming together nicely! We are building out of an old deck that some friends of ours gave us.

I'll update the pictures as we go along.

More Shirts

Fishin' @ Belews Creek

The WatchMaker

Evolution

Harvest

We have been going to Harvest from Winston every night. It's cool!

You can watch the Webcast by clicking on the picture or on this link:
http://www.harvest.org/crusades/2007/raleigh/index.php/246.html

Are You Ready ? Christian Video

Jesus Christ could return at any moment. Are you ready for the second coming of Christ? www.pottershouse.com www.mooreschapel.org

Baby got Bible

Girls that love God and the Bible rock!!!

T-shirts

13 And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died.
15 We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the Christians who have died will rise from their graves. 17 Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. 18 So encourage each other with these words. (1Thess 4:13-18 New Living Translation)




52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 1 Corinthians 15:52 (New King James Version)

19 And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. 20 By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. Hebrews 10:19-20 (New Living Translation)

2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:2 (New Living Translation)

33 Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!
34 For who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice?

35 And who has given him so much that he needs to pay it back?
36 For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen. Romans 11:33-36 (New Living Translation)

9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.

2 Peter 3:9 (New Living Translation)

Jesus, the Way to the Father

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. 2 There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 3 When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.”

5 “No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. John 14:1-6 (New Living Translation)

4 You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. 5 What do you think the Scriptures mean when they say that the spirit God has placed within us is filled with envy? 6 But he gives us even more grace to stand against such evil desires. As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but favors the humble.”
7 So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. 9 Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor. James 4:4-10 (New Living Translation)

10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Ephesians 2:10 (New Living Translation)

27 And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, Hebrews 9:27 (New Living Translation)

Chris

So, James has gone home to Salisbury, and Mike got called into the office again today, this time Chas asked if Mike would be willing to bring a young man named Chris home to stay for a couple nights. Mike has been working with Chris around the church, and said “of course” Chas asked if Mike had to call and ask me, and he said no (because he doesn’t, first of all Mike is the head of the household, and second, I submit to my husband). So, enter Chris Knight, our adopted 20 year old son. Chris recently came to accept Jesus as his Savior, and was baptized, and went to TN to join an extensive rehab program. The program went pear shaped, and Chris was forced to come back to NC. He really didn’t have anywhere he could go, so one of the Assistant Pastors took him home. And Chris was entered into the rehab program we have at the church. Extensive Bible teaching, and working at the church. The program can be 3-6 months, depending on progress. One thing Chris had to do was quit smoking, stay away from old friends and have limited interaction with family. Not to be mean, just to teach him disipline, and how to submit to authority.
Whereas James lived in the motorhome, Chris gets to live in the house. We have him situated in the guest room and things are going well. I only see him for limited time, morning and evenings, where Mike has him all day at work too, but we are all learning things and enjoying the fact that the Lord is using us and our house to do HIS good work. Chris’s mother and step-father live in Kernersville and he gets to spend Sundays with them, after church(they attend there too) and his father lives about 2 hrs south and came up with his grandparents for church the other Sunday. It looks like we will have him with us until June, or whenever he gets out of the “program”. Someone in the church will employ him, and he will get an apartment, and his drivers license, he’s obviously looking forward to that, but right now, he just needs to be “poured into” and get strong in the Lord, before he goes out into the “real world”. We are loving on him, and he has become part of the family.

James

We were sitting around watching TV one night, it was almost dark, so around 7:30pm and there was a knock on the door. We thought it was our “handy man Jesse”, so Mike answered the door, and went out on the porch to talk. I went around to the bedroom window to see who it was, and saw Mike talking to a young white man with blonde hair. I watched them speak for awhile, making sure there was no angry body language and that everything was safe, then I went in to wash dishes or something. A couple minutes later I again went to the bedroom window to see that everything was still ok, and I see Mike with his hand on this boys shoulder praying for him! Tears came to my eyes, it is so awesome to see how God is transforming my husband! Next thing I know, Mike is in the house putting shoes on, and getting the car keys. The young man’s name is James and his car has been stolen, Mike is taking him to George’s house(a friend of James)where he is staying. Mike gets back a little later and unfolds the story. James lives down south about an hour, in a place called Salisbury, he came up to help George move, and he left his keys in the car at the gas station, and it was stolen. Now it was Easter weekend, and he was stuck til Monday, waiting to hear from the detective. About an hour later, Mike’s cell phone rings and it is James, family came to stay with George for the holiday weekend, and he was getting kicked out of his bed, did Mike know where he could spend the night? Bus station, hospital waiting room? Are you crazy? So, Mike went and picked him up while I fixed up the motorhome. We had let Jesse and his girlfriend Jocelyn store some stuff in there, so it was an ordeal, but I got it where you could walk and the bed made up, so that was where James stayed the night. The next day was Easter and James went to church with us, stayed thru both services, while Mike worked in the coffee bar, then went to George’s house for Easter dinner. We had Easter dinner of our own, new friends from church Joe and Gina Floyd and my friend Kathy from work and her husband Chris and daughter Brianna. Kathy brought a ham, and I did some lamb, scalloped potatoes and some southern greens. It was cold and windy so we ate inside, which was a tad crowded, but we all laughed really hard and had a great time. As the party was winding down James showed back up, and we had some more time to talk to him. He knows the Lord, and knows he’s not living the way he should, and meeting us, hopefully put the “fire” back in him. He stayed another 3 nights, during the day he would play phone tag about his car, and work around the neighborhood doing yardwork for money. He was in touch with his boss (he works for a plumber) and was coming to get him Thursday. He kept trying to get info about his car, and finally found out that nobody was assigned to his case, the tel# he kept leaving messages at was just the initial officer who took his statement. So (with relief) we said goodbye to James on Thursday, and he promised to keep in touch and to find a church of his own. We continue to pray for James and he has called. He called the first Sunday he was home, had gone to church, with his aunt and had news on the car. It had been pulled over on Monday eve, and had been sitting in the impound lot since Tuesday! Now they wanted him to pay something like $249.00 to get it out! My friend, had been worried about him staying with us, of course there had been some news story warning people about scam artists going door to door, but I had to tell her that we didn’t live by “what ifs” and we had to trust the Lord was going to keep us safe. The Lord did keep us safe and after all the conversations we had with James, we all came to the conclusion that the Lord wanted us to meet. It was cool.

A Nice Surprise!

So, last week the Operations Manager, Chas called Mike into the office and blessed us unexpectedly, this week Mike got called into the office again, and was asked if he wanted to go on staff. Of course the answer was yes! Paperwork was filled out, and insurance info was taken. Another way GOD works is this, insurance wasn’t supposed to be effective for 90 days, but when the insurance cards came in the mail, they were effective immediately. The other thing that we noticed when Mike went on staff was that we were going to need another car. There were a couple days he went in at 7:30am, and I had to take him, go home get ready and get to my work at 9:30, then go pick him up at 6:30pm. A long day for him, and for me, so we asked around the staff and church friends, and started praying for a car. It happened that the Pastor was selling his car, and after we looked on our own for a week, we thought buying his car, would be the easy way to go. So we approached Chas about buying the car, and he told us to “hold off, we are working on something” What does that mean we wondered? So we held off, and by Friday of that week, Mike came home with a free car! Someone had donated this 1996 Buick some time ago, and the church had been waiting for the “right people” to bless it with…WOW!!! What a month it’s been, we wonder what will happen next month!! God is Good!

Misc Pics

Songs

All The Earth Will Sing Your Praises
by Paul Baloche

You took, You take our sins away oh God
You give and gave Your life away for us
You came down, You saved us thru the cross
Our hearts are changed because of Your great love

You lived, You died,
You said in three days You would rise
You did, You're alive
You rule, You reign, You said You're coming back again
I know You will and all the earth will sing Your praises

No one, No name can rise above You Lord
One hope, One life will shine forever more
Your kingdom in heaven and on earth
Your children stand to sing of Your great worth

You lived, You died, You said in three days You would rise
You did, You're alive
You rule, You reign, You said You're coming back again
I know You will and all the earth will sing Your praises

It Might Be Today
by Greg Fadness

Though I don't see You
Still Lord I love You
You've given me hope
You've given me life
Through all my trials
Still Lord Your with me
And I have Your word
Your coming back for me

It might be today I look into Your eyes
Might be today I see Your face
Might be today You place Your wounded hands
On my tear-stained face, it might be today

God Speaks Billboards pt 3

Birds & Mutz

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Well, today I’m back at the dentist, I’m in the car with my laptop and my buddy Mike is in the dentist. It’s another nice day. After we finish here we will try and get back to the church by lunchtime. Mike is another volunteer; he vacuums the church and cleans the bathrooms. I’ve been doing a few different types of jobs from re-hanging shelves, changing out toilet paper dispensers, gluing molding down as well as the usual painting. I really need to take some pictures so you can see what it looks like. The church and its staff have been an unbelievable blessing to us since we got here. They couldn’t have been more loving or have treated us more like family. They went out of their way and did something really nice for us recently. I don’t really want to go into detail but we know that they are the type of people we want to serve God with. We are so thankful to God for letting us pursue our dreams out here and that He would let us be a part of this incredible “thing” that Calvary Chapel of the Triad is. It is amazing and I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before but this church is a bit over 4 years old and has over a thousand people attending on Sunday. It started as a bible study of 5 people and 4 years later it’s over a thousand. Only God can do that. In the short time we have been here we have seen it grow and expect it to grow even more. It’s a great thing to be part of.

We recently bought a bird feeder and hung it right outside our kitchen window. It took a few weeks before the birds found it, but when they did it was hard to keep it filled. It mainly attracts two types of birds; the Carolina Chickadee (tiny tanish bird with the black and white head) and the Tufted Titmouse (grayish with orange under wings and a spike on its head). I've been trying to take pictures through the window. I have a few good pictures of them. We did get one blurry picture of a Cardinal, which is the main reason we got the feeder. We didn't have Cardinal's in Boise.

There is a North Carolina Women’s Conference hosted by the Calvary Chapel in Cary, coming later this month and Paige is going to go. It’s 3 days and 2 nights in Greensboro. Greensboro is about 20 miles away but they are going to stay in a hotel. It should be a really great time to get to know other women in the congregation and to be able to spend time with people she already knows. In May I am planning to go to the Southern Pastors conference in Atlanta, GA. its open to Pastors, leaders and people who want to learn more so I’m going to go. The church is working on teaming people up with rides and sharing hotels rooms to keep the cost down. We are also praying about being able to go with the church to Israel late in the year. Money is fairly tight with one income but we have begun saving already so we can go. Our Pastor is very knowledgeable about Israel and is very good bringing the original Hebrew into his messages so it will be very interesting to be there and being able to hear him teach in the original land. We as a church and as a family support the Jewish people and Israel in general. This may come as a surprise to some of you, but Jesus and all of the 1st Christians were Jews and God made promises to them that He will not break. If you pray, we would ask you to pray that God would open doors and help us get to the places that he wants us to be. We really just want to be where He wants us to be.

We went out to Hillbilly Hide-A-Way for dinner with some people Paige works with (Sammy and his girlfriend and Kathy and her family). It always has great country style food and this time we stuck around and went to the area set aside for live music. The musicians are very talented and I have always been a fan of old bluegrass style country music (i.e. Hank William Sr., George Jones and banjos etc.) It was a lot of fun and we hope to do it again. The next day we went over to Kathy and Chris’ house because we are going to take care of their pets when they are on vacation. We wanted to meet their dogs, Drew (think German Shepherd / Whippet) and Macy (Wirehair Terrier Mix). We had a great time with the people and the dogs and are looking forward to going to Flea Markets, camping, etc. with them (the people). We have a lot in common and really hit it off (the people). The dogs are really sweet and Macy has a natural Mohawk and eyebrows like I would have if I didn’t trim them. We are going to enjoy watching them and will upload pictures later. (later turns out to be now.)

I guess you can see I have added some other informational items on the left side of the blog. So now if you want the verse of the day, search the Bible, or spellcheck your comments or my post. :) You can. There is also a new photo section with a few photos. The main site for new photos will still be http://community.webshots.com/user/MKAdams66

I also added links to the weekly (New Testament Sunday and Old Testament Thursday) messages from Calvary Chapel of the Triad. They will change every week and are a great listen. More soon. -m

God Speaks Billboards pt 2

Jokes & Comix

Jokes …

Satan Goes to Church
One bright, beautiful Sunday morning, everyone in tiny Jonestown wakes up early and goes to their local church. Before the service starts, the townspeople sit in their pews and talk about their lives and their families. Suddenly, at the altar, Satan appears!! Everyone starts screaming and running for the front entrance, 
trampling each other in their determined efforts to get away from evil incarnate. Soon, everyone is 
evacuated from the church except for one man, who sit calmly in his pew, seemingly oblivious to the 
fact that God's ultimate enemy is in his presence. This confuses Satan a bit. Satan walks up to the man 
and says, "Hey, don't you know who I am?" The man says, "Yep, sure do. "Satan says, "Well, aren't you afraid of me?" The man says, "Nope, sure ain't. "Satan, perturbed, says, "And why aren't you afraid of me?" The man says, "Well, I've been married to your sister for 25 years."

Uh-Oh
A woman takes her 16-year-old daughter to the doctor. The doctor says, "Okay, Mrs. Jones, what's the problem?” The mother says, "It's my daughter, Debbie. She keeps getting these cravings, she's putting on weight, and is sick most mornings." 
The doctor gives Debbie a good examination, then turns to the mother and says, 
"Well, I don't know how to tell you this, but your Debbie is pregnant - about 4 months, would be my guess. "The mother says, "Pregnant?! She can't be, she has never ever been left alone with a man! Have you, Debbie?" 
Debbie says, "No mother! I've never even kissed a man!" 
The doctor walked over to the window and just stares out it. About five minutes pass and finally the mother says, 
"Is there something wrong out there doctor?" 
The doctor replies, "No, not really, it's just that the last time anything like this happened, a star appeared in the east and three wise men came over the hill. I'll be darned if I'm going to miss it this time!"

The Helper
A pastor is walking down the street one day when he notices a very small boy trying to press a doorbell on a house across the street. However, the boy is very small and the doorbell is too high for him to reach.
After watching the boys efforts for some time, the pastor moves closer to the boy's position. He steps smartly across the street, walks up behind the little fellow and, placing his hand kindly on the child's shoulder leans over and gives the doorbell a solid ring. Crouching down to the child's level, the pastor smiles benevolently and asks, "And now what, my little man?" To which the boy replies, "Now we run!"

Guess Who's Wanted?

Wanted By:

the FDA for turning water into wine without a license,
the EPA for killing fig trees,
the AMA for practicing medicine without a license,
the Dept. of Health for asking people to open graves, for raising the dead and for feeding 5,000 people in the wilderness,
the NEA for teaching without a certificate,
OSHA for walking on water without a life-jacket and for flying without an airplane,
the SPCA for driving hogs into the sea,
the NATIONAL BOARD of PSYCHIATRISTS for giving advice on how to live a guilt-free life,
the NOW for not choosing a woman apostle,
the ABORTION RIGHTS LEAGUE for saying that whoever harms children, it is better that they had never been born,
the INTER-FAITH MOVEMENT for condemning all other religions,
and by the ZONING DEPT for building mansions without a permit.
Guess Who?

Growth For The 1990s Generation
1. As I let go of my feelings of guilt, I am in touch with my inner sociopath.

2. I have the power to channel my imagination into ever-soaring levels of suspicion and paranoia.

3. I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.

4. I no longer need to punish, deceive, or compromise myself, unless I want to stay employed.

5. In some cultures what I do would be considered normal.

6. Having control over myself is almost as good as having control over others.

7. My intuition nearly makes up for my lack of self-judgment.

8. I honor my personality flaws for without them I would have no personality at all.
9. Joan of Arc heard voices, too.

10. I am grateful that I am not as judgmental as all those censorious, self-righteous people around me.

11. I need not suffer in silence while I can still moan, whimper, and complain.

12. As I learn the innermost secrets of people around me, they reward me in many ways to keep me quiet.

13. When someone hurts me, I know that forgiveness is cheaper than a lawsuit, but not nearly as gratifying.

14. The first step is to say nice things about myself. The second, to do nice things for myself. The third, to find someone to buy me nice things.

15. As I learn to trust the universe, I no longer need to carry a gun.

16. All of me is beautiful, even the ugly, stupid and disgusting parts.

17. I am at one with my duality.

18. Blessed are the flexible, for they can tie themselves into knots.

19. Only a lack of imagination saves me from immobilizing myself with imaginary fears.

20. I will strive to live each day as if it were my 50th birthday.

21. I honor and express all facets of my being, regardless of state and local laws.

22. Today I will gladly share my experience and advice, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so!"

23. False hope is better than no hope at all.

24. A good scapegoat is almost as good as a solution.

25. Just for today, I will not sit in my living room all day in my underwear in the Hollywood Cafe.

Instead, I will move my computer into the bedroom.
26. Who can I blame for my problems? Just give me a minute. . . . I'll find someone.

27. Why should I waste my time reliving the past when I can spend it worrying about the future?

28. The complete lack of evidence is the surest sign that the conspiracy is working.

29. I am learning that criticism is not nearly as effective as sabotage.

30. Becoming aware of my character defects leads me naturally to the next step of blaming my parents.

31. To have a successful relationship I must learn to make it look like I'm giving as much as I'm getting.

32. I am willing to make the mistakes if someone else is willing to learn from them.

33. Before I criticize a man, I walk a mile in his shoes. That way, if he gets angry, he's a mile away and barefoot.

The Baby
Ole and Lena went to the hospital so Lena could deliver their first baby. As Ole waited in the lobby, the doctor came out to talk to him. The doctor said, "I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you have a normal baby boy. The bad news is that it is a cesarean." Ole started crying, and said, "Vel, I'm glad it is a healthy baby.... but I vas kinda hoping it vould be Norvegian."


Awful Jokes

Q. What has four legs, is big, green, fuzzy, and if it fell out of a tree would kill you? 

A. A pool table.

Q.What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work? 

A. A stick.

Q. What's brown and sticky?
A. A stick.

Q. What’s E.T short for?
A. Because he’s only got little legs.

Q. How many letters in the alphabet?
A. 24, E T Went home!

Q. Did you hear about the dyslexic Satanist? 

A. He sold his soul to Santa.

Q. Did you hear about the dyslexic Atheist?
A. He doubted the existence of Dog.

Q: How do you get holy water?

A: Boil the hell out of it.

Career Path

My first job was working in an orange juice factory,
but I got canned ... couldn't concentrate.

Then I worked in the woods as a lumberjack,
but I just couldn't hack it, so they gave me the ax.

After that I tried to be a tailor, but I just wasn't suited for it. Mainly because it was a so-so job and seamed more exciting than it was.

Next I tried working in a muffler factory but that was exhausting.

I wanted to be a barber, but I just couldn't cut it so we parted.

Then I tried to be a chef -- figured it would add a little spice to my life but I just wasn't at home on the range

Finally, I attempted to be a deli worker, but any way I sliced it, I couldn't cut the mustard.

My best job was being a musician, but eventually I found I wasn't noteworthy.

Mining was interesting, but then they gave me the shaft.

Next was a job in a shoe factory; I tried but I just didn't fit in.

I became a professional fisherman, but my net income was reel low.

Thought about becoming a witch, so I tried that for a spell.

I managed to get a good job working for a pool maintenance company, but the work was just too draining.

I got a job at a zoo feeding giraffes but I was fired because I wasn't up to it.

So then I got a job in a health club, but they said I wasn't fit for the job.

Next, I found being an electrician interesting, but there were too many undercurrents.

After many years of trying to find steady work I finally got a job as a history teacher until I realized there was no future in it.

My last job was working at Starbucks, but I had to quit because it was always the same old grind and the job had no perks.

So I retired and I found I am a perfect fit for the job!

Monastery of Silence
Brother John entered the 'Monastery of Silence' and the Chief Priest said, "Brother, this is a silent monastery, you are welcome here as long as you like, but you may not speak until I direct you to do so."
Brother John lived in the monastery for a full year before the Chief Priest said to him: "Brother John, you have been here a year now, you may speak two words."Brother John said, "Hard Bed."
"I'm sorry to hear that," the Chief Priest said. "We will get you a better bed."
The next year, Brother John was called by the Chief Priest. "You may now say another two words, Brother John." "Cold Food." said Brother John. The Chief Priest assured him that the food would be better in the future.
On his third anniversary at the monastery, the Chief Priest again called Brother John into his office. "Two words you may say today, Brother John."
"I Quit." said Brother John.
"It is probably for the best," said the Chief Priest. "All you have done since you got here is complain."

God’s Crowd
If you think you are holier than thou and God needs you, you are probably in the wrong crowd!

Moses stuttered.

David's armor didn't fit.

John Mark was rejected by Paul.

Hosea's wife was a prostitute.

Amos' only training was in the school of fig-tree pruning...

Solomon was too rich.

Abraham was too old.

David was too young.

Timothy had ulcers.

Lazarus was dead.

John was self-righteous.

Naomi was a widow.

Paul was a murderer.

So was Moses.

Jonah ran from God.

Miriam was a gossip.

Gideon and Thomas both doubted.

Jeremiah was depressed and suicidal.

Elijah was burned out.

John the Baptist was a loudmouth.

Martha was a worry-wart.

Mary was lazy.

Samson had long hair.

Did I mention that Moses had a short fuse?

So did Peter, Paul - well?, lots of folks did.

But God doesn't require a job interview. He doesn't hire and fire like most bosses, because He's more our Dad than our Boss.
God doesn't look at financial gain or loss. He's not prejudiced or partial, not judging, grudging, sassy, or brassy, not deaf to our cry, not blind to our need.
As much as we try, God's gifts are free. We could do Wonderful things for wonderful people, and still not be... Wonderful.
Satan says, You're not worthy. Satan looks back and sees our mistakes. God looks back and sees the cross. He doesn't calculate what you did. If it's repented sin, it's not even in the record.
Sure. There are lots of reasons why God shouldn't want us. But if we are utterly in love with Him, if we hunger for Him more than our next breath, He'll use us in spite of who we are, where we've been, or what we look like.

Miscellaneous Quotes

Some people are kind, polite and sweet-spirited, until you try to get into their church pew.

Most of us spend the first six days of the week sowing wild oats, then we go to church on Sunday and pray for a crop failure. --Fred Allen

Do you know the three times that most people are in church? When they are hatched, matched and dispatched

Quit griping about your church; if it were perfect, you couldn't belong.

A lot of church members who are singing "Standing On The Promises" are just sitting on the premises.

We were called to be witnesses, not lawyers.

Every evening I turn my troubles over to God. He's going to be up all night anyway.

I don't know why some people change churches - what difference does it make which one you stay home from?

If a Savior leaves you as you are and where you are, from what has He saved you?

Young man, the secret of my success is that at an early age I discovered I was not God. --Oliver Wendell Holmes

Politically Correct Holiday Greeting

We weren’t keeping up with the blog at CHRISTmas but still wanted to issue you a …

Politically Correct Holiday Greeting

Please accept, with no obligation implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all and a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great, (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only "AMERICA" in the western hemisphere), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or choice of computer platform of the wishee.

(By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.)

God Speaks Billboards pt 1

Why we've not been posting ...

This is the 3rd recent post, check below for the older ones. :)

At the end of each post you can click on a link to post your comments and it would be fun if you let us know you are reading the blog. I don't think you have to have an account if you click the Anonymous option but I'd hope you'd put your name in the text. Thanks!

Well here is what else is going on in our world:

Paige is still working at the consignment furniture place and is getting to know her co-workers. We are planning to get together with some of them socially soon. At Christmas the owners gave them all a party where you could go to different stations and make meals to be cooked later, I know the place has a name but I can’t thing of it and we met the spouses and were met by the spouses and it was a nice time. We also went over to help Paige’s boss move and got to interact a bit more. We want to go to “Hillbilly Hideaway” for dinner as a group in the near future. “Hillbilly Hideaway” is the restaurant we took Gail and Alan Mutke (Paige’s Mom and her husband) to when they came and visited. It’s an All-You-Care-To-Eat place that serves home cookin’ country style. Anyone who comes to visit will probably get to eat there. We have friends at the church as well. The Jernigans’ (Rick, Margaret, Mary Catherine and Little Ricky.) They are the first people we met (They offered the use of their truck) and we go out for lunch after church occasionally. John and Heather Oates are a young couple we met at the Connection (A newcomers luncheon at church) and we went to their families party for Thanksgiving. The couple that watched our boys when we went to California are William and Wendy Tolley and they have 2 kids and they are in our “How to Follow Jesus” class on Sunday night. They came over for lunch before we left to get to know the boyz (Gar & Loki) a bit. It’s been really nice getting to know people and are excited to continue to get to know them.

Our lives are pretty full but it keeps us out of trouble. Sundays we go to church at Calvary Chapel of the Triad at 9am. Pastor David McGee teaches verse-by-verse from the New Testament on Sundays and we are currently in Acts. As I said earlier Sunday nights we go to the “How to Follow Jesus” class and when that is over we might get into a small group or look into working with the youth because they have a service at night. Paige and I both have a heart to see youth on fire for Christ. Monday is one of Paige’s days off so we go to the church and volunteer in the “Blessing Room” where people donate clothes and other people can take for free. We go through the bags of donated clothes and sort, hang or fold them. It’s a great ministry and really helps people out. We are usually there a good part of the day and are blessed to be able to eat lunch at the church with the staff. Tuesday and Wednesday I go to the church after I drop Paige off at work and spend the day doing whatever needs to be done. Recently I placed, cut and glued carpet squares throughout the children’s area and have been painting. Thursday we go to church and Pastor David teaches verse-by-verse through the Old Testament and we are currently in 1 Samuel. We are planning on working with the “Sparkle” team to help clean up after the Thursday service. Friday I go back to the church after dropping Paige off. Saturday I try and get stuff done around the house and if it’s not too cold, the yard. Sunday we start all over again. We are truly blessed to be able to do all the things we had hoped we could. Right now I’m in the process of trying to get into the Forsyth County Prison and High Point Jail. I’m hoping to build a small team to go in and minister, whether in groups of inmates or one-on-one in cells. Whatever doors the Lord opens we will walk through. I’m also looking into volunteering at the local Christian Television Station to learn all I can about that sort of ministry. Our church has a pretty serious media team with television and radio shows so it would be a great place to get involved. This was always the plan when we left Boise and only God could have made it happen. PTL. -m

Memorial and more...

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Another early morning here is Southern California. The weather has been really nice, sunny and warm. The memorial service was nice, it was at a Lutheran church that the Grandparents had attended for many years and at which Mally had provided some beautiful stained glass pieces. The Pastor really knew Mally so he could speak about him. Family and friends stood up and remembered him and we celebrated his life. A lady spoke to us in the Fellowship Hall after the service and said there was one aspect of Mally that wasn’t mentioned. He liked to eat. We like to eat too as you know if you’ve followed this blog much. It’s one of those things that prove how much God loves us. He gave us an amazing variety of things to enjoy. We remember a time when Mally and Myrl came to visit us in Boise and we took them to our favorite Mexican restaurant. We aren’t even sure what he ordered but when it came out it was on a plate the size as a trashcan lid. Nobody thought he could finish it all but he did.

We chatted with most everyone in the family, which is like conversing with a small village. Which is good for wannabe missionaries, spreadin’ the good news is not just cracking people upside the head with the Bible. We enjoyed visiting with everyone but a few people stand out; Glenn Wolf (Paige’s Cousin), who is an artist (He gave us a terrific botanical print as a wedding gift, and it has been all over the country with us.) As it usually does in most of our conversations, church came up and he told us that in the early 70’s he attended some concerts put on by Calvary Chapel. It was especially interesting because that was the early days of our church. We always look forward to seeing Glenn and hearing what’s going on in his life. Jed and Layne Cook (Jed’s a cousin) live in Washington State and travel the country. Gail (Paige’s Mom) gave the Cook’s our blog address and they had been following it, it is fun to think we are not the only ones reading this. Layne is an artist as well. I had seen a postcard of the “Love Among Belted Cows” painting and really enjoyed it. You can see more of here art at http://www.rovzargallery.com/main/cook1.html We also spent time with Jim Otstott (Spell-check thinks Otstott is spelled wrong. Suggestions include: Potshot, Tosspot, Hotspot and Hotshot.) Jim’s a cousin. We always have a good time with the Otstott’s and hope they will come visit us when they visit Ginger’s family out here. It’s hard to believe Bradley’s 8.

We went to Harvest Christian Fellowship which is Evangelist Greg Laurie’s church in Riverside, CA. http://www.harvest.org/ We had been there before and love it. It’s a huge church. The first time we went we loved it and wished that we could have attended it. At that time we knew we were leaving Boise and even though we attended a church that we believed in and supported, we knew we were leaving so we never really put down roots. So when we went to Harvest in Riverside we fell in love. This time was a bit different, it was the same and everything was great but it wasn’t home. Calvary Chapel of the Triad is our home. Pastor Greg is terrific but he’s not our Pastor David. We learned that we truly are home now so when we visit we can enjoy other Pastors but we still have our Shepherd in NC. Pastor Greg does Crusades (without killing anyone, unlike those other Crusades) all over the world. He is going to be in Raleigh, NC June 22nd through the 24th 2007 http://www.harvest.org/crusades/2007/raleigh/
and Anaheim @ Angel’s Stadium August 3rd through the 5th 2007 as well as Turlock, CA @ CSU Stanislaus August 24th through the 26th 2007. http://www.harvest.org/crusades/2007/turlock/ We are planning on attending the Raleigh Crusade, and God willing, working it. These events are always free and have incredible musical guests. Check em’ out if they come to your area, you might be surprised.


Here is the link to our church in North Carolina as well. You can listen to the messages online if you are so inclined. It's cool.

http://www.reachthetriad.com/teachingflash.php?Testament=New&Book=Acts

*CLICK ON THE PICTURES TO MAKE THEM BIGGER*

It's been too long ... but we're back!

Saturday, February 10, 2007

It’s about 5am Pacific Standard Time and we aren’t at home. We flew in to California yesterday to attend Paige’s Grandfather Malvern “Mally” McCall’s memorial. The memorial will be later today but my body still thinks it is in Eastern Standard Time. The flight wasn’t too bad and we didn’t have as much of a layover as we thought. We flew out of Charlotte and it was pretty painless. Some friends from church are watching the mutz. What a blessing! We spent the evening visiting with the family (Myrl, Paige’s Grandmother; Gail, Paige’s Mom; Alan, Gail’s husband and Jim, Paige’s cousin.)

Paige’s Grandfather Mally McCall was a great man and I loved him. It really is strange to be in Redlands without him here. The girls (Myrl, Gail and Paige) would all go and talk about their girly things while Mally and I would talk. I sure missed it. He would speak of his time as a machinist at a company called Modine. He would speak of his stained glass and other parts of their lives through the years. I could listen to him for hours. I would always look forward to spending time with him when we got the chance. I remember him very fondly and will miss him but am glad that he won’t have to suffer. I know that he was tired and ready to go and I long to be where he is. See you later, Mally!

Free Aaron Shust Christmas Song

Here is a great version of a great Christmas song.

Click this link to listen or download the song. http://www.brickmanmedia.com/shust/

Jokes and comics.

I just heard this one and it's one of my all time favorites!

What did one snowman say to the other snowman?
...Everything smells like carrots!

---

Little Logan and his family were having Thanksgiving dinner at his grandmother's house. Everyone was seated round the table as the food was being served. When little Logan received his plate, he started eating right away."Logan, wait until we say our prayer," his mother reminded him."I don't need to," the little boy replied."Of course you do!" his mother insisted, "We say a prayer before eating at our house.""That's at our house," Logan explained, "but this is Grandma's house, and she knows how to cook!"

---

Little Leroy came into the kitchen where his mom was making dinner. His birthday was coming up, and he thought this was a good time to tell his mother what he wanted."Mom, I want a bike for my birthday. "Little Leroy was a bit of a troublemaker. He had gotten into trouble at school and at home. Leroy's mother asked him if he thought he deserved to get a bike for his birthday. "Of course," he said. Leroy's mother, being a Christian woman, wanted him to reflect on his behavior over the last year. "Go to your room, Leroy, and think about how you've behaved this year. Then write a letter to God and tell him why you deserve a bike for your birthday. "Little Leroy stomped up the steps to his room and sat down to write God a letter.
Letter 1: "Dear God, I have been a very good boy this year, and I would like a bike for my birthday. I want a red one. Your friend, Leroy."Leroy knew this was not true, so he tore the letter up and wrote a new one.
Letter 2: "Dear God, I have been an okay boy this year. I still would like a bike for my birthday. Leroy."This letter was no good either.
Letter 3: "Dear God, I know I haven't been a good boy this year. I am very sorry, and I will be a good boy next year if you just send me a bike for my birthday. Please. Thank you. Leroy.

"Leroy knew this wasn't true, and now he was getting upset. He went downstairs and told his mother he needed to go to church. She thought her plan had worked and told him to be home in time for dinner.Leroy walked into the church and went to the altar. He looked around to see if anyone was watching. He bent down, picked up the statue of the Virgin Mary, and slipped it under his coat.
Letter 4: "Dear God, I got your mama. If you want to see her again, send the bike. Signed, You know who."

---

Scoll down for other new posts!

Face of Love

The Face Of Love

By Sanctus Real

I’ve seen your face on stained glass, in colored lights
In pictures of you looking to the sky

You’ve been portrayed a thousand different ways
But my heart can see you better than my eyes
‘Cause it’s love that points the portrait of your life

The face of love
The face of love
You look more like love everyday

I’ve read your words in the pages of your life
And I’ve imagined what you were like
I may not know the shape of your face
But I can feel your heart changing mine
And your love still proves that you’re alive

The face of love
The face of love

You look more like love everyday

You are the face that changed the whole world

No one too lost for you love
No one too low for you to serve
So give us the grace to change the world
No one too lost for me to love
No one too low for me to serve

Let us see... Let us be your face

----

Altar Call

by Keith Green

Most people don't find out
'Till it's too late
That someone has to pay the price
You can pay it your self Or let someone else
But who would be that nice
To pay a debt that isn't his
Well I know someone like that
And He's your best friend
He really is
He really loves you
Most people don't find out
'Till they have death
That they need another life
You say you've heard everything
That's ever been said
About the way the truth, the life
You say you've heard lots of preaching
All before So many times
But did you ever open up your door
Give Him a chance
To prove Himself
That He's real or not
I hope you find out
Before it's too late
That there's really nobody else
You know its breaking his heart
The longer you wait
Cause You've only been lying to yourself
Cause No one believes a thing you say
Not even youYou know
You're gonna find out that He's the way
No matter which way you choose
But I pray you
Find out by His love for you
Some people won't find out'
Till it's too late
Some people won't find out

Really how He does it

but He proved Himself to me in such a Holy way

Such a complete way

that I'd die for that faith and I'd die for that believe

Because it is more than 'Till it's too late

We're back!

Saturday, December 02, 2006

[Click on the pictures to make them bigger] I can’t believe it’s been almost a month since our last entry. Not a lot has happened, work has been going well, we had my parents visit, and turkey day. Let’s start with work, I started about the 20th of October and before Thanksgiving they were already offering me a more important position. Of course that would have meant more hours and more responsibilities (as well as headaches) so I declined. We were just starting to get more involved with the church, and that is the reason we are here. The ministry possibilities at work are numerous, but I felt it important to show them that GOD and church was first. So, work is going well, getting along better with all, as I continue to “prove” myself. Mike is especially appreciative of me as well, and it is certainly nice to come home to a clean house and hot dinner.

We put our Christmas tree up before my folks came on the 11th of November, and had an early Thanksgiving while they were here. They had a very long trip over, left LA about 9am and arrived in Greensboro at 11pm, almost a12 hr day of traveling. Luckily the house isn’t all that big so the grand tour didn’t take long, and we all had a good night sleep. Took them to Old Salem, ( http://www.oldsalem.org/ )which is the original village the Moravian Missionaries founded after coming from Germany. Many old buildings still stand and one of the restaurants dresses in colonial outfits, we ate lunch there, and it was wonderful. Visited some of the museum and exhibition sites (cobbler, tailor, bakery) and boarding houses called “single brothers house” and “single sister house” where the Moravians sent their older children to live with the Lord before they got married. Sounded like a great idea and we should adopt this way of living for our young people today. We ate extremely well, went to a place called Hillbilly Hideaway and to Cracker Barrel for real authentic southern cooking. Went for a day trip up to Mt. Airy ( http://www.visitmayberry.com/ ) where Andy Griffith is from, and the town looks just like in his TV show. Also went up into VA a little ways, and will definitely go back in the spring. My Mom has a friend in Hillsboro which is over by Chapel Hill and Raleigh-Durham, so they went over there one day and went to the campus at Duke Univ. said it was gorgeous (especially the chapel) so we will take a drive over to see it one of these days. They flew home on the 15th and the next day I woke up with a sore throat and have been struggling with a slight cough.

We got invited for Thanksgiving by some kids at church (newlyweds and all of 26yrs old) they are so cute. But kinda makes us feel like an old married couple. We met them at the church Meet and Greet right after we got here, and say hello Sun mornings, and talk about how to get involved. So Heather asked if we wanted to have Thanksgiving with her family, and we said sure, having no idea what we were getting into. The family is pretty good sized so they rent out the community center in the town where they live, (I think its Hillsville, NC) about an hour south of our house. There were probably 30-40 people, including some very wound up kids. Great food and even better prayer time, that is something that we just love about it here, people are not afraid to pray!! We sure appreciated the invitation and the time with such a friendly family. And we were definitely more thankful this year, I caught a glimpse of a school bus, that said NC Schools and just prayed out loud thank you Lord for letting us come here, I can’t believe we are really here!

The dogs finally got trained on the invisible fence, it kinda ruined Gar’s spirit, he doesn’t want to run and fetch, all he wants to do is stand on the porch. Maybe it’ll get better. Put some lights and garland up outside today, Mike is at the church helping tear down after a function. We’ve been going to antique stores and spending time, gets our shopping fix with out spending a lot of money. Went to one last weekend that was two stories and we probably spent three hours, and only $9.00. Another good thing about a small house, not much room for unnecessary items, should curb our spending. We have a handy man named Jesse that comes around every week or so looking for odd jobs to do for money, and we had him clean out the gutters the other day. He came by today to get his money and when I looked out the window there was Mike with his hand on Jesse’s shoulder praying for him, it brought tears to my eyes, I am so proud of the man God has made him. We are taking a “home improvement” class at church on marriage, and are getting some great scriptural basics on having a pleasing marriage (to God and us) We are trying to have some US time in the morning with coffee, no tv or computer, just us talking and praying together.

Wal-Mart wishes you a Merry Christmas

By Jayne O'Donnell, USA TODAY

Wal-Mart will put "Christmas" back into the holidays this year, the retailer plans to announce Thursday.

A year after religious and other groups boycotted retailers, including Wal-Mart (WMT), for downplaying Christmas, the world's largest retail chain will have an in-your-face Christmas theme this year.

"We, quite frankly, have learned a lesson from last year," says Wal-Mart spokeswoman Linda Blakley. "We're not afraid to use the term 'Merry Christmas.' We'll use it early, and we'll use it often."

Wal-Mart told about 7,000 associates of the plans at a conference last month and "was met with rapturous applause. ... We know many of our customers will feel the same," says John Fleming, Wal-Mart's executive vice president of marketing.

Fleming says the retailer, which recently lowered prices on toys and electronics, will be pitching Christmas almost as much as "value" to holiday shoppers.

New this year:

• A TV ad trumpeting Christmas will air for the first time next week. Wal-Mart also will air TV ads along with the Salvation Army mentioning Christmas.

• The name of the department with Christmas decorating needs will change from The Holiday Shop, which it was for the past several years, to The Christmas Shop.

• Store signs will count down the days until Christmas, and Christmas carols will be piped throughout the season.

• About 60% more merchandise will be labeled "Christmas" rather than "holiday" this year over last.

The Christmas spirit is spreading. Macy's, the largest U.S. department store chain, plans to have "Merry Christmas" signs in all departments. All of Macy's window displays will have Christmas themes. At New York's Herald Square, the theme will be "Oh, Christmas Tree."

"Our intention is to make every customer feel welcomed and appreciated, whether they celebrate Christmas or other holidays," spokesman Jim Sluzewski says.

As at Wal-Mart, Macy's employees are encouraged to consider wishing customers holiday greetings that are appropriate to their race or religion, including Happy Kwanzaa or Feliz Navidad.

Sometimes, even the best intentions can backfire. The Catholic League, one of the groups fighting what it calls the Christmas Wars, says a member alerted it that Macy's was pitching a "Happy Hanukkah" gift card but not a "Merry Christmas" one.

After he was contacted by the group, Sluzewski determined a production "glitch" meant the Merry Christmas gift cards were available everywhere but in its Western region, where there were plenty of Happy Hanukkah gift cards.

"We are correcting the problem," Sluzewski says. "Of all the cards to have a glitch with."

It's been a while...

Hi Guys, It has been a while since we updated but not too much has happened. We decided to keep the blog going indefinitely. It’s a good way to keep anyone who is interest updated and we get to pass along interesting things as well.

Paige job is going well. I miss her. We spent the last few months together 24/7 and its hard not to do that. She might be the only person I could spend that much time with and not want to strangle. We’ll have been married for 10 years next May and I love her more than ever.

We are still looking for a hutch thingy fro the kitchen and have been training the dogs with the invisible fence. It’s going to be hard to let them get shocked but I guess its part of the learning process. We found a framed print we had been looking for, for some time. It’s called “Master Bedroom” and is on a Lab sleeping on the bed. It looks like our room if the boys have their way. We purchased a new programmable thermostat to replace the old new one. The Heating/Cooling guys said they used to use programmable ones but they were too hard to explain how to use. We had one at the Boise house and like to be able to set it for day and night. It should save a bit of money in the long run. We also bought electric blankets for the beds. We keep the thermostat pretty low at night and its nice to have a little heat. I’m sitting in bed with the laptop typing this and the dogs are snoring so loud it is hard to concentrate. We have been feeding them pineapple as a treat. We are trying to teach them the word pineapple so they go crazy when you say it but no luck so far. It’s pretty funny but it might be funnier in person.

Wow it looks pretty cold in Boise, a High of 42 and a LOW of 17. Arrgh! That’s not Fall. It’s really nice here, Highs in the 70’s and a Low of 45.

The Sunday before last we went to lunch after church with the Jernigan’s. They were the first people we met at Calvary Chapel of the Triad, the ones that offered us the loan of their truck. It was a really nice time. We had great conversation and their kids were great too. They surprised us with a house warming gift of a cross that has the bible verse 2 Corinthians 5:7 … For we walk by faith, not by sight. It is really nice and will be a great addition to our collection.

Well I guess that’s it for now. Make sure you check out the story about Clay Dyer below. God Bless!

No Arms, No Legs? No Problem.

I woke up Sunday morning and was checking the weather and saw a bit of a fishing show with a really impressive guy. I dug up some information to share with you and I’ll pick up after it.

No Arms, No Legs? No Problem for Tournament Fisherman By John Phillips

- Clay Dyer's motto for life is, "If I can, you can."

Dyer, 24, of Hamilton, Ala. stands less than 40 inches tall and weighs 86 pounds. But put him on a boat on a lake, and he proves that physical deficiencies are no obstacles when it comes to catching fish.

When he was only 5 years old, Dyer realized the difference between himself and other children. Dyer was born with no full-sized arms - only a partial arm on his right shoulder - and no legs.

Most people will consider Dyer handicapped, but he doesn't see himself that way.
"I knew I had a heart, a soul and a mind, which is what really makes a human being," Dyer says. "Anything else you have is a bonus."

That kind of attitude and a determined work ethic has helped Dyer develop amazing skill with a bass rod and the lures in his tackle box.

Fishing for 19 years, Dyer has tournament fished since age 15 and fished full-time since 1995. The highly competitive Dyer has fished in more than 200 bass tournaments and won 25.
"I knew when I started bass fishing tournaments that I probably wouldn't win in the beginning," Dyer said. "I realized that I had a lot to learn, and I was willing to invest the time required to master my profession."

Dyer had to learn how to fish competitively, a difficult task at best. Also to compete, he had to create a completely new style of bass fishing that would enable him to fish independently and efficiently and maximize the energy of his small frame.

Dyer holds his rod between his shoulder and his chin and supports the rod with his arm. People who have seen Dyer cast with pinpoint accuracy say that his cast looks much like a golf swing. But he can cast overhanded and side-armed as well as flip and pitch. Dyer can cast a 1/4-ounce jig into a Styrofoam coffee cup from 30 to 50 feet. But there's more to being a competitive angler than just casting accuracy.

As Dyer said, "When I first started fishing, the competition blew me away, particularly on the B.A.S.S. Federation Circuit. But, instead of getting down mentally, I tried to learn something new at every tournament I attended.

"At first, the other fishermen were a little stand offish. They couldn't understand how someone who looked like me could fish, much less compete in a professional tournament. They couldn't figure out how a 40-inch-tall guy with only one 16-inch-long arm could flip and pitch under docks and piers and overhanging bushes or how he could drive a bass boat at 70 mph safely. Most of the fishermen in my early days of competing were uncertain about my abilities - until they went on the water with me, saw me drive my boat and fish."

Like all the other competitors in a tournament, Dyer wears a life jacket while driving his boat. But when he gets ready to fish, he sheds his life jacket.

When asked what happens if he falls into the water while fishing, Dyer laughed. "I can swim like a fish, and I love to go swimming. Often after a hard day of tournament fishing, swimming helps me stretch and relax my muscles that have been tensed up all day."
Larry Hopson, also of Hamilton, and one of the many anglers who has fished tournaments with Dyer for six years, said he was skeptical of Dyer's abilities at first.

"I was a little apprehensive to fish with him at first and was nervous about his ability to drive a boat at 70 mph," Hopson said. "However, within five minutes of being on the water with him, I was relaxed and comfortable and knew he could handle that boat.

"Fishing with Clay is an inspiration to me. The only thing you have to do for Clay is help him into the boat and put his life jacket on him. He handles anything else. You may have to open up a soft drink or a bottle of water every once in awhile for him, but that's all."

When people ask Hopson how Dyer fishes, he tells them, "The best way to learn how Clay fishes is to go with him and watch. I've seen him take lures off, put lures on, tie knots, thread worms on hooks, tie on spinner baits and crankbaits and jerk 3- and 4-pound bass into the boat or even crawl into a brushpile headfirst to get a hooked bass out of thick cover.

"I've watched Clay run his trolling motor and cast with pinpoint accuracy. And even though I've fished with him hundreds of times, I'm still not sure how he does what he does. He's an amazing man with an amazing talent."

Dyer's true strength is his attitude and spirit.

"My competing as a tournament angler isn't really a big deal," Dyer said. "I just take what I have and try to do the very best I can with it. By adopting this attitude, I've discovered that I can do things that I've never thought possible.

"I love a challenge and competition. And I've always enjoyed proving that I can do what anyone else can do. When someone tells me I can't, I'll do whatever I have to do to prove that I can.
"I played baseball all through junior-high school. I was either the catcher or the first baseman, so I didn't have to move a lot. When my turn came to bat, I had a designated runner. I knew I would never be a professional baseball player.

"However, I believed that I could be a professional fisherman if I worked at it. I realized that becoming a professional fisherman would be a challenge. But I also felt that God wanted me to be successful at fishing and to demonstrate that if Clay Dyer could do it, anybody who had a goal in life could achieve that goal."

When asked about his future, Dyer said, "I feel like I'm doing what God wants me to do. However, as much as I love competitive fishing, if God tells me to put fishing aside and do something else, I will. As long as my health stays good and I can cast a rod, I plan to keep on fishing.

"My dad says I'll be fishing until I'm six feet under."

I was really inspired by Clay. Here was this guy with no arms or legs scrambling around a boat trying to pull a fish in with his shoulder and chin and the minute he lands the fish he immediately says thank you Lord. I have all my limbs and so many other things I take for granted and here is this guy that so many would think has nothing to be thankful for but he is truly thankful. I’m thankful that the Lord uses people like Clay to teach people like me. Thank you Lord!


Clay’s Website: http://www.smgoutdoors.com/claydyer.html

Another article about Clay: http://www.baptiststandard.com/postnuke/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=4659

The link below is a video feature that ESPN did on him. It’s pretty cool.
http://www.smgoutdoors.com/f/Clay_Dyer.wmv

Jesus had to be Glorified! by Gretta Curtis

Jesus had to be Glorified, says British Airways Employee Nadia Eweida, British Airways' employee fighting to openly wear a Christian cross necklace at work, said that "Jesus had to be glorified" through her life.

Nadia Eweida, British Airways' employee fighting to openly wear a Christian cross necklace at work, said that "Jesus had to be glorified" through her life.

Eweida, 55, a check-in worker at Heathrow airport, has been on unpaid leave after refusing to remove or cover up her cross.

She said today: "I cannot hide it. Jesus has to be glorified in my life. I am not politically motivated or minded. I just follow the biblical truth."

Ms Eweida, from west London, was speaking to Sky News from New York having been taken over to the USA by a television news company.

She said she was still waiting to hear the result of her appeal to BA to be allowed to openly wear the cross.

Ms Eweida added: "I have been overwhelmed by the support I have had in America and from my MP and barrister.

"I am just a normal employee trying to earn a living and look after my mother at the same time."

The suspended worker was reported as saying: “British Airways permits Muslims to wear a headscarf, Sikhs to wear a turban and other faiths religious apparel. Only Christians are forbidden to express their faith.”

British Airways has commented that its company policy states that employees must wear jewellery under their uniforms, and it explicitly states that this includes religious symbols.
Liberal Democrat lawmaker Vincent Cable, who represents Twickenham in west London, said it was “absolutely mind-boggling that Britain's flag-carrying airline could treat its employees in such a disgraceful and petty manner.”

“Nadia is a devout Christian who was displaying her faith, but in a modest and totally un-provocative manner,” he said.

“It is absolutely right that other religious minorities be allowed exemption from the dress code, but why can't a Christian be treated in the same way?”

A Quick One pt.2

Saturday, Oct 21st, 2006

I started job hunting back the first week of Oct, applied for a job at the Wake Forest Deacon Pro shop in the mall, a Salvage building supply, a consignment furniture store and some misc. retail shops. Sent a resume to a Christian Counseling center looking for a substance abuse counselor, and applied to our church because they were looking for a part time secretary. The Deacon shop called me to interview first, and of course the full time position called for Sundays and nights, so I told the woman that I might be interested in the part time position instead of full time so I wouldn’t have to miss church. She didn’t seem to understand and I didn’t hear back from her. The day after that interview the furniture place called, the owner asked what brought me to NC and when I told her GOD, she said she got goosebumps. We had a pretty lengthy conversation on the phone and I went in Friday for a “working interview”. The store is closed on Sundays (smile) and closes at 6pm (church starts at 7 - smile) The positions are part time with full time pay, they figure if they pay their employees well enough they don’t have to work full time and can have time to be with their families and/or ministries. Awesome. Even though it’s part time they offer benefits and paid vacation, the owner said something about the benefits being expensive, so they give you a reimbursement check every month to help off-set the cost. WOW. I go back on Monday and am sure will get more info. Since I’m making so much money (twice what I made in Boise) Mike is going to be the house husband until just the right thing comes along. He had said he would go back to security, and the company he worked for in Boise, has an office here in Greensboro, but we know it would be night (like graveyard) and/or weekends (at least at first), and I really don’t want him doing that. Thankfully we don’t need two incomes because we own the house, and have very little monthly expenses-God is good!

We went to the local mall to see a free concert today. Aaron Shust played, he said he wasn’t used to playing at malls, but we all think it went very well. He made sure everyone there listening, and everyone passing by knew why we were all there-to praise God. We sang along “our Savior lives, our Savior loves, our Savior’s there for me” he played for about an hour, then was heading to Charlotte for a concert tonight. It was really cool. After church on Sunday we are going out to lunch with the very first people we met at Calvary. (The ones who said we could borrow their truck, and stay at their house) Then I think we will drive up to Mt Airy or somewhere to see the fall leaves in full. If we get home by 5pm, we will go join a small group at church, we’ve been meaning to for a couple weeks now.

http://www.aaronshust.com/index.html

Will Rogers Wisdom

Will Rogers, who died in a plane crash with Wylie Post in 1935, was probably the greatest political sage this country has ever known. Enjoy the following quotes:

Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco.

Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.

There are two theories to arguing with a woman... neither works.

Never miss a good chance to shut up.

Always drink upstream from the herd.

If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back in your pocket.

There are three kinds of men: ones that learn by reading, few who learn by observation, and the rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

If you're riding ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there.

Lettin' the cat outta' the bag is a whole lot easier 'n puttin' it back.

And finally: After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him... The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.

A Quick One pt.1

Hey Guys, not a lot of time to update but some news. Paige found an incredible job. It's a consignment furniture place called Consignment Furniture Emporium, Inc. http://www.cfe1.com/. It's part-time (which is what we wanted) but pays full-time + pay. The owners are Christian as well. Paige will write in the blog and give you more info soon.We bought one of our final furniture pieces the other day.

We had been looking for a Dressing Table because our bathroom is small (and only one) so Paige can do her makeup and hair in the Master bedroom. We were going to wait because now that Paige works at a furniture place we could be pretty choosy but it was on $50 and we couldn't pass it up.

Later this afternoon we are going to see Christian artist Aaron Shust who is giving a free concert at Hanes Mall here in Winston-Salem. http://www.aaronshust.com/index.html If you listen to Christian radio you've probably heard some of his songs (Matchless and My Savior, My God). It's pretty obvious what he's talking about in his songs, and I appreciate that. It drives me crazy when you don't know what a "Christian Bands" lyrics are talking about. I don't mean loud I mean wishy-washy or watered-down. I betcha Aaron Shust will lay out the Gospel pretty clearly in the Mall today!!!

Here are a couple pictures of my buddy Walt and his buddy Ken Bishop at a Greenbay Packer game. Ken is a DJ for a Christian Radio Station http://www.89q.org/waycup/index.html and is helping Walt get back into radio. I worked with Walt and he came to the small group at least once. He now lives in Wisconsin. Please keep Walt in prayer. Thanks.

Fall in NC - Just Pics

Here are a few pictures of our house in fall. I took them a few minutes ago. More Later. -m

*click* them to make them bigger.

More pictures and these ones without text are at our webshots page.

Cartoons!

It's feast or famine with posts ... Scroll down for main posts!

Late Update pt. 2

Monday, October 16, 2006

We went to the Raleigh Fair on October 13th to see Chris Tomlin. WOW! We were not disappointed. Church goers who go to churches with contemporary worship services would recognize Chris Tomlin’s discography, if not his name. Some of his songs include: Enough, Indescribable, Holy Is the Lord, How Great is Our God, Your Grace Is Enough & Not to Us, Forever. We have been to a few concerts recently by Christian artists that really never mentioned God or the reason they were doing what they were doing. Chris really went out of his way to point to God. It was an amazing concert. It was so refreshing to hear him say that he wasn’t the attraction, God is. He was there for God. Don’t pass up a chance to see Chris Tomlin if you get the chance.

Here are the lyrics to one of Chris’ newer songs:

Made to Worship

Before the day
Before the light
Before the world revolved around the sun
God on high
Stepped down into time
And wrote the story of His love for everyone

He has filled our hearts with wonder
So that we always remember

You and I were made to worship
You and I are called to love
You and I are forgiven and free
You and I embrace surrender
You and I choose to believe
You and I will see who we were meant to be

All we are
And all we have
Is all a gift from God that we receive
Brought to life
We open up our eyes
To see the majesty and glory of the King

He has filled our hearts with wonder
So that we always remember

You and I were made to worship
You and I are called to love
You and I are forgiven and free
You and I embrace surrender
You and I choose to believe
You and I will see who we were meant to be

And even the rocks cry out
And even the Heavens shout
At the sound of His holy name
So let every voice sing out
And let every knee bow down
He is worthy of all our praise

You and I were made to worship
You and I are called to love
You and I are forgiven and free, yeah
You and I embrace surrender
You and I choose to believe
You and I will see, you and I will see

You and I were made to worship
You and I are called to love
You and I are forgiven and free, yeah
You and I embrace surrender
You and I choose to believe
You and I will see who we were meant to be

http://www.christomlin.com/

AMEN! We are actually going to another Christian concert, Aaron Shust, at a mall on next Saturday. It will be our 3rd free or really cheap concert in a month. COOL!

We wrapped up the painting, for now. We really like the colors together; the tan, blue and coral look pretty cool. The last color will be in the bathroom and is a lime green similar to the color of our old bathroom but probably brighter. We are waiting to do the bathroom until we remodel it and we aren’t sure when we will be able to finish it. As Paige said we are still looking for a dressing table, bookshelf and a hutch for the kitchen.

Late Update pt. 1

Saturday, October 07, 2006

*click* the pictures to make them bigger.

Painted the kitchen last week, we are going for a retro 50’s kitchen, and painted it turquoise (think Tiffany Box blue).

We plan to get a chrome bistro table someday, with shiny red
vinyl seats and thought the turquoise would go nicely. Also bought paint for the guest room, it’s a coral-salmon color, but I still have to finish taking the wallpaper border down, and prime the place before the color can go on. (It's finished in the pictures.) Bought a full size mattress, head and foot board and bedding, so we will be ready for our company in November.

We bought quite a bit of furniture new, and then found the flea market and a great Salvation Army thrift store, and have got some wonderful vintage pieces. A swivel-rocker vinyl upholstered chair for $35.00, and two dressers, one for $35 we thought we would have in our room, but then we found an even better one for $40 that Mike put a new coat of lacquer on and turned out great for our room. The head/foot board for the guest room needs a coat of paint, but will be very cute for $35. We are still on the hunt for a vanity table, or little desk, that I can sit and do my hair and make-up in the master. Saw a sewing machine table I liked, but decided the era was off, were going to go back to the flea market today, but it’s raining. So we are having a lazy day, breakfast in bed and watching movies.


We went to Dixie Classic Fair Wednesday night the contemporary Christian band Jars of Clay were playing, and you got in free if you brought 5 cans of food. It was a fun night out, planning on going to the Raleigh Fair (60+ miles east) later this month to see Chris Tomlin play! We never got such great groups play at the Idaho fair. Also found out at church on Thursday night that Greg Laurie’s Harvest Crusade is coming to Raleigh next spring!! http://www.harvest.org/crusades/2007/raleigh/ There are on average, 2300 decisions for Christ every night of the Crusade - that’s awesome!! We will definitely sign up to work, and take the motorhome to stay the whole week. We went and saw him at his church in Riverside, Ca last year. It will be so cool.

Finally got back to Weight Watchers on Wed. and weighed in only 3 lbs more than I left Boise-not too bad! Mike and I have both been sore from working out on our new exercise equipment, but it feels good, and we are being very diligent. The boys had a good visit with the new vet Tuesday. She came to us, and took blood for heartworm tests, both boys were negative, and are now on preventative medicine. Also had her clip their nails, Gar was very good, but you’d think she was taking Loki’s whole leg off, the way he fussed. Glad that’s over for awhile. More pictures after we get the guest room painted, hope you all are enjoying our journals. Would love to hear from you, and see what are you’re favorite bits. -p

Friday Update

Friday, September 29, 2006

We officially have heat and air conditioning! The guys who installed it have been here since Tuesday, and have been a joy. One, Joe is the “down to business” one, and then there is Darryl, the funny one. Lots of jokes and riddles, such as…If it takes four men, four days to dig four holes, how long does it take one man to dig half a hole? (Keep reading for the answer) The Pastor/Electrician the heating company recommended moved the stove outlet and started two more outlets in the kitchen yesterday. He is due back today to finish. His work van has a picture of a lightbulb that says “Jesus is the light of the world” on the side - you probably wouldn’t find that in Boise or California We found a take out only restaurant called CookOut that has scripture verses on all their bags and cups, we just think that is cool. Chick-fil-A plays nothing but Christian music in their restaurants, and that’s cool too. The founder also requires that all the restaurants be closed on Sunday to give his employees a chance to worship. The way we found the heating/cooling company was the Jesus fish on their ad in the Yellow pages, and one time when I was on hold the message says something about “putting God first in everything they do”, we definitely came the right part of the country.

We almost skipped church last night, and decided to go anyway, and of course the teaching was exactly what we needed - God is good. Moving on to the boyz, since all we have is the new car, they are home bound (not allowed in the car) so a trip to the vet/groomer is out of the question, so we found a mobile-vet and she is coming on Tuesday. She will test for heartworm and trim both of their nails. Got the wallpaper border down in the kitchen and hallway, and will prime and paint, want to get the Guest room in order too, Mom and Alan are coming in November. We want to get a weight bench for Mike and an elliptical machine for me, and then we will know what size bed we can get. Found a sporting goods store that has great prices, and plan to go today after the electrician is done. The blinds I ordered from Wallpaper Warehouse are due today, so Mike’s got the screwdriver all charged up, it’ll be nice to have blinds. The house is really coming along, starting to feel more and more like home, and we still love North Carolina!!!! Oh Yeah almost forgot the answer to the riddle…You can’t dig half a hole! -P

We had a pretty big storm roll through last night, penny-sized hail and buckets of rain. Click on the picture ... you can see the hail falling.

Here are the verses on the CookOut stuff:

This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. Galatians 6:10

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. Proverbs 1:7

Bumber Stickers, Jokes & Garden Tips

When Satan is knocking at your door, simply say, "Jesus, could you get that for me?"

CHRISTIAN BUMPER STICKERS

Be ye fishers of men. You catch them - He'll clean them.

Coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous.

Don't put a question mark where God put a period.

Don't wait for 6 strong men to take you to church.

God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called.

God grades on the cross, not the curve.

God loves everyone, but probably prefers "fruits of the spirit" over "religious nuts!"

God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage.

He who angers you, controls you!

If God is your Copilot - swap seats!

Most people want to serve God, but only in an advisory capacity.

Don't give God instructions - just report for duty!

The task ahead of us is never as great as the Power behind us.

The Will of God will never take you to where the Grace of God will not protect you.

We don't change the message, the message changes us.

You can tell how big a person is by what it takes to discourage him.

“It’s HOT Down Here!”

An Illinois man left the snow-filled streets of Chicago for a vacation in Florida. His wife was on a business trip and was planning to meet him there the next day. When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick email.

Unfortunately, when typing her address, he missed one letter, and his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher's wife whose husband had passed away only the day before. When the grieving widow checked her email, she took one look at the monitor, let out a piercing scream, and fell to the floor in a dead faint. At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this note on the screen:

"Dearest Wife, Just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow.
P.S. Sure is hot down here!”

The Deal

A young boy had just gotten his driving permit. He asked his father, who was a minister, if they could discuss the use of the car. His father took him to his study and said to him, "I'll make a deal with you. You bring your grades up, study your bible a little and get your hair cut and we'll talk about it."

After about a month the boy came back and again asked his father if they could discuss use of the car. They again went to the father's study where his father said, "Son, I've been real proud of you. You have brought your grades up, you've studied your bible diligently, but you didn't get your hair cut!"

The young man waited a moment and replied, "You know Dad, I've been thinking about that. You know, Samson had long hair, Moses had long hair, Noah had long hair, and even Jesus had long hair...."

To which his father replied...."Yes, and they WALKED everywhere they went!"

Planting a Garden

When you plant this garden, may God richly bless you in your sincere endeavor.

Plant three rows of squash:

1. Squash gossip
2. Squash criticism
3. Squash indifference

Plant seven rows of peas:

1. Prayer
2. Promptness
3. Perseverance
4. Politeness
5. Preparedness
6. Purity
7. Patience

Plant seven heads of lettuce:

1. Let us be unselfish and loyal
2. Let us be faithful to duty
3. Let us search the scriptures
4. Let us not be weary in well doing
5. Let us be obedient in all things
6. Let us be truthful
7. Let us love one another

No garden is complete without turnips:

1. Turn up for church
2. Turn up for meetings, in prayer, and Bible study
3. Turn up with a smile, even when things are difficult
4. Turn up with determination to do your best in God's service.

After planting, May you Grow in Grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (II Peter 3:18.) And may you reap rich results.

Jokes, Signs & Hymns ... Oh my.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Arrrgh! We missed PIRATE DAY! There should have been more notice.

The HVAC guys are here to do their AC/Heating thing and we are going to work in the house. We'll update when we have something interesting to say. In the mean time enjoy some...

More funny stuff.

Jokes -

Points

A man dies and goes to heaven. Of course, St. Peter meets him at the pearly gates. St. Peter says, "Here's how it works. You need 1000 points to make it into heaven. You tell me all the good things you've done, and I give you a certain number of points for each item, depending on how good it was. When you reach 1000 points, you get in."

"Okay," the man says, "I was married to the same woman for 50 years and never cheated on her, even in my heart."

"That's wonderful," says St. Peter, "that's worth three points!"

"Three points?" he says. "Well, I attended church all my life and supported its ministry with my tithe and service."

"Terrific!" says St. Peter, "that's certainly worth a point."

"One point? Golly. How about this: I started a soup kitchen in my city and worked in a shelter for homeless veterans."

"Fantastic, that's good for two more points," he says.

"TWO POINTS!!" the man cries, "At this rate the only way I get into heaven is by the grace of God!"

"994 points! Come on in!"

Golf

Moses, Jesus, and another guy were out playing golf one day. Moses pulled up to the tee and drove a long one. It landed in the fairway but rolled directly toward a water trap. Quickly Moses raised his club, the water parted and it rolled to the other side safe and sound.
Next, Jesus strolls up to the tee and hits a nice long one directly toward the same water trap. It landed directly in the center of the pond and kind of hovered over the water. Jesus casually walked out on the pond and chipped it up onto the green.
The third guy get up and sort of randomly whacks the ball. It heads out over the fence and into oncoming traffic on a nearby street. It bounces off a truck and hits a nearby tree. From there it bounces onto the roof of a nearby shack and rolls down into the gutter, down the down spout, out onto the fairway and right toward the aforementioned pond. On the way to the pond, it hits a little stone and bounces out over the water and onto a lily pad where it rested quietly. Suddenly, a very large bullfrog jumped up on the lily pad and snatched the ball into his mouth. Just then,an eagle swooped down and grabbed the frog and flew away. As they passed over the green, the frog squealed with fright and dropped the ball which bounced right into the hole for a beautiful hole in one.
Moses then turned to Jesus and said, "I hate playing with your Dad."

Science and God

One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this? Let's say we have a man-making contest." To which the scientist replied, "Okay, great!"
But God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."
The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"

Honest Hymns –

I Surrender Some
There Shall Be Sprinkles of Blessings
Fill My Spoon, Lord
Oh, How I Like Jesus
He's Quite a Bit to Me
I Love to Talk About Telling the Story
Take My Life and Let Me Be
It is My Secret What God Can Do
There is Scattered Cloudiness in My Soul Today
Onward, Christian Reserves
Where He Leads Me, I Will Consider Following
Just As I Pretend to Be
When the Saints Go Sneaking In

Odd Signs -
These are from signs posted in various locations:

In a department store:
Bargain Basement Upstairs

In an office:
Would the person who took the step ladder yesterday please bring it back or further steps will be taken.

In another office: After the tea break staff should empty the teapot and stand upside down on the draining board.

On a church door:
This is the gate of Heaven. Enter ye all by this door. (This door is kept locked because of the draft. Please use side entrance.)

Outside a second hand shop:
We exchange anything - bicycles, washing machines etc. Why not bring your wife along and get a wonderful bargain.

Quicksand Warning:
Quicksand. Any person passing this point will be drowned. By order of the District Council.

Notice in a dry cleaner's window:
Anyone leaving their garments here for more than 30 days will be disposed of.

In a health food shop window:
Closed due to illness.

Spotted in a safari park:
Elephants Please Stay In Your Car

Seen during a conference:
For anyone who has children and doesn't know it, there is a day care on the first floor.

Notice in a field:
The farmer allows walkers to cross the field for free, but the bull charges.

Message on a leaflet:
If you cannot read, this leaflet will tell you how to get lessons.

On a repair shop door:
We can repair anything (Please knock hard on the door - the bell doesn't work)

In a Tokyo hotel:
Is forbitten to steal hotel towels please. If you are not person to do such thing is please not to read notis.

Immediate Recall

The Maker of all human beings is recalling all units manufactured, regardless of make or year, due to the serious defect in the primary and central component of the heart. This is due to a malfunction in the original prototype units code named Adam and Eve, resulting in the reproduction of the same defect in all subsequent units. This defect has been technically termed, "Sub-sequential Internal Non-morality," or more commonly known as SIN as it is primarily expressed.

Some other symptoms:

a. Loss of direction
b. Foul vocal emissions
c. Amnesia of origin
d. Lack of peace and joy
e. Selfish, or violent behavior
f. Depression or confusion in the mental component
g. Fearfulness
h. Idolatry
i. Rebellion

The Manufacturer, Who is neither liable nor at fault for this defect, Is providing factory authorized repair and service free of charge to correct this SIN defect. The Repair Technician, Jesus, has most generously offered to bear the entire burden of the staggering cost of these repairs. There is no additional fee required. The number to call for repair in all areas is:P-R-A-Y-E-R. Once connected, please upload your burden of SIN through the REPENTANCE procedure. Next, download ATONEMENT from the Repair Technician, Jesus, into the heart component. No matter how big or small the SIN defect is, Jesus will replace it with:

a. Love
b. Joy
c. Peace
d. Patience
e. Kindness
f. Goodness
g. Faithfulness
h. Gentleness
i. Self-control

Please see the operating manual, HOLY BIBLE, for further details on the use of these fixes.
As an added upgrade, the Manufacturer has made available to all repaired units a facility enabling direct monitoring and assistance from a resident Maintenance Technician, the Holy Ghost. Repaired units need only make Him welcome and He will take up permanent residence on the premises!

WARNING: Continuing to operate the human being unit without correction voids the Manufacturer's warranty, exposing the unit to dangers and problems too numerous to list and will result in the human unit being permanently impounded. For free emergency service, call on JESUS.

DANGER: The human being units not responding to this recall action will have to be scrapped in the furnace. The SIN defect will not be permitted to enter Heaven so as to prevent contamination of that facility. Thank you for your attention.

Please assist where possible by notifying others of this important recall notice.

If you want to know more about Getting to Know God. Click the Link below.

http://www.harvest.org/knowgod/

Cable TV and HVAC

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

So we got Cable TV which is one of the reasons we haven’t updated. Boy, it’s nice to have TV again. We got the DVR (Digital Video Recorder) so we can set it up to record whatever we want. Cable has really come a long way and is better than we expected. Our Pastor David McGee has a show on local TV. We get to watch him on Saturday night as well.

This weekend we went to a few huge Flea Markets, (Cooks & Flea Country) 2 of them are only a few miles from our house. We got a small retro white swivel chair and a lime green chest of drawers. We were surprised by people being able to smoke inside the building. I few years ago we would have enjoyed smoking and drinking beer while looking at Flea Market stuff, but now it just made us queasy. We sure don’t miss all of that. Thank You, LORD! At a furniture store in Greensboro we found a bed that sits low to the floor. We wanted a low bed for Loki (he’s old and achy.) and we also like the retro look. In case you haven’t noticed in the pictures we are shootin’ for a retro / modern look which is totally different than what we had before. We got the bed frame for $48. We also got a cool coffee table and two end tables which were not 48 bucks, but it all works out. I’ve been assembling all of our furniture purchases (T.V. stands, bookshelves, tables and beds.) Most of them have way too many parts and too few understandable directions. It’s a headache but worth it and it is starting to look like home. I’ll upload new pictures to the WebShots album.

It’s about 10am EDT and the Heating and Air Conditioning guys are here tearing out the ductwork under the house. This is pretty traumatic for the boyz. The first major boom under the house made the dogs nearly jump out of there skins. It was pretty funny. We are glad to have the HVAC underway. The weather alternates between 85 humid and 72 & perfect. It’s not very humid when its 72. When it is hot and humid it makes it hard to do anything in the house but we have been doing pretty well. It will be nice to be able to control the weather in the house. The electrician was here for a bit yesterday and stuck the new electrical box on the wall. Well, stuck sounds quiet but it included grinding, pounding and drilling. Paige ordered window blinds from here previous job at Wallpaper Warehouse. It will be nice to have window covering on all of our windows instead of just our bedroom. It’s good to be home.

Here is a link directly to the new Living room and Master bedroom pictures on WebShots.

http://travel.webshots.com/album/552766472bZkylJ

Church Marquees & other funny stuff.

Church Marquees:

"Don't give up. Moses was once a basket case."

"Under same management for over 2000 years."

"Tithe if you love Jesus! Anyone can honk!"

"Beat the Christmas rush, come to church this Sunday!"

"Don't wait for the hearse to take you to church."

"Life has many choices, Eternity has two. What's yours?"

"Worry is interest paid on trouble before it is due."

"Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary."

"It's hard to stumble when you're down on your knees."

"A clear conscience makes a soft pillow."

"The wages of sin is death. Repent before payday."

"Can't sleep? Try counting your blessings."

"Forbidden fruit creates many jams."

"Christians, keep the faith...but not from others!"

"Satan subtracts and divides. God adds and multiplies"

"If you don't want to reap the fruits of sin stay out of the devil's orchard."

"To belittle is to be little."

"Don't let the littleness in others bring out the littleness in you."

"Try Jesus. If you don't like Him, the devil will always take you back."

Jokes:

The Irate Driver

A man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.The tailgating woman hit the roof, and the horn, screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection with him. As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a cell.After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping the guy off in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'What Would Jesus Do" bumper sticker, the 'Follow Me to Sunday School' bumper sticker and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car."

Easter?!?

Three blondes died and found themselves standing before St. Peter. He told them that before they could enter the Kingdom, they had to tell him what Easter was. The first blonde said, "Easter is a holiday where they have a big feast and we give thanks and eat turkey."St. Peter said, "Noooooo," and he turned her away.The second blonde said, "Easter is when we celebrate Jesus' birth and exchange gifts."St. Peter said, "Noooooo," and he turned her away.The third blonde said she knew what Easter is, and St. Peter said, "So, tell me."She said, "Easter is a Christian holiday that coincides with the Jewish festival of Passover. Jesus was having Passover feast with His disciples when he was betrayed by Judas, and the Romans arrested him. The Romans hung Him on the cross and eventually He died. Then they buried Him in a tomb behind a very large boulder..."St. Peter said, "Verrrrrry good!"Then the blonde continued, "Now every year the Jews roll away the boulder and Jesus comes out. If he sees his shadow, we have six more weeks of Spring." (Bad ... but funny! Sorry.)

Out of the Mouths of Babes
- The Bible According to KIDS

The cute statements below are said to have been written by actual students and are genuine, authentic and not retouched or corrected:

Lot's wife was a pillar of salt by day, but a ball of fire by night.

Samson was a strongman who let himself be led astray by a Jezebel like Delilah.

Samson slayed the Philistines with the axe of the Apostles.

Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten amendments.

The fifth commandment is to humor thy father and mother.

The seventh commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery.

Moses died before he ever reached Canada.

Then Joshua led the Hebrews in the battle of Geritol.

The greatest miracle in the Bible is when Joshua told his son to stand still and he obeyed him.

David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar.

He fought with the Finklesteins, a race of people who lived in Biblical times.

Solomon, one of David's sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.

When Mary heard that she was the mother of Jesus, she sang the Magna Carta.

When the three wise guys from the east side arrived, they found Jesus in the manager.

Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption.

St. John, the blacksmith, dumped water on his head.

Jesus enunciated the Golden Rule, which says to do one to others before they do one to you.

He also explained, "a man doth not live by sweat alone."

It was a miracle when Jesus rose from the dead and managed to get the tombstone off the entrance.

The people who followed the Lord were called the 12 decibels.

The epistles were the wives of the apostles.

One of the opossums was St. Matthew who was also a taximan.

St. Paul cavorted to Christianity. He preached holy acrimony, which is another name for marriage.

A Christian should have only one spouse. This is called monotony.

Morning Update & Misc

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Hey guys, I found a cool website featuring Bible stories made from Lego building blocks. It is a lot cooler than it sounds. Here is the link:

http://www.thebricktestament.com/

It turns out DirecTV can’t install here either. The trees are too big. I’d rather have the trees but would like to have satellite too. Looks like its Time-Warner Cable but a DVR is still available. They are coming out Friday to set us up. There is a cable box on the wall of the house so we know it will work. The electrician is coming on Friday to get started and the heating and cooling people hopefully early next week. They have to replace all of the ductwork as well as add the heat pump. It was pretty hot and humid day before yesterday and yesterday was cool and nice all day. This morning is actually pretty chilly. The last couple of days felt like late October in Boise. We are hoping and believe it will last a couple of months. The Farmer’s predicts a heavier than normal snowfall this winter and especially around Christmas but we like that as long as we have heat. Here is a list of the Average yearly rainfall in inches for a few cities:

Boise, ID 12.11 inches
Long Beach, CA 11.80
Winston-Salem, NC 42.62
Miami, FL 55.91
Okinawa, Japan 93
Mawslynram, India 467 ½

Here are a couple of links where I found the average rainfall if you want to check another city.

http://countrystudies.us/united-states/weather/
http://www.met.utah.edu/jhorel/html/wx/climate/normrain.html

I am an Alien.
I am not of this world
nor do I call it Home.
My desires are not for
earthly things that will fade,
corrode or burn.
I set my heart and
mind on things above.
My faith and hope
are in God alone
and I eagerly await
His return for me.
I'm a citizen of heaven.

I am a Christian

by Maya Angelou

When I say.. 'I am a Christian'

I'm not shouting 'I'm clean livin'.

I'm whispering 'I was lost,

Now I'm found and forgiven.'

When I say.. 'I am a Christian'

I don't speak of this with pride.

I'm confessing that I stumble

and need Christ to be my guide.

When I say.. 'I am a Christian'

I'm not trying to be strong.

I'm professing that I'm weak

And need His strength to carry on.

When I say.. 'I am a Christian'

I'm not bragging of success.

I'm admitting I have failed

And need God to clean my mess.

When I say..'I am a Christian'

I'm not claiming to be perfect,

My flaws are far too visible

But, God believes I am worth it.

When I say.. 'I am a Christian'

I still feel the sting of pain.

I have my share of heartaches

So I call upon His name.

When I say.. 'I am a Christian'

I'm not holier than thou,

I'm just a simple sinner

Who received God's good grace, somehow!

Comix - Reverend Fun & After Eden

This is the 3rd post today ... scroll down. :)

http://www.reverendfun.com/
http://www.answersingenesis.org/aftereden/index.aspx

Click them to make them bigger...

If Noah Had to Build the Ark in 2006

If Noah had to build the ark in 2006, his story may have gone something like this:And the Lord spoke to Noah and said, "In one year, I am going to make it rain, and the rain shall not stop until it submerges the entire earth and all living flesh is destroyed. Because of this, I want you to save the righteous people and two of every living species on earth. Therefore, I am commanding you to build an Ark."In a flash of lightning, God delivered the specifications for an Ark. Daunted by this task, but respectful of God's wishes, Noah took the plans and agreed to build the Ark. "Remember," said the Lord, "you must complete and fill the Ark in one year's time."Exactly one year later, fierce storm clouds covered the earth and all the seas of the earth went into turmoil. The Lord saw that Noah was sitting in his front yard weeping."Noah!" He shouted. "Where is the Ark?""Lord, please forgive me, " cried Noah. "I did my best, but there were big problems."First I had to get a permit for construction, and your plans did not meet the building codes. I had to hire an engineering firm and redraw the plans."Then I got into a fight with OSHA over whether or not the Ark needed a sprinkler system and approved floatation devices."Then my neighbor objected, claiming I was violating zoning ordinances by building the Ark in my front yard, so I had to get a variance from the city planning commission."Then I had problems getting enough wood for the Ark because there was a ban on cutting trees to protect the Spotted Owl. I finally convinced the U.S. Forest Service that I really needed the wood to save the owls. However, the Fish and Wildlife Service won't let me take the two owls."The carpenters formed a union and went on strike. I had to negotiate a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board before anyone would pick up a saw or hammer. Now I have 16 carpenters on the Ark but still no owls."When I started rounding up the other animals, an animal rights group sued me. They objected to me taking only two of each kind aboard. This suit is pending."Meanwhile, the EPA notified me that I could not complete the Ark without filing an environmental impact statement on your proposed flood. They didn't take very kindly to the idea."Then the Army Corps of Engineers demanded a map of the proposed flood plain. I sent them a globe."Right now, I am trying to resolve a complaint filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that I am practicing discrimination by not taking atheists aboard."The IRS has seized my assets, claiming that I'm building the Ark in preparation to flee the country to avoid paying the state some kind of user tax that I owe them and that I failed to register the Ark as a 'recreational water craft.'"And finally, the ACLU got the courts to issue an injunction against further construction of the Ark, saying that since God is flooding the Earth, it's a religious event, and therefore unconstitutional."I really don't think I can finish the Ark for another five or six years."Noah waited.The sky began to clear, the sun began to shine, and the seas began to calm. A rainbow arced across the sky.Noah looked up hopefully. "You mean you're not going to destroy the earth, Lord?""No," He said sadly. "I don't have to. The government already has."

HomeWORK!

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Well, much has happened since our last entry, the floors are completely sanded. The living roomand master bedroom are varnished. In the living room I sanded every bit of old vanish, paint and other blemish off the floor until it was just the bare oak. It was made even more difficult by the sticky residue left by the peel-n-stick tiles (it was so sticky that our shoes would stick and we’d step out of them and then get our feet stuck). It pretty much took 2 days of sanding to finish the living room. In the 2nd bedroom / laundry room didn’t have tile over the wood and I needed to get the area under the washer and dryer finished so there would be a place for them when they were delivered. I wasn’t as worried that it was sanded perfectly so I just gave it a quick hit with the sander, applied Mineral Spirits and varnished. It looked exactly the same as the living room without all of the work. So in the master I washed the sticky off the floor with mineral oil, sanded lightly and varnished. Took a few hours and looks the same as the living room. I imagine that anyone refinishing multiple rooms goes through much of the same process:

1) Let’s make it new and perfect.
2) Man, sanding the floors really makes my back hurt.
3) I kinda like the rustic look, how about you.

They pretty much came out the same everywhere. The floors in the kitchen, bathroom and hallway are all projects for another day. The whole floor project was made even more exciting by all of the deliveries we had, which either needed the floor we were doing for its home or a walkway. We are really glad it’s finished and love the outcome. It was all worth it.

Little by little it’s starting to look and more importantly, feel like home. Its weird living in a new house, you have to get used to all of the strange noises. Gar seems at home wherever he is but Loki is afraid of the house. It might be the semi-slick floors (he was afraid to go in our old garage after the floor was painted, we think he thought it was a liquid.) They both love the yard and we have been tying them up in the back because we still have to train them for the Invisible Fence before they can be left unattached and unattended outside. Oh yes my buddy David laughed at us because we bought an “Invisible Fence”. They also traded our cow for some “Magic Beans”. I know the fence is really there because they hooked a box to the wall of the laundry room with a “blinking light” on it. We have been priming and painting in various rooms of the house. We decided to go with a similar color to the Boise place, it’s a Mocha brown but it is a darker color. The living room is getting finished and I will probably be spending most of my day assembling furniture. Yesterday, I put together a TV stand and I am working on 2 tables for behind the sofa as well as a tall shelf unit. Today DirecTV is coming to, hopefully, install satellite TV. We were trying to get DishNetwork but they couldn’t get the satellite lined up because of all of the trees. We also have an electrician coming today to give us a bid. He’s a Pastor and does electrical work on the side. Once the electrical is completed then the heating and Cooling folk will get at it. We got 3 bids and they were all very close to each other so we just picked one, alright we picked the Christians. Yeah, we discriminate. It’s sure nice to be sleeping in a “real” bed.

Church is terrific and I hope that some of you are listening to the online sermons from Pastor David at the Calvary Chapel of the Triad. http://www.reachthetriad.com/teachingflash.php?Testament=Special&Book=All On Sunday we recently started the Book of Acts. Thursday we’re going through Ruth and we recently went to a couple of nights where Pastor David talked about prophecy and current events. Great stuff.

In Tennessee I got a cool shirt. It looks like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup package but has a different message as you can see. If I wore this in Boise I would get strange looks but here whenever I wear it people talk to me like crazy. 5 or 6 people will mention it and we’ll chat. I can’t imagine how many see it and don’t comment. It’s fun.
More later, m

p.s. watch for pictures of the house at the WebShots page tonight or tomorrow. The Pastor electrician quoted us a much lower price than we hoped. He's going to do it all: Move stove plug, add 3 outlets, upgrade 200 amp service, install HVAC and add RV plug. Woo Hoo! PTL

Home ... As close as we can be on earth.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Well guys, we made it. We closed on the house today about 11am. We went back to the campground, loaded up the dogs, unplugged and moved home. At 1:30pm the Invisible Fence guy came and installed the “fence”. It will take about a week of training before we can just let them out but it will be great when we can. They are doing well but I can imagine that they don’t know what on earth is going on. We peeled up the tile in the living room and most of the master bedroom. The wood floors underneath are in great shape. We are going to pick up the floor sander and edger from the rental place early in the morning. We are planning to have the living room, master bedroom and guest bedroom sanded and sealed by Saturday night and we are going to prep the walls for paint. It’s seems like we’ve been through some of this before. Its better this time because it is for our house and we will be able to enjoy it. We are trying to get most of this done before the furniture comes. Monday night the living room should be pretty nice and we are planning a few lazy days when we finish. It will sure be nice to sit in a real couch and sleeping in a real bed. Weeeeee! We are taking a lot of pictures and we will post them when we get a moment. We are beat.. Good night. - m

Almost home...

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Well tomorrow we close on the house. Because the furnace and other items that need repair the owner gave us a $1500 credit to fix stuff. Today we are getting a couple of other bids on the heating and cooling system. Tuesday we scheduled an installation of the invisible Fence
http://www.invisiblefence.com/ . It will be really nice because we don’t want to ruin the back yard with a fence; part of its charm is its wildness. So for less than the cost of a real one we got an Invisible Fence. They offer a 99.5% containment rate, training with the dog (or boyz) and lifetime equipment warranties. They are going to install it Friday afternoon. We got the refrigerator and stove on Wednesday, we wanted the stainless steel finish but decided to go with something called a “silvermist” finish. It looks like stainless but doesn’t get as fingerprinty (I like fingerprinty, I think it is a fine word). So now we have all of the major appliances and most of the major furniture. Sectional Sofa, Fridge, Stove and mattress will all be delivered on Monday and the Washer and Dryer on Tuesday. We also have DishNetwork scheduled to install on Sunday afternoon. We decided to go with them because they are the only provider that offers SkyAngel http://www.skyangel.com/. SkyAngel can be added to DishNetwork and adds a bunch of Christian television channels for a small price. We will also get 2 DVR’s (Digital Video Recorders; it’s kinda like TiVo) in the deal. It rained nonstop, and I mean really really nonstop for a day and a half. We’re glad we aren’t so close to the lake anymore. I bet it’s really high now. I love the rain but will be glad to get out of the RV! Well I’ve got to get ready to go to the house for the bids. More later, M

p.s. Susan our friend from church changed her webpage check it out at http://shastadaisytoo.blogspot.com/

CCTriad Commercials

Here is a link to some commercials that the Calvary Chapel of the Triad airs on local tv. Our Pastor David McGee is at the end of them. They are pretty hard hitting. Let me know if you have any trouble viewing them. - M

http://www.reachthetriad.com/commercials.php

We're back...

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Gosh, where to start? Not a whole lot has happened since last week, got a bid on the heat/cooling system-not quite what we were thinking-ouch! Went back to the seller to see about a credit, and kinda played phone tag all week. Should hear on Monday, we are supposed to close o Fri the 15th and sure are ready. We went to Tennessee the other day, we thought it was a 3hr drive, turned out to be a 5hr drive, so it made for a very long day trip! But we had fun, took advantage of the shopping, and bought a big area rug and some accessories for the new living room. Will definitely go back to spruce up the other rooms after we know color schemes and such. We have ended up spending way more money than I had originally “planned”…too much eating out and shopping for something to do. We stayed in the motorhome all day because of the rain, and then the next day were a little stir-crazy and just had to get out. Loki decided he needed to get out too…We frequently tie them outside and leave them unattended, checking on them every ½ hour or so, and one time we went to check, Loki’s leash was empty. We set out to search for him, Mike taking the high road, and me taking the low road hugging the lake. I honestly never imagined he would be down there, since he doesn’t even like to go outside when it rains, let alone submerge his whole body in water…but there he was, Swimming towards a bunch of ducks about 100 ft out. I called to him, and he turned towards me, but still didn’t want to come nicely and I had to chase him a ways before I was able to catch him, then we had to deal with wet dog in the confinement of the motorhome for the rest of the day-yuck. Certainly was entertaining, Mike didn’t get to see him swim, but was glad that he hadn’t drown (being old, not used to swimming, and arthritic). Went to the later service at church today, because there was a “meet and greet” after for “newcomers”, got to meet some staff, the Pastor and some other new people. Pastor David and his wife have actually been to Boise a few times. Meeting everyone made use even surer that we were in the right place! Found out that when you talk about Winston-Salem, its ok to just say Winston, and also found out that even the locals think all the freeways are confusing. (and some think the Sweet Tea is too sweet) Looking forward to moving in the house, will pull up the peel and stick tile first, and see about re-doing the hardwoods. Have the couch, and bed being delivered on Monday the 18th, and washer/dryer on the 19th. We still need to find a fridge and stove, will look in the newspaper ads today. Very anxious to get at least the living room painted, and then we will probably tackle the bathroom, it needs totally gutted. Still need to get a bid on an invisible fence and some more bids for the heat/cooling, before we can begin to re-do something big like the kitchen. Well, that’s all for now, will post more pictures as we do some renovations, until then God Bless - P

One of the people we met at the newcomer lunch was Susan. Here is here webpage. I also “borrowed” a section from her page to share with you guys.

http://shastadaisytoo.blogspot.com/ (this is a new URL)

My Commitment As A Christian:

I'm part of the fellowship of the unashamed. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ. I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, my future is secure. I'm finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, mundane talking, cheap living, and dwarfed goals. I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean on His presence, walk by patience, lift by prayer, and labor by power. My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way rough, my companions few, my Guide reliable, my mission clear. I cannot be bought, deluded, or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of the adversary, negotiate at the table of the enemy, or meander in the maze of mediocrity. I won't give up, shut up, let up, until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, preached up for the cause of Christ. I am a disciple of Jesus. I must go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till all know, and work till He stops me. And when He comes for His own, He will have no problem recognizing me... my banner will be clear! Oh, and while I'm at it I may as well say... I believe His Word to be perfect, without error in the Bible!

Yes! Yes! Yes! More when we know more or have more. - M

Google Earth Pics

Hi Guys! Well not much new today. We bought a bed and a washer and dryer. Big Fun! Here are a few pictures I got from Google Earth. As usual click them to make them bigger.

The Move:

Where we are living now ... The campground.

The picture below shoes the "exact" spot we are campin' in.

Opportunity Road

The box is just below our house. Looks like winter.

Here is the Wachovia BLDG from downtown Winston-Salem from above.

Couch and Jokes

Friday, September 01, 2006

Hey kids, we had the home inspection today and there are no major problems. The oil furnace doesn’t work but we planned on pulling it out anyway to put in a heat pump (Heat/AC). It’s possible we could get a credit from the seller to help pay for it. Here are a couple of pictures of the couch we bought. It’s fun. The weather wasn’t as bad as the weather channel / news made it sound. It rained/sprinkled nonstop but wasn’t really a problem. The lake is quite a bit higher. God Bless, M

Church Bulletin Bloopers

"Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale.
It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house.
Don't forget your husbands."
*
The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water"
The sermon tonight "Searching for Jesus"
*
Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir.
They need all the help they can get.
*
Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors
for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping
and requests tapes of Pastor Jack's sermons.
*
Remember in prayer the many who are
sick of our community.
*
Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help.
*
Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on
October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship
that began in their school days.
*
For those of you who have children and don't know it,
we have a nursery downstairs.
*
Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM.-
prayer and medication to follow.
*
The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of
every kind. They may be seen in the basement
on Friday afternoon.
*
This evening at 7 P.M. there will be a hymn sing in the
park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and
come prepared to sin.
*
The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's
Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM.
The Congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
*
The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing
campaign slogan last Sunday:
"I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours."
*
Weight Watchers will meet at 7 p.m. at the FirstPresbyterian Church. Please use large double door at theside entrance.
*
The rosebud on the altar this morning is to announce thebirth of David Alan Belzer, the sin of Rev. and Mrs.Julius Belzer.

*

This afternoon there will be a meeting in the South andNorth ends of the church. Children will be baptized at both ends.

*

Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. there will be an ice cream social. All ladies giving milk will please come early.

*
Eight new choir robes are currently needed, due to theaddition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.

*

The senior choir invites any member of the congregation who enjoys sinning to join the choir.

*

At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be"What is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.

*

During the absence of our pastor, we enjoyed the rareprivilege of hearing a good sermon when A. B. Doesupplied our pulpit.

*

The Rev. Adams spoke briefly, much to the delight of his audience.

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Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other itemsto be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
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Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.
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The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.
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Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 PM in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King.

and a joke...

There was a religious lady that had to do a lot of traveling for her business, so she did a lot of flying. Flying made her very, very nervous,so she always took her Bible along with her to read as it helped relax heron the long flights.One time, she was sitting next to a man. When he saw her pull out her Bible, he gave a little chuckle and smirk and went back to what he was doing. After awhile, he turned to her and asked, "You don't really believe all that stuff in there do you?"The lady replied, "Of course I do. It is the Bible." He said, "Well, what about that guy that was swallowedby that whale?"She replied, "Oh, Jonah. Yes, I believe that, it is in the Bible."He asked, "Well, how do you suppose he survived all that time inside the whale?"The lady said, "Well, I don't really know. I guess whenI get to heaven, I will ask him.""What if he isn't in heaven?" the man asked sarcastically."Then you can ask him," replied the lady.

That pesky Ernesto!

Well, no coffee by the lake this morning … too wet. It stormed like crazy. It has pretty much rained all night and day long. Hard rain sometimes. No more lightning, at least not close. They are issuing flash flood warnings for everywhere within a few hundred miles. The lake we are camped by doesn’t seem to any higher which is good. It looks like Ernesto might turn into a hurricane. I’m glad we didn’t go to the coast yet. We are just sittin in the motorhome and watching TV. Another lazy day. Tonight we are planning to go to church. We have been looking forward to it all week.

Click these images to see them:








Here is another joke:

The Pope, Billy Graham, and Oral Roberts were in a three-way plane crash over the Pacific Ocean. They all died and went to heaven together.
"Oh, this is terrible," exclaims St. Peter, "I know you guys think we summoned you here, but this is just one of those coincidences that happen. Since we weren't expecting you, your quarters just aren't ready... We can't take you in and we can't send you back...."
Then he got an idea. He picked up the phone, "Lucifer, this is Pete. Hey, I got these three guys up here. They're ours, but we weren't expecting them, and we gotta fix the place up for 'em. I was hoping you could put them up for a while. It'll only be a couple of days. What d'ya say?"
Reluctantly, the Devil agreed.
However, two days later, St. Peter got a call. "Pete, Lu. Hey, you gotta come get these three clowns.This Pope fellow is forgiving everybody,the Graham guy is saving everybody,and that Oral Roberts has raised enough money to buy air conditioning."

Triad Information

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Now it’s Wednesday morning by the lake…of course with coffee. The cicadas are especially raucous this morning. Kevin the realtor is waiting to hear back from inspectors but expects it can be inspected this week. A Tropical Storm is in Florida and they expect heavy rains soon. It was windy and rained a bit last night. We are looking forward to the rain. Hurricanes and Tropical Storms aren’t much of a problem this far inland. We’ve heard we don’t really get any severe weather here. Yesterday we were watching some guys fish. I’m not sure what they were catching but it was about 2 inches long and they were throwing them back. They killed a tiny water moccasin (a snake, not an aqua-shoe.) and tried using it as bait … without any luck. Paige gave me a haircut, so I’m not so scruffy. I also shaved my “beard” back down to a goatee. It doesn’t grow well on the sides of my face. It’s strange considering my dad might be part gorilla. Ha. Ha. (You know I love ya!) Well we are going to look at furniture in High Point (The Furniture and Hosiery Capital of the World). More later. It’s Wednesday evening and we had a pretty serious storm. We were in Target when it struck. Heavy rain with wicked lightning. It was so loud and close that it caused the emergency exit alarms to go off. Neither of us had seen anything like it. I got Clearwire internet so I should be able to get online and update the blog anytime I want. We found a great couch. We’ll upload pictures of it soon. More tomorrow. m

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Hi guys, its Tuesday morning, coffee by the lake and updating the blog. We are just waiting to hear more from the realtor. We’d like to go back into the house but they are turning the utilities on for the inspections and we’ll be there for those. Here is a joke we heard at church:
A man went to a monastery and informed them the he wanted to become part of their community. They told him that he could stay but he had to take a vow of silence and the only time he could speak was at the end of five years, and then he could only speak two words. He agreed. At the end of the five years they asked him if he had anything to say, and he said, “Bed’s hard.” Another five years went by and they asked him if he had anything to say, and he said “Food’s cold.” Monastery life resumed and another five years went by and they asked him if he had anything to say, and he said “I’m leaving” to which the Monks replied, “It’s probably for the best, you’ve done nothing but complain since you got here.”

Below is some information on the Triad area. The metro area is bigger than we thought, it’s about 1.5 Million souls.

Piedmont Triad From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Location in North Carolina:

The Piedmont Triad is a region of North Carolina (locally known simply as "The Triad") in the Piedmont that consists of the area within and surrounding the cities of Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point. The area is connected by Interstates 40, 85, 73, & 74 and is served by the Piedmont Triad International Airport. Long known as one of the primary manufacturing and transportation hubs of the southeastern U.S., the Triad is also an important educational and cultural region and occupies a prominent place in the history of the American Civil Rights Movement. The Triad should not be confused with the "Triangle" region (Raleigh / Durham / Chapel Hill) directly to the east.

Winston-Salem From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Founded: 1766 (Salem) 1849 (Winston) Incorporated: 1913
Nickname: "Twin City"
Website: http://www.ci.winston-salem.nc.us/
Winston-Salem is a city in Forsyth (For-Sith) County, North Carolina, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 185,776. It is the county seat of Forsyth County, North Carolina, and the fifth-largest city in the state. Winston-Salem is a prominent municipality in the Piedmont Triad region and home to the tallest building in the area, the Wachovia Center. It is often referred to as the "Twin City" for its dual heritage. The Old Salem district and related Historic Bethabara site are the city's oldest historical attractions. Also of historical interest is Reynolda Village (which includes Reynolda Gardens and the Reynolda House Museum of American Art). Other sites of interest include the Horne Creek Historic Farm, Tanglewood Park, the SciWorks educational facility, and SECCA, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art.The Winston-Salem metropolitan area (MSA) has an estimated population of 441,607 according to the 2004 estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau. The combined statistical area (CSA) of Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point has a July 1, 2005 population of 1,490,886. Source: US Bureau of the Census Released April 2006

Climate: The climate in High Point is temperate, with four seasons. Summers tend to be hot and sometimes humid, with the dewpoints rising to the upper 60s and low 70s during July and August. Fall and spring are mild. Winters are cold, but only a few days every winter does the temperature drop below -5° C. Rainfall patterns are generally spread evenly throughout the year, with between six and nine wet days per month. Snowfall is unpredictable, with some winters experiencing little and others characterised by occasional snowstorms. January lows average -3° C (28° F) and highs average 7° C (48° F). July lows average 19° C (67° F) and highs average 30° C (88° F) although during heat waves, summer highs can cross 35° C (95° F). The lowest temperature ever officially recorded for the city was -22° C (-7° F), and the highest temperature ever recorded was 40° C (104° F). High Point has a humid continental climate, though being located between the mountains and the ocean it experiences less temperature fluctuation than inland areas.

Greensboro From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nickname: "Gate City"
Website: http://www.greensboro-nc.gov/

Greensboro, North Carolina, is a city in Guilford County in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the largest city in the Piedmont Triad region.As of the 2000 census, the city population was 223,891, making it the third most populous city in North Carolina. Its estimated 2006 population is 240,955.It is located at the intersection of two interstate highways (I-85 and I-40) in the Piedmont ("foot of the mountains") region in central North Carolina.In 1808, Greensborough (as it was spelled before 1895) was planned around a central courthouse square to replace Guilford Court House as the county seat. This act moved the county courts closer to the geographical center of the county, a location more easily reached by a greater number of the county's citizens.The town is home to several universities and colleges. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCA&T), Guilford College, Bennett College, and Greensboro College all call Greensboro home. In addition, the state community college system has several campuses for Guilford Technical Community College. In August of 2006, the Elon University School of Law opened a campus in downtown Greensboro.The city is the home of the Greensboro Grasshoppers baseball club of the South Atlantic League and the Carolina Dynamo of the USL Premier Development League. The Chrysler Classic of Greensboro, one of the oldest national PGA Tour golf events, is held in Greensboro every fall at Forest Oaks Country Club.

High Point From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nickname: "Furniture and Hosiery Capital of the World"
Website: http://www.high-point.net/

High Point is a city in North Carolina, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 85,839. (Estimates now place the city population at around 100,000).High Point is known for its furniture, textiles, and bus manufacturing. It is generally regarded as the "Furniture Capital of the World" and "North Carolina's International City" due to the bi-annual High Point Market that attracts 100,000 exhibitors and buyers from around the world. The area code is 336.It is home to the only Bentley dealership in all neighboring states.Most of the city is located in Guilford County, with portions spilling into neighboring Randolph, and Forsyth counties.

Lazy Monday

Monday, August 28, 2006

It’s Monday morning and we are having coffee on the picnic table by the lake. We were watching a GIANT Blue Heron in the tree across from the camp. When he flew away I knew I wouldn’t want to mess with him (Not that I make a habit of messin’ with wildlife!) We just applied flea, tick and mosquito medicine down the boys backs. Bugs haven’t been a problem the whole way but better safe than sorry. Sunday was a really nice day. The Pastor David McGee was back and he was better than we hoped. He actually led worship and they rocked! They have electric guitars and aren’t afraid to use them. It is great because I love a powerful worship service. One of my favorite new worship songs might be called Trading My Sorrows (Yes, Lord!) I’m not sure who it is by originally but the chorus goes like this: Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord! It reminds me of something the Vineyard’s Pastor Tri Robinson had said in a sermon I heard, “I don’t want to, I’m afraid…but Yes Lord!” I want to live like that. Even if I don’t want to, even if it’s uncomfortable, even if it’s dangerous, even if I’m afraid. I always want to say yes to the Lord. The church is obviously very interested in the lost. It was a great message, interesting, convicting and sprinkled with humor. Here is a link to our churches online audio page so you can listen: http://www.reachthetriad.com/media.php We really feel at home there. We went to eat at a restaurant called Libby Hill Seafood, great food and reasonable prices. Living close to the coast is yummy. We picked up a mainline newspaper from Kernersville there and on the front page there were a couple of stories one titled “God’s Helping Hand” and one titled “The Lord Really Blessed Me”. Now that’s not something you see everyday in the Idaho Statesman (or LA Times). It is another world. We are really excited about the house. We have been looking at furniture and my Dad has been locating good deals on appliances and beds in the newspapers. Thanks Dad! The weather has been pretty warm but not very humid lately. It’s about 11am now and it’s cool with a nice breeze. Not humid at all. Paige is reading the newspaper and said that sunset here is at 7:54pm. That is quite a bit earlier than we are used to. We sure love it here. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before but people are so friendly. You can strike up a conversation with just about anyone, or they will. I’m trying to become more outgoing. When people ask us what we do (meaning what job defines you?) we tell them we are missionaries (it doesn’t have a bad connotation here) and they always ask us to where (meaning which country) and we say we were missionaries to Boise, Id and now we are missionaries to North Carolina and are just waiting for the call to go elsewhere. People also frequently ask us what brought us here and the only true answer is GOD. So that’s what we say, mostly it opens to a lengthy conversation but occasionally the other person changes the subject (thinking we are insane, I know I would have.) and we talk about other stuff. We just learned today that Dinner is the noon meal and Supper is the meal at sundown. It had been throwin’ us but now we know. We are enjoying being Southern. My buddy David in Boise said to watch out for the Blair Witch in the forest behind the house. Thanks David, now I won’t be able to go in the backyard after dark. More later, now “Go Out and Serve Your KING!” m We just heard that the ACCEPTED OUR OFFER ON THE HOUSE! :) PTL

House Hunt..Completed!

Saturday, August 26, 2006

We made an offer on the house on Friday and it is Saturday and we haven’t heard if it was accepted. It’s not really a surprise because it is the weekend and the owner lives in Virginia. We’ll let you know when we know. We drove around Winston-Salem yesterday. It has a pretty snazzy skyline. I really like the round topped building which is the Wachovia building. Downtown is very artsy, lots of galleries and little bistros. A little out of downtown is very industrial, unlike anything we have in Boise, Tobacco plants and other unidentified industrial buildings. We took some pictures of downtown and will upload them soon. Today we drove back to the house and found that the church is really close and found a neat back way to it. We are going to head home and rest. More later, M The picture is of the Crape-Mytle. It is in bloom and very popular in the Triad. Comes in many colors, red, pink, white and purple. God bless.

House Hunt!

Friday, August 25, 2006

Met up with our Real Estate Agent, Kevin on Wed. evening, we asked our agent in Boise if she could put us in touch with someone here, and she got a hold of the Coldwell Banker office, who in turn put us with Kevin. After meeting with him, and spending the last two days with him we know that GOD was really the one who put us together with Kevin, what a blessing! We had mentioned to Joyce (agent in Boise) that we wanted an agent who was a Christian, and Kevin said he didn’t quite know how he was chosen to work with us, but his office obviously knew he was the man for the job. Divine appointments. So, met with him Wed. late afternoon, and he took us out to Summerfield, an area the locals call “horse country” we think it was like Eagle, Idaho, or Tustin, Calif. The house was cute, about 800 Sq. Ft. but needed some structural work, not a good thing. We went back to the office and got online and found 98 properties in our range, spent a couple hours looking at them, Kevin vetoed some properties by their locations, and we vetoed some for various other reasons. We ended up with about 15, agreed to meet at 9am Thursday to start the search. We saw a really cute place in High Point, built in 1902, had original molding and hardwood floors (would need refinishing) the bathroom and kitchen (in all the properties we saw) would need updating, but in the end we felt it was too close to the middle school, about 3 houses away. We imagined lots of kids lolly-gagging down the street twice a day, 5 days a week-not what we were looking for. We saw some real dumps, and some with potential, we broke for lunch while Kevin had another appointment, and then met back up to see some in Winston-Salem. The sun was setting, and we were at the end of our list…and there it was, right there on Opportunity Street-literally! 1953 Cottage, new siding and windows, good roof and good inside lay-out. Spectacular yard, woods on the east and behind, and across the street. Only neighbors on the west side and they are probably 40ft away with trees in between. We will of course have to do some updates, change out the heating/cooling system and install a fence (probably one of those invisible fences) update the kitchen and bath (which we are old pros at) and possibly have new floors installed. The house is listed at $34,000 so we have plenty of budget to play with. Here is a link: http://listings.triadmls.net/SearchDetail/Scripts/PrtBuyFul/PrtBuyFul.asp?prp=mls&AgentId=HPEGUESK&EmailKey=1156352 God is so good! Kevin is talking to the listing agent this morning, and we will arrange to have an inspection done, then we will make an offer, the place is empty, so move in could take as little as two weeks. Exciting! P

We are currently staying at the Oak Hollow campground in High Point. It’s really close to the realtor and has cable but doesn’t have internet. We are backed right up the lake which is cool but we are ready to have a house. Gar loves to be in the “House” with us (and he can’t behave outside, barks at anyone near the campsite) but Loki lives to be outside. I didn’t think he would like the heat and humidity but it is like pulling teeth to get him back inside. When we are here you’ll find him sprawled in the dirt at the end of his leash. Kevin the realtor has been a great blessing. He goes to a great church that sounds like is really hard at it. He is part of a ministry that ministers to people with AIDS as well as drug and alcohol related issues. He also goes with his church street witnessing. He said it gets easier! We didn’t get to go to church on Thursday night…Kevin had canceled his appointment and wanted to take us out looking for a house…and it paid off. It’s hard to believe we could be in it so quickly. Paige just spoke with Kevin and he said the owner of the property lives in Virginia and has owned it since 1972. He has recently been upgrading it, new windows, siding etc. We are meeting with Kevin at 3pm to work up an offer. He expects we can be in it in 15 days. M

We Made It to the the Triad: Winston-Salem, Greensboro & High Point

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

What a weekend-very difficult and stressful, but we made it. Found a campground in Mocksville, at Lake Myers, another big resort with 425 RV sites, and crazy busy, lots of “permanent” residents who all have their own golf carts. The ad said internet, but we must have been too far away from the transmitter, because we got no signal. Saturday we headed into Winston-Salem and looked around, into Greensboro and found a street with lots of car dealerships, had to park the motorhome and walk to them and found the budget I had set aside was unrealistic. The used cars that had less than 100k miles were expensive, and we got frustrated and headed for another campground. We picked up a couple of newspapers and a very detailed map of the area and went “home” to study. Sunday we went to the church, worship rocked, but the head pastor was on vacation (school started Monday) the substitute was from a Calvary in Sand Hills, NC and very good. The couple seated in front of us stopped to chat after the service, found out we were new, and asked what they could do to help. We said we needed to find a house and car, so they offered us theirs! Come stay with them, and borrow his truck-we declined, but were very grateful for the offer. We drove around a little after church, but not knowing the area and being in the motorhome made for more stress than enjoyment, so back to the Lake. Got a campsite closer to the office, but still the internet signal was blocked. Argh! Let’s see that brings us to Monday…back into Greensboro, to the dealership where we had met a nice young man named Daniel on Saturday. He took us around looking at new and used PT Cruisers, and we decided to bite the bullet, have something nice for a change, and so we bought a 2006 previously owned, that only had 12k miles. What an ordeal! But worth it in the end, and so much nicer to be able to drive with the flow of traffic, and stop on a dime if needed. Now we just need a Jesus fish for the back and we’re set, I want to get a personalized plate ALL 4HM or PRZ HIM. They even have exclamation points and punctuation available on their license plates. Tuesday, talked to the Realtor, will meet with him Wed, and start the house hunt. Found us a storage unit, and started to unload. Will drive the motorhome to storage in the AM on our way to another campground in High Point that has internet and cable, and is really nice. That brings us up to date. Calvary has Thurs eve service I’m sure we will go to, get back into some sort of routine. Dogs are well, Gar got a tick in his ear, but I think it’s dead, it’s legs don’t move, and it hasn’t grown- anyone know how to remove a tick? Things ya just gotta learn as you go. Well bye for now , love y’all. P

Friday, August 18th, 2006

Well, we crossed over into North Carolina about 2pm Eastern time. There was no place to stop at the border so we couldn’t get a picture. We were in the Smoky Mountains and it sure was pretty. The kudzu still blows us away, looks like you wouldn’t want to stand still around it for too long. Large amounts of Daylilies just growing by the road. We are excited to be here but it is a bit surreal. We drove through Ashville and it was strange because I had researched it a bit and it was odd to be there. It’s going to even be stranger in Kernersville. It looked like Asheville had more Christian schools than public schools Tonight we are going to stop about 35 miles from the Triad area (Winston-Salem, Highpoint and Greensboro). We are really looking forward to church on Sunday as well as everything else. Dollywood / Pigeon Forge were great fun but it was nice to get back on the road. We have seen a lot of things on this trip but one thing we haven’t seen are LDS / Mormon Churches. We haven’t seen one since we left Boise. They were everywhere, and now, poof gone. It’s going to be strange buying a car too, it’s been a long time since we have done that but I’m sure it will go fine. If you are the praying kind, we sure could use it over all these big decisions we have coming up. We are so thankful that He got us this far safely. The people here sure are friendly. People are frequently chatting with us, it’s really nice and we are beginning to feel at home here. We sure loved Tennessee and I’m sure we will love North Carolina too. We have seen quite a few different restaurants along the way; Waffle House, Shoney’s, Bob Evans, O’Charleys, Ruby Tuesday, Bo Jangles, Stuckeys, Chick-fil-A and others. One constant throughout the country has been Cracker Barrel, which are on almost every corner and at every exit. It’s nice because we enjoyed it in Boise and it’s comforting on the road. We have seen most of our favorite chain restaurants here. This country is also crawlin’ with Outlet Malls. HUGE MALLS. With discounted prices, no less! I’m typing while we drive and I just saw some graffiti sprayed in an underpass, it said “Trust Jesus”, which is good advice, but I’m unsure as to the medium. I’ve never heard of “Graffiti Ministry” but we all have a calling. PAINT ON, Brother! M

Audio Post by Mike

Whipped by Pigeon Forge, TN - DOLLYWOOD!

Thursday, August 18th, 2006

WOW, What a busy, fun filled couple of days! We arrived into Tennessee late Tuesday evening and stayed in Clinton for the night. We were introduced to The Smokey Mountains, and to Kudzu - both of them are amazing. The mountains seem to exude smoke, or fog, I’m not sure why it is, but it’s weird . Kudzu is also weird, some kind of very fast growing, extremely invasive vine that in places covered everything. Made trees look like topiaries covered in ivy, apparently flowers too, that must be pretty. We have definitely entered a new world, the waitress asked if we wanted our ice tea sweetened, and Mike said yes-wow was it sweet, next time he’ll ask for half sweet. She also hand wrote May GOD Bless You on our receipt, that doesn’t happen in Idaho or California! We also saw billboards and buildings off the freeway “advertising” Christ. We found the largest Christian bookstore, over 15,000 sq ft. and saw Colonel Sanders birthplace. Wednesday morning we pressed on into Knoxville and into Pigeon Forge http://www.mypigeonforge.com/ where Dollywood is. http://www.dollywood.com/ Mike looked online and found if you enter Dollywood after 3pm you can go again the next day, so we stopped at on amazing outlet mall first. I found a Shoe Closet that had Carlos Santana heels originally $125.00 on sale for $19.99, needless to say I went back for another pair, and may even stop on our way out of town again in the morning. The main drag of Pigeon Forge is probably 10 miles long and stuffed with hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops and go-cart tracks. There are trolleys that run the loop and stop at the campgrounds, really nice. They run from 8am-midnight and are .50 cents a ride; we probably have spent $20.00 on the trolley over the last 2 days, but better than un-hooking and fighting traffic and to park. So we made it into Dollywood (by trolley) Wed a little after 3pm it was almost 90 degrees, so we headed for the water rides. There is a flume ride called Daredevil Falls and boy did we get soaked. We wandered in and out of water rides trying to stay cool, until the park closed at 6pm. Back to the RV to change into dry clothes and back on the trolley to go see a Broadway style musical of the life of Christ called Miracle. http://www.miracletheater.com/ Very entertaining, camels and sheep in the production (not singing) and angels flying over head on harnesses…quite a show! Boy did we sleep well that night, didn’t get to bed til midnight, and tonight will probably be the same, more Dollywood today and we’re tuckered out. Did some souvenir shopping this morning on our way to the trolley depot, got to Dollywood about noon and rode the train, some carnival type rides, and of course the water rides again, got a great picture. By about 4pm we had enough and headed for the strip to get some dinner, we will leave tomorrow and head into North Carolina (by way of that shoe store-of course) The south (Tennessee) has been great to us, and we have absolutely no regrets of moving here, the scenery is amazing and the people are great too, the weather is not that bad, and we feel God all around us. Looking forward to getting to church on Sunday - we’ll head to Kernersville and start to house hunt next week, very exciting. p Pigeon Forge is pretty neat lots of shopping, shows and attractions. If you go bring money! We stayed at the RiverEdge RV park http://www.stayriveredge.com/ It is nice too.

Ohio to Kentucky!

Monday, August 14, 2006

I forgot to mention our introduction to Michigan, a little on the rocky side. Road signs placed in weird places, secret highways, and a fear of dogs on their beaches or parking lots. See we tried to go see Lake Michigan before heading to Jodi’s, and to look at the map, it appears you drive right next to it, but alas we could see nothing but trees. So we attempted to stop at a State Park, and were told no dogs in the parking lot. Being that we were in a motorhome, we should have been able to hide the dogs, but as you all have figured out, our dogs are not normal…so we gave up on the Lake, some other visit I guess. We also made many, many detours (not on purpose) because of the strangely places road signs, and secret highways etc, but we did get to see The Great Raccoon Massacre of 2006. There were at least 5 in one place that had gotten hit, Jodi told us that the state doesn’t pick up the roadkill either, which would account for so many being around. Entered the state of Ohio this morning, stopped for lunch in Dayton, only to find a Shoebilee! Very much like the Shoe Carnival in Indiana, very exciting-My cross country shoe hunt has finally begun. (Lime green shoes and purse today that is a shopping bi-fecta! m) Humid again, but rightfully so with rain both this afternoon and again tonight, Michigan had great weather. We have made it into Kentucky, thought about pushing on to Lexington, but figured there was always tomorrow. We found the cities to be so old, dirty, and very industrial. Detroit, Toledo, Dayton and Cincinnati in the last couple of days, and what a different world from the little ol’ Boise we’re used to, guess we’ll be getting used to a lot of different things. P Tonight we are staying at a park called Oak Creek http://www.oakcreekcampground.com/ in Walton, KY.

Correction

It's funny cuz I think I may have seen him at the Detroit Zoo.

Tom & Jodi's - Lake Orion, MI pt 2

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Tonight we are in Monroe, MI which is near the border of Ohio. We didn’t get far from Jodi Lake Orion because we left about 4:30 pm. We drove pretty close to downtown Detroit and I imagine we saw most of the sports stadiums. We are about 15 miles from Toledo, Ohio. We sure had a nice visit at Tom and Jodi’s. Tom barbecued steaks and corn for us yesterday. The steaks were from a cow from Tom’s sister’s ranch. Tender and perfect. Breakfast was homemade sausage and eggs. The weather couldn’t have been better. I really enjoyed their baby Aaron. He sure is at a great age. He is happy, funny and smart. I laughed with him until my stomach hurt. We went to the Detroit Zoo http://www.detroitzoo.org/ It’s a nice zoo and the highlight was a tube under the Polar Bear water tank. The bear was swimming over us and showing off. It’s about as close as I ever want to get to a big white bear. The tiger and giraffes were very hospitable and posed for pictures but the lions seemed to be on break and just laid there.

Here is another of our favorite pictures:

GOOFY GAR

Tom & Jodi's - Lake Orion, MI pt 1

Saturday, August 12, 2006 pt 2

We made it to my high school friend Jodi and her husband Tom’s house in Lake Orion, MI about noon, sat on the patio and had a very nice-not bumpy or noisy-visit. They have a kennel for their dog that we used to put the boys in, since they have no fence around the back yard, and it only took Gargoyle about 4 hrs to break out. He worked at the giant chicken wire type twist-ties that hold the screen part of the walls to the frame until they were untwisted and he could pry the wall up enough to sneak thru. We had all gone inside for dinner, but Tom was getting the meat off the grill and saw him running free towards the neighbors. Loki stayed inside the kennel, I think just glad to be finally alone. Gargoyle was rounded up, and banished to the motorhome, so much for escaping. We opted to spend the night in Jodi and Tom’s driveway since it was a mild 75 degrees today, and we won’t need the air conditioner, we can plug into residential electricity for fans, and lights, but air conditioner blows fuses. Breakfast in the morning and then Jodi will drive us into Detroit to the big farmers market and the Zoo. We will get out of their hair in the afternoon, as they both have to work Monday. Since we’ve decided not to go into Canada, we will head south, but not far, due to such a late start. Jodi and Tom have Aaron, an adorable 14 month old, who entertained us much of the afternoon and evening, and reminded me that I do not possess the “mommy gene”. Enough said. Another adventure awaits tomorrow, we sure are having a good time, we want to do everything (like Canada) and have to remind ourselves, that we are going to live here (this side of the Mississippi) and can do other trips. Til next time, God Bless. p

Michigan

Saturday, August 12, 2006

We spent the night in Jackson, Michigan (near Kalamazoo and Battle Creek) at a monstrous RV park called Greenwood Acres http://www.greenwoodacrescampground.com/ There are 1080 spaces and it looks like they are all filled. It’s a pretty terrible thing. A huge pasture, a few trees and rows and rows of trailers. Along the way we found that we like to be able to hook up to power, water, cable etc. We are traveling, not camping, but this is too much. It’s bigger that most towns we’ve seen since we left. Michigan, itself, is weird as well. We have a Woodall’s Campground Directory and have been using it across the country to find places to stay. We have been able to use it to drive right to the driveway of the campground in America…except in Michigan. They are very vague. We had been trying to see Lake Michigan, the Great Lake but can’t get anywhere near it. I guess we were near it but we couldn’t see it. It appears to be all State Parks but they won’t even let us go in with dogs. The highway system is unreal. Here is an example: We are trying to go east on 94. We are driving south down Sprinkle Dr. We know that there is a good chance to get on the freeway east we will have to go left. 3 blocks before the actual highway there is a sign saying 94 east & west turn right. So we begin to try and get over, everyone is mad at us. Fairly heavy traffic, much more than we are used to and in a 23ft motorhome. When we signal everyone gets in that lane and rushes around us. We get over and turn right. 1 Block down a sign says 94 east and west left. It wants us to make a U-turn and go across Sprinkle Dr. and continue on the wrong way. Probably just to make a U-turn again later. Instead we go right on Sprinkle Dr. go down 3 blocks, ignoring wrong signs all the way, turn left and get on 94 heading east. East 94 is like a dirt road paved as are many roads this direction. If it weren’t for Paige’s friend Jodi we would head south. In spite of all of the trouble we are having fun and are in good spirits. We have been driving a lot the last few days, even if it’s in circles, and the dogs are tired. Toward the end of the day Loki looks tired and his eyes plead us to stop. He doesn’t sleep well as we drive because it’s so bumpy and noisy. Travel makes them very thirsty and we all pretty much drink bottled water. We read that tip in a RV book because even though the water at RV parks is drinkable, the mineral content varies and can upset digestive systems. They said traveling with a dog with a sick dog is unpleasant, 2 would be unbearable. So it’s bottled water all around. The weather here is very pleasant. Sunny and cool. We can’t get internet or television here so all we know about the weather is sunny and cool. We are looking forward to heading south. We don’t think we’ll be trying too many more touristy things in the east this trip. The Woodall’s Guide I was talking about before is indispensable. We can search for places to stay before we get there and know what sort of hookups and amenities are available as well as pricing etc. Another great guide we have is The Next Exit which tells us, by exit #, what food, gas, shopping is available. Both of these make traveling easier. It’s about time to trade in the Woodall’s North American Campground Guide for a Woodall’s Eastern Campground Guide. Today we are going to skirt both Detroit and Flint, Michigan and end up in Lake Orion, MI.

Road Construction -or- Destruction

Thursday, August 10, 2006 pt 1 Early Morning

About dawn this morning the sky looked very orange. I dosed a bit and when I woke it was really dark and I could see lightning in the distance. It has since gotten closer and is a full blown storm. I guess we are seeing it from a different perspective, 360 degrees with windows all around, but it seems like the lightning is coming from everywhere. Lightning that was large and very close scaring the dogs…and us. It’s real close. WOW! It looks very swampy around this part of the Mississippi River. It’s also swampy as you get close to the inlets that we are camped near. It is very green but then it seems that the sky cracks open occasionally and drains out.
We think we are going to try and get into Michigan today. We are going to give Chicago a wide berth. Des Moines gave me fits and it’s small. The Iowan transportation department has broken all the freeways around Des Moines so it was pretty tricky. Major road construction everywhere. Well the storm is over and even the rain has stopped. We are going to prepare to get back on the road and maybe we’ll see something fun today.

Thursday, August 10, 2006 pt 2 Early Morning

It rained almost all day today. Sometimes hard and sometimes just a drizzle. We came within a few miles of downtown Chicago…it wouldn’t have been so bad but the Illinois transportation department has broken all of the roads in and around Chicago. They could really teach the Des Moines people about tearin’ stuff up. We were in stop and go traffic, really it was stop and stop and stop and stop and go traffic and it took us over an hour to go 2 miles to a toll booth to pay to drive on the worst road I have ever seen. Still it was strangely fun. Chicago was really one of the first places that made me realize we are really gone. Soon after Chicago it was into Indiana and we completed our tour of “States that Begin with the Letter I” (Idaho, Iowa, Illinois and Indiana)
Tonight we are staying in a KOA campground in South Bend, Indiana. http://www.koakampgrounds.com/where/in/14153/ As we came in we saw that this is where Notre Dame University is http://www.nd.edu/ It sure is pretty country around here. Green rolling hills. Nice. We crossed over into Eastern time zone about 8pm Central time so our body clocks are off a bit but this will be our last change for a while as we will be living on Eastern Standard Time. I forgot to mention that Wednesday, or so, it’s hard to keep track we found a huge Outlet Mall. It had a Bible Factory Outlet, Old Navy and just about everything else you could think of. We didn’t get much. Along the way we also stopped at a Gordmans and a Kohls (which Boise is getting!). Yesterday was one of the highlights on Paige’s journey as we found a DSW (Discount Shoe Warehouse). If you know Paige, you know she likes shoes. We’ll we’ve had much worse vices. She had only seen DSW online so when we saw the real place it was fun. They were a bit expensive and it is a weird time in the season so no real cool styles but it was fun anyway. There also was a Shoe Carnival and that place was much better. She was glad to see there are both stores in NC. I’m still looking for a Mac Store or a CompUSA. I saw fireflies along the road for the first time. Very cool. We have'nt taken too many pictures lately. More soon. m

Here is one of our favorite pictures so far: (You can click any picture to make it bigger.)

Dos Weirdos

Iowa to Illinois

Wednesday, August 9, 2006

Woke up to more rain which kept it cool till mid-afternoon. Found a Weight Watchers meeting, but opted not to go, after getting on the scale “at home” and was up about 4 lbs. We will have to ride the bikes more often. Finding a Bank of America was also on the agenda, we changed over to BofA before we sold the house because the bank we were with was not nationwide. But we have had nothing but problems with BofA. Debit cards didn’t arrive when they were supposed to, and then the put a hold on our Escrow check, so we were stuck in Sheridan WY when our debit card wouldn’t work. After a lengthy phone call I got the bank to release some of the funds, and the rest would be available Wed Aug. 2nd, instead of Aug 4th. Well here it is the 9th and I had to make another lengthy phone call-the funds were still on hold. But finally it is all resolved. So we went shopping! Well we did go to the big Outlet Mall about 60 miles East of Des Moines, but we weren’t all that impressed, and didn’t spend anything. After the mall we found and had our first and only Maid-Rite loose meat sandwich, again not all that impressed. We then headed towards Muscatine, IA to see the world’s only Pearl Button Factory…and they were closed! Maybe tomorrow will be better. We did make it across the Mississippi River into Illinois, which brings us to Rock Island KOA http://www.riqckoa.com/. Nice park, situated between two ponds/lakes, probably inlets from the Miss river. Took the boys out for a walk and of course couldn’t keep Gargoyle out of the water. I had a hold of his leash and almost got pulled in to. And true to form Loki was having none of it; he hardly even looked at the water. Looked at the map and will try to make it clear across Ill. Tomorrow, and spend the night in Indiana. We then will try for SW Michigan the next night, getting us to my friend Jodi’s in Lake Orion, MI (north of Detroit) for the weekend. P

Central Time Zone: NE, MO & IA

Sunday, August 6, 2006

Changed over to Central Standard Time yesterday, but didn’t change our clocks and got a later start out this morning. Had said we would be to Polly’s about noon, but it was closer to 1:30pm. She had a great meal of fried chicken, corn on the cob mashed potatoes and gravy waiting (She also fed us homemade pickles and they were wonderful.) We ate and then of course felt like a nap, but it was very hot, so we went down to the Green Acres motel and RV park and plugged in to get the air conditioner. We napped and then rode our bikes back to Polly’s for a bit of dinner-she insisted. We sat until almost 10pm “flapping”-that’s talking, then rode the bikes home to the motorhome.

Monday, August 7, 2006

Unplugged in the AM and were back for breakfast by 8:30. We had said all we wanted was toast and coffee, but Polly didn’t listen and had eggs and sausage to go with our toast. She and I went to the nursing home and said hello to an old family friend who broke her hip last year, and a distant cousin who is bit on the eccentric side. Mike and I had decided we were going to get back on the road today, but Polly wouldn’t let us leave without eating lunch. I told her I wasn’t even hungry yet, and that I was watching my figure, and she actually told me I could watch my figure some other time. So we ate lunch, and of course all we wanted to do was nap, but we got on the road anyway. We sure had a good visit, Aunt Polly is certainly a character, and we loved every minute. We stopped for the night in Fairbury, NE, at Rock Island State Recreational Park, electricity and showers, what else do we need? We will look at the atlas tonight and make our plan for tomorrow, will probably hit it pretty hard, only about 60 miles to the Missouri/Iowa borders, and we want to get internet so will try to make it into a major city. P

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

It’s morning at Rock Island State Recreational Park. It had been a fairly interesting night. We put up the TV antenna and watched TV a bit last night. There were severe thunderstorms in the surrounding counties and a bit after dark the show started. We have seen a bunch of lightning in Boise. We are fond of it but this was something completely different. There were bolts of lightning like we see in Idaho but there also was a constant flashing. We are surrounded by trees so we couldn’t see much but we watched for a half hour or more and it never quit flashing. It rained like crazy, well for Boise, it rained like crazy. It has been raining on and off for the last couple of days, a few of times, like crazy, and Aunt Polly said it was a light rain. Heavy rain on a motorhome roof is pretty nice if it doesn’t leak and it doesn’t. I’ve lived in Okinawa, Japan so I’ve seen “real” heavy rain and humidity but I was young then. We had a nice visit with Aunt Polly and think the world of her. We also encountered humidity for the first time this trip. It had been raining so it wasn’t unexpected but as it began to warm, I found it unpleasant. It is going to take some getting used to. There is quite a happy bird outside this morning. The dogs are tied up right out the door. The cicadas are quite for now. The trees will be crackling with them soon. We looked at the maps last night a decided to push for Des Moines. We want to be back in civilization. This will be my first time in most of these states. Just in case any of you are trying to call us on our cell phones, we aren’t ignoring you. They rarely have service and we haven’t been able to check phone messages since we left Idaho. We have internet more often but it is sporadic as well. So if we don’t post to the blog or e-mail you back don’t worry, we will.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006 pt 2

Well tonight we are just outside of Des Moines, IA. http://www.koakampgrounds.com/where/ia/15103/ It rained most of the way from Nebraska to Iowa. It was pretty nice. Traffic was pretty mild and the countryside was pretty. We went through the northern tip of Missouri. So we’ve been in 3 states today. It makes up for too many nights in Nebraska. We want to be out of Iowa tomorrow as well. Tomorrow we are also planning to try a Maid-Rite loose-meat sandwich that we also saw on that Travel Channel show Taste of America with Mark DeCarlo http://travel.discovery.com/fansites/taste/taste.html Here is the Maid-Rite website: http://www.maid-rite.com/ and here is the episode of Taste of America with Maid-Rite on it: http://www.maid-rite.com/media/videos/toa_show/toa_show_large.swfw.maid-rite.com/media/videos/toa_show/toa_show_large.swf (If you don’t have high speed internet the video may not work correctly.) It’s a funny show.

Nebraska

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Tonight we are staying in North Platte Nebraska at the Holiday RV Park http://www.holidayparkne.com/ Tomorrow we are heading to Red Cloud, NE to visit Paige’s Great Aunt Polly. We were there to visit last year for Polly’s 90th birthday and it will be nice to see here again. Red Cloud is a cute little place, little being the key word. http://www.redcloudnebraska.com/ We had a nice time last time and it will be a nice stop. We went for a swim today and visited a Buffalo Bill Cody museum. Everything we need is within walking distance. It’s possible we won’t have cell phone service or internet tomorrow but we’ll update as soon as we can.

Friday, August 4,2006

Got up this morning and went to an All you can eat pancake for $1.00 breakfast, served by the KOA. Two pancakes was all we ate, but they were making SpongeBob Squarepants shaped pancakes for the kids.(I know Mike secretly wanted one) Going to get out of South Dakota today, and make the trek to Nebraska, will stop at our favorite CarHenge in Alliance and then another 40 miles or so to stay in a Cabela’s RV Park at their Headquarters in Sidney. They have a Runza restaurant there…Will tell you more about Runza after we eat there. Why are all my diary entries about food? About 60 miles later we crossed over into Nebraska, and the sign said The Home of Arbor Day, we looked around, and there wasn’t a tree in sight-pretty funny. In Chadron we saw there was a Wal*Mart, so we stopped to stretch. We had decided that since we were so large and so slow we should turn the motorhome into a mobile billboard. We love captive audiences (Mike’s prison ministry for example) and what better than to make someone read scripture while stuck at 55 mph behind us. When we stopped for groceries in Rapid City, we looked for stick on letters, but they were out, but Chadron came thru. Mike has been leaving Gospel tracts in the restrooms at the campgrounds, and I have been continuing my restaurant ministry-leaving scripture cards with the meals tip. We believe the mission field is wherever you are, and we just happen to be lots of places. We are now in Sidney, NE and we have eaten our first Runza. http://www.runza.com/
It is a ground meat and cabbage/onion mixture inside a pastry type bread…think Hot Pocket. We saw them last year when we were here, but didn’t know what they were. We since saw them featured on a show we watch on the Travel Channel called Taste of America with Mark Decarlo. http://travel.discovery.com/fansites/taste/taste.html
He’s a comedian out of Chicago who travels the country in search of different foods. Very funny, and actually we are planning our route thru Iowa to stop at another eatery we saw on his show. Here I am talking about food again… We have cable TV tonight, so we are going to settle in for some relaxing. p

Devil's Tower -and- Rapid City, SD

Thursday, August 03, 2006

On the way to Rapid City to the KOA we stopped and saw the town of Deadwood. It really isn’t very RV friendly. Not a lot of big parking. We just drove through. Lots of bikers. It’s really close to Sturgis. We stopped at the Wal*mart in Rapid City and got groceries, had lunch in the parking lot and headed for Bear Country U.S.A. http://www.bearcountryusa.com/default.asp We skipped it last time and were glad we didn’t this time. It is just crawlin’ with bears and other wildlife. (see the WebShots page for pics http://community.webshots.com/user/MKAdams66 ) The dogs were hilarious. They were barking at the bears and stuff but we don’t thinks that they were trying to get at them just to warn us. They were really looking at them. There is a picture with Gar looking out the window at the bear lying on the log and one with Loki standing against the back seat as Paige drove. When we got to the end there is a place you can walk around and look at the baby animals and there is a gift shop and food. The dogs usually fight us as we get out the door. They always want out whenever we stop and it is really had to keep them in. Not this time. Neither of them seemed too interested in getting out of the vehicle. I’m sure that they could still smell the bears and didn’t want anything to do with them; I imagine that they might have thought that they would never see us again. It was really terrific. The baby animal part was great too. There was a section with about 8 bear cubs in it. All wrestling, swimming, scratching and sleeping. It was really amazing how active all of the animals were. It was hot but the animals all over the park seemed to be almost as interested in us as we were in them. More tomorrow. m

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

On the road again, decided against going to Billings, heading to Devils Tower, WY. Driving east thru Montana on Hwy 212, saw some wildlife today, lots of Pronghorn Antelope, a coyote and prairie dogs, not to mention some of the biggest John Deere tractors I’ve ever seen. We’ve driven thru two Indian Reservations, and they are like shanty towns, it’s discouraging. The RV park had an ice cream social last night, BYOB (bring your own bowl) $1.50 for two big scoops, had at least a dozen flavors. We were good and only ate one scoop, have the other in the freezer, probably shouldn’t have ice cream all the way cross country, if I want to keep my new figure. Billings only has one Weight Watchers meeting a week, so I couldn’t go…I’ll try another town. p

So tonight we are at Devils Tower National Monument. http://www.nps.gov/deto/ The KOA http://www.devilstowerkoa.com/ we are staying at is at the base of it. You can see it from just about every camp. You may recognize it from the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. If you are too young or too old you may not. I expect we will not see any UFO’s during our stay. They actually show the movie nightly at 9 pm. It’s unlikely we’ll go and see it. We didn’t actually go into the park itself. We can pretty much see what we wanted to see from here. I’m not exactly sure what the devil has to do with this place. I would look it up if I had internet service but I don’t here. We are in the middle of nowhere. I got a postcard, which I will put online, of a giant bear scratching the Devils Tower with Indians on top. I guess that’s how it got the rough edges. Tomorrow we are planning to drive Rapid City South Dakota. We are very close to Mt. Rushmore but we aren’t going to go back to it since we recently went. It’s pretty neat but there are other things to see. We may go to a wildlife park in Rapid City called Bear Country that we decided against last trip.

Tomorrow will be 1 week on the road for us. It seems a lot longer sometimes and then, at times, it’s hard to believe it’s been a week. The weather has been pretty nice. It’s cool and breezy here at 7 pm. It gets pretty hot in the RV but the AC works nicely. At night we might watch cable (when available), watch a movie via the DVD or something from the internet. iTunes has quite a few shows available and the quality is pretty good. We also might read or talk.
In this part of the world they are all ramping up for Sturgis motorcycle Rally in Sturgis, SD. There are motorcycles and bikers everywhere. It’s surprising how many of them come in RV’s with trailers. We have seen some rigs that would blow your mind and could very well be a sin to own.

Sheridan, WY to Little Big Horn then Hardin, MT

Tuesday, August 01, 2006 Noonish

Just pulled in to Garryowen, MT the site of the Custer Museum. We are going to have some lunch and go in. In Wyoming and this part of Montana they must use local rock in their roads because they are red. The Custer museum at Garryowen was really informative. Garryowen is actually the 7th Cavalry marching tune. I had actually heard it before. Here is a link so you can hear it too. http://www.garryowen.com/garryowen.htm Paige was great even though she wasn’t as interested we sat thru a 45 minute video on Custer. After that we went to Little Bighorn itself. Looked in the museum and then up to the site of the last stand. Graves mark where they fell but everyone was buried in a mass grave on top. Some have since been moved like George Custer who was moved to West Point. Custer had 2 brothers who died with him at Little Big Horn. Boston and T.W. Here is info on Custer if you are interested: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/custer.htm


After LBH we went to Hardin, MT to the Grandview Campground & RV Park. http://www.grandviewcamp.com/ It was very windy and cool with a little rain but now is warming (about 6:30 pm) It's still nice and no wind. We also don't have cell phone service and may not for the next day or so, but we do have WiFi so we can update this. We made reservations at a KOA near Devils Tower so we are going to head there tomorrow morning. Tonight we are going to an "Ice Cream Social" here at Grandview. Should be interesting. They all have them and we think ice cream everynight is a bad idea. c-ya! m


Tuesday, August 01, 2006 Morning

We are still at the Sheridan, WY KOA and it’s in the morning. We checked online for RV parks in Billings, MT which is a bit above Little Big Horn. The Sheridan KOA smells a bit too much of sewage, is infested with rabbits which drive the boyz crazy, is close to the freeway, TRAINS, and a kid with a whistle that either blows it intermittently or constantly. All of which makes it a nice place if you are into that sort of thing. Really it’s not that bad, we are having fun in spite of this and that. I forgot to mention that early in the trip Paige was leaning over the seat to try a wrangler the boyz so we could let them out and separated her ribs. Both my Dad and I know how much fun that is. As is the way of ribs, it is becoming more and more painful. Hurts to breathe, laugh, move and pretty much everything else. Poor kid.

The laptop I bought is a MacBook. The prices were comparable as was the hardware. I had always been interested in Apple computers but seeing the new bunch of commercials and finding out that they could run Windows finally sold me. Now I’m not a huge fan of either Microsoft or Windows but there are programs I need to run. I was worried that Windows would run badly but it’s great. It’s the best of both worlds. Wireless WiFi internet is pretty cool. Whenever I turn on the computer it asks if I want to connect to the internet. It usually finds a few options and most of the places we stay at have it available for free, as does McDonalds and many other places. Well, we’d better batten down the hatches and get on the road. More later. m

The First Leg...On Our Way!

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Well, the first leg of the journey began Thursday evening but we didn’t get very far. About 5 miles out of Mountain Home we had a tire blow out and we sat on the side of the highway waiting as our insurance company tried to sort it all out. They couldn’t find our policy (one of the last things you ever want to hear). Thankfully they said they would call around and get someone out but they would want to be paid up front. No problem…just get us off the side of the road with semi’s seeming to be trying to get as close as possible. They said it might take as long as 2 hours to get someone out. They called us back a few minutes later to tell us that there was someone close and that he was on his way. The blown tire had a few of its metal guts hanging out and when the tire blew, I forgot to mention, it scared us silly (o.k. sillier.) The tow truck came really quickly, jacked it up, took the tire off, and checked the spare which turned out to look almost exactly like the one that had blown. Metal guts and all. It had a cover on it and the really bad part was hidden from view. So neither would hold air and I’m not sure that his rig was outfitted to tow us. He said with the dual tires on the back that we could limp in to Mountain Home. 5 miles of freeway and 5 into Les Schwab Tire store. The driver followed behind us as we drove from 5-15 miles per hour he yellow lights flashing. When it was all over we asked the driver what we owed him (The insurance said it was $65 to fix the tire and $35 to come out.) and he said whatever we thought was right. He didn’t fix the tire but he did get us safely in. We tried to give him some but he wouldn’t take it saying he didn’t do anything. Nice guy…and a blessing. We were beat so we camped in the parking lot of Les Schwab. If you are thinking of going camping, let me advise you Les Schwab is not your best choice. Trains, it’s very close to trains. We like trains but not hourly all night, sounding almost close enough to touch. Classic rock music (think Steve Miller, the Eagles etc.) playing all night long. I’m not really sure from where. Maybe Mt. Home has it own sound track. It’s not good. “Freebird” gets old. So cross Les off your camping list. In the morning we had coffee at a local gas station and waited for Les to open. In the end we got new tires all around and the piece of mind knowing that they are fresh and we have a spare. We were still beat but felt better after they were fixed and we headed to Craters of the Moon. (http://www.nps.gov/crmo/ ). We have been before but it was about 9-10 years ago, I think. We had fun walking the trails and looking at caves. (Pictures soon.) From there we drove to Arco, ID and are spending the night in an RV Park called the Landing Zone. ( http://www.geocities.com/landingzone_2000/ ) It was pretty nice, large trees and shade. It was fairly cool after our plugged in air conditioned nap. We are going to stay on highway 20 and head into Idaho Falls tomorrow. We will update you then. God Bless. m

Sunday, July 30, 2006 pt 1

On the way to Idaho Falls a few items started to blow off the roof of the motor home. Thankfully everyone had already ridden our tail and then screamed around us so no one was killed. Paige climbed the ladder onto the roof because I’m afraid of heights and heavier so she lowered boxes down using a bungee cord. Most everything on the roof was light so we didn’t have much trouble. We even laughed about it as we were getting them inside the RV. VERY CROWDED inside but it is sorted now. We went into Idaho Falls bought a TV at Wal*mart and some more food and headed continued on toward Jackson Hole, WY. We called ahead to an RV Park called the Virginian about a mile out of Jackson city center. We parked and Paige and I walked into the town had some pizza for dinner and wandered around. We saw the Mangy Moose store, The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, The Antler Arches and various other gift shops etc. It was very nice. We came home and watched an episode of the TV show Lost and went to bed. This morning we got rid of some more stuff and rearranged it so it isn’t so crowded. The dogs are having a blast.

Sunday, July 30, 2006 pt 2 and into July 31st, 2006

We drove from Jackson Hole to Yellowstone. On the way we drove past the Grand Tetons.
http://www.nps.gov/grte/ Wow they were something else. At Yellowstone http://www.nps.gov/yell/ we saw Old Faithful, springs, waterfalls and various other geysers. On the way to our campground / park we saw a huge bison in the road. Pretty cool. He looked mad at the people in the car in the other lane like he might ram it. The dogs started barking and I hit the gas so he wouldn’t go for us. We are having problems finding a place to stay for the night. We are heading out of the park toward Cody, Wyoming. Currently the road is blocked by a herd of bison. We are far enough back that we can only see them from a distance. It was cool too the bison were right next to the car I think we got some great pictures. Yellowstone Lake is pretty large and there are waves crashing on the shore like the sea. We drove into Cody, WY and decided to just stay the night at the Wal*mart parking lot with a bunch of other, much more expensive RV’s. There had been Hells Angels rally this weekend in Cody and there were a few in the lot as well. We went to sleep and the wind really picked up. We were all parked so the wind was hitting broadside and making it impossible to sleep. About midnight we moved the rig so we were with the wind. In the end we moved to the far side so we were protected by the building and were able to sleep. In the morning we had breakfast and headed to Sheridan, WY. http://www.sheridanwyoming.org/index.php We were sure impressed at the variety of scenery we have seen so far. Simply amazing.

We got to the KOA and are considering staying 2 nights and taking a day trio us to Little Big Horn http://www.nps.gov/libi/ (where Custer met his Maker.) I have always been interested in Custer and this is the closest I have ever been. The next day we plan to head to Devils Tower http://www.nps.gov/deto/ but we haven’t really hammered out exactly what is next. We’ll keep you posted. We’ll update nightly if we have WiFi internet access. Check out the pictures @ http://community.webshots.com/user/MKAdams66

Earlier in the blog I was talking about a message we heard at the Pursuit church. It has even greater relevance now as our journey has begun. The Pastor Paul talked about the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and it really reminded us what we are doing and why. So bear with me and read the story of Shad, Mesh and Abed from the Contemporary English version:

King Nebuchadnezzar ordered a gold statue to be built ninety feet high and nine feet wide. He had it set up in Dura Valley near the city of Babylon, and he commanded his governors,advisors, treasurers, judges, and his other officials to come from everywhere in his kingdom to the dedication of the statue. So all of them came and stood in front of it. Then an official stood up and announced: People of every nation and race, now listen to the king's command! Trumpets, flutes, harps, and all other kinds of musical instruments will soon start playing. When you hear the music, you must bow down and worship the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Anyone who refuses will at once be thrown into a flaming furnace. As soon as the people heard the music, they bowed down and worshiped the gold statue that the king had set up. Some Babylonians used this as a chance to accuse the Jews to King Nebuchadnezzar. They said,"Your Majesty, we hope you live forever! You commanded everyone to bow down and worship the gold statue when the music played. And you said that anyone who did not bow down and worship it would be thrown into a flaming furnace. Sir, you appointed three men to high positions in Babylon Province, but they have disobeyed you. Those Jews, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, refuse to worship your gods and the statue you have set up." King Nebuchadnezzar was furious. So he sent for the three young men and said, "I hear that you refuse to worship my gods and the gold statue I have set up. Now I am going to give you one more chance. If you bow down and worship the statue when you hear the music, everything will be all right. But if you don't, you will at once be thrown into a flaming furnace. No god can save you from me." The three men replied, "Your Majesty, we don't need to defend ourselves. The God we worship can save us from you and your flaming furnace. But even if he doesn't, we still won't worship your gods and the gold statue you have set up."

As we (Paige and I) travel (now on the road and in life in general.) life will become tricky at times but we know that God can save us from trials and troubles. Even if He doesn’t we will follow and trust Him.

Not Quite Yet...

Well we had fixed all the little things that came up on the house inspection. We had packed and were almost set to go. Late Wednesday we found out that we would not be closing on Thursday. The Lender blah blah. The Buyer blah blah. There was nothing we could do … so we went camping. We loaded the fridge and the boyz (that’s Gar and Loki, our mutz.) and took off for a campground called 10 Mile about 50 miles away. It’s about ten miles above Idaho City. It was a great trial run and it gave us a good idea how this is all going to work. We learned a lot about the motor home. We took notes and made lists of the things we would need (spatulas, dog tie-outs, hookups … oh my!) The campground was nice. HOT, with the occasional cool breeze, but the flies were terrible. We’d stay outside as long as we could stand it and then retreat back into the RV. We read our travel books, the Recreation Vehicles for Dummies, played Scrabble, Backgammon, walked the dogs, napped and watched the portable DVD player until the battery died. When it’s hot we found we would rather be where there are places to plug the motor home in to. We slept great, ate well and all in all was a nice trip. We can’t wait to get on the road East. Any day now – Just waiting, God’s timing – not ours. Til next time, Take care and God Bless!

We went to church this weekend at The Pursuit. (http://www.thepursuit.org/)
We heard a message titled: “Your Spiritual Risk Tolerance”. It really helped us remember why we are doing all of this. We aren’t just moving to NC because we can buy a house, not because we can go to the beach, not because there will be so much to do there but because it will allow us to be the people God made us to be. That is truly what we want. To be where God is. He is here too but we think He wants us there. Below is a link to the message from the Pursuit. I hope you’ll consider listening to it.

http://www.thepursuit.org/sermons.taf?_function=sermon&uid=189&_UserReference=42C9284F46EB1F06CA45C2A174D144C7707B

We are having our final walkthrough today and signing the papers. We have to be out on Friday :) but we will most likely leave Thursday evening. We’ll keep you posted.

Warning! Incredibly Harmful Virus!

If you receive an e-mail with a subject line of "Badtimes," delete it immediately WITHOUT reading it. This is the most dangerous e-mail virus yet.


It will re-write your hard drive. Not only that, but it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer.

It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream melts and milk curdles.

It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, reprogram your ATM access code, mess up the tracking on your VCR and use subspace field harmonics to scratch any CDs you try to play.

It will give your ex-boy/girlfriend your new phone number.

It will mix antifreeze into your fish tank. It will drink all your beer and leave its dirty socks on the coffee table when there's company coming over.

It will hide your car keys when you are late for work and interfere with your car radio so that you hear only static while stuck in traffic. Badtimes will make you fall in love with a hardened criminal.

It will give you nightmares about circus midgets.

It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine.

Badtimes will give you Dutch Elm disease.

It will leave the toilet seat up and leave the hairdryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub it will not only remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows, and refill your skim milk with whole.

It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold. It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve. These are just a few signs. Be very, very afraid.

This Is How It Happened pt 2

We just happen to have a real estate agent in out Tuesday night Bible study, so of course we had her come over and tell us what she thought. She gave us some tips and pointers, and gave us a good date to list the house. The date was like 3 weeks away!!! Yikes! We hustled and had a yard sale, made a ton of money (sold too much stuff, like stuff we were still using) got busy remodeling the master bath. Tuesday night Bible study came and we had a painting party, for those of you who have never been to our house, we had some bold colors...master bedroom was "cookie monster blue" - just to give you and idea. So we bought beige and everyone helped paint (did I mention we have vaulted ceilings?) Anyway, painting got done, master bathroom got done, house got listed, not quite in the original time frame, but it went to market on June 16th. Then we waited, no bites on the 17th, no bites on the 18th, but then come Monday the 19th...our Blessing came (that is literally her last name!! It gave us goose bumps.) She was the second person to see it, and 4 days later the offer.

We purchased a used motor home, Mike's dad Gary found for us, and my dad financed until we get the house money at close. It’s a 1988 Coachman Catalina- 25', sleeps 4 and some dogs. Great condition, but needed some interior updating. Wait until you see the pictures! :) It's going to be great! We gave notice at work, have the motor home, are packing boxes, the end is in sight. We know how much space we have for storage, and so now know how much stuff we can take, and what either has to stay or ship, decided against pulling a trailer due to safety and gas. Our first stop will be headed out of Idaho at Craters of the Moon, then on to Yellowstone and Jackson Hole. Don't know when we'll be back this way so need to see it now. From there, it will be down through Wyoming and into Nebraska to visit Aunt Polly in Red Cloud for a few days. We saw Rushmore last year, so it's not on the tour. Looking at the KOA directory, Iowa has some interesting landscape, so from Red Cloud, up through Omaha and East into Iowa. From there, not sure yet-anybody have any suggestions? We'll look online at points of interest, and the KOA directory is proving to be helpful. We've never had a vacation where we didn't have a return to work date, so this open ended trip will be fun. If we see a sign for the World's Largest Toothpick 21 miles, we can go! And we will keep y'all posted. Bye for now. -p

This Is How It Happened pt 1

When you get the urge to sell everything and move - it's probably GOD, especially when it's to move to hurricane country. We started thinking about moving a couple years ago, but we were thinking Ecuador!! That didn't pan out, so we waited, and waited, and waited. We then talked to someone from Kentucky and found out how cheap housing was, so we got on line and looked for ourselves. Found a cute little place on a lake for like $39, 000.00, which led us to look closer to water. Started looking online in North Carolina, and found places were equally as cheap. Mike then got on line and started searching for churches, we have been going to a Calvary Chapel, because they have a Wednesday night service, and he found North Carolina had many. He then listened to a couple of sermons via the web, which led us to the destination of Kernersville, North Carolina. We got out the map, and looked some more online at properties, and prayed...a lot! We decided to make the leap, and started planning, all the while asking in prayer if this was what GOD wanted for us. Things just kept coming together, so we kept moving forward. -p

The links to the right of the Blog are ours. They link to the Official NC page, A Winston-Salem Newspaper, Cities we are looking into and the church. -m

BLOG Defined...

For everyone who asked, here is the definition of Blog:

Blog is short for weblog (web log). A weblog is a journal (or newsletter) that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption...An online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page. -m

Well here we go…

This blog is being created as a journal-from-the-road. The plan is to update this blog on each leg of our journey to NC and possibly beyond. We will try to post frequently as we travel so when we are incommunicado (out of cell phone range.) the family won’t be worried. As we gear up to take off I thought we would try and get everyone up to speed on how and why this all happened.

Hey, make sure you visit and bookmark our WebShots photo page. (http://community.webshots.com/user/MKAdams66) I’ll let you know when I update the photos. Feel free to leave comments on the Blog -m