A day of reflecting....

Today has been one of those days where you sit and reflect on life, meaning, and understanding. Maybe it's the gloomy weather we are having but life has been so busy lately and I haven't taken the time to just STOP and look at my life and all the WONDERFUL things that GOD has given to me. I got into his word today and boy did he speak to me. Slow down....listen....respond.
I then got online to listen to some of my favorite songs. Today is going to be a great day.

I wanted to share some of my favorites with you. If you listen to the words and the meaning behind each one you will find yourself moved. Listen to what God tells you.


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That song is so powerful and such a reminder that even when we fail God's grace and love will pick us up and redeem us. Lord, May I always love you from the inside out.

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This song is a reminder of just HOW AMAZING our GOD is.

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We sing this in worship at church and there is nothing better than hearing an entire congregation singing about SALVATION. There is NOTHING better.

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This song reminds me of my relationship with MY FATHER IN HEAVEN. GOD IS GOOD!!

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My prayer for you all today is that your lives are touched in one way or another. Allow these songs to speak to your spirit. God is good and he does good. I know sometimes is hard to see that. Stay faithful in all you do and he will direct your paths.

God Bless you all........

Moving On and a New look....

Hope you all enjoyed the last post. I know it was still SUPER long but I didn't want to leave anything out. The girls and I, along with my neighbor and her daughter are planning one last trip to Galveston for the summer before school starts. We are excited to head to the beach again.
Ok, so moving on. The next big event in our household was that the girls went and spent an ENTIRE 8 days with my parents in Oklahoma. That's right, I had a whole week BY MYSELF. We got back from the beach on a Friday and met my parents half way to drop the little darlings off to them on Sunday. They had a wonderful time with Papa and Nana. It sounds like my parents had a BLAST with them too. This was the first time and longest we have been without BOTH girls. I was able to go to dinner, shopping, lay by the pool, sleep all day if I wanted, eat when I wanted and what I wanted, watch MY movies all day, and most importantly, I got to take a hot bubble bath with NO kids playing in my water. HA! Hubs and I really enjoyed our time together but REALLY missed our girlie's. While they were in Oklahoma they swam EVERYDAY, played with cousins, went to the movies, earned some money helping Nana clean, and played with Papa and Nana's new puppy Posey.


Isn't she a cutie?

We went to pick the girls up the following Sunday. We all started crying when we were reunited. I think Madeline REALLY missed us. Macy, umm, not so much. She would have been fine to go back to Oklahoma with Papa and Nana. I believe Papa and Nana needed at least a week to recover. Thank you again SO MUCH mom and dad for taking the girls.

Sunday when we got back from Oklahoma picking the girls up we had just enough time to unpack their bags, grab a bite to eat, and then head up to the church for VBS. I worked with the kindergartners (going into 1st grade). We had a BLAST. The girls both had a great time and look forward to next year. VBS ended the month for June for us.

July came on and boy did it start out HOT!! Hubs and I, along with 4 other couples from our church went to a Texas Rangers game on July 3rd. Man, was it ever HOT there. I think I sweat off around 10,000 calories only to put it all right back on in ballpark food. Why is it that hot dogs and nachos taste SO MUCH better at the ballpark? YUM!! The Rangers won which made it all worth the sweat. After the game they had a huge fireworks show. Can't wait to do it again soon.

That's where I'll stop for now. We are ALMOST caught up hoping to never get behind again..HA!! Famous last words....

Before I leave....

Today (July 28th) marks a special day in our lives. This is the day that our 2nd child was due to be born 4 years ago. Not a day goes by that I don't think of my sweet baby. If you want to read more about my story you can go here.

To my sweet baby,

We miss you! We love you! Not a day goes by that I don't think about you. You would be 4. Getting ready to start Pre-K. You would be learning to write your name, learning your numbers, beginning reading and so much more.I wanted you to know that I got a special charm bracelet for Christmas and on it I have a little angel, that's you. You are with me always. I look at it and smile thinking about you running around with all the other children in Heaven. I can't wait for the day when I get to see you again and for you to get to meet your WONDERFUL sisters. You are going to love them. Continue having the fun your having and we'll see you again someday.

I love you,
Mommy

Back Tracking

I can't believe it's been over a month and a half since I last posted a blog. I have LOTS of catching up to do. I won't bore you with one EXTREMELY LONG post so I'm going to spread all our events over a few days of posts.
Last time I blogged we were about to head out on our family vacation to Galveston, Texas. We left here on June 13 and came back on June 19. We had a wonderful time at the beach. The girls had a blast playing on the beach in the sand and splashing in the water. I wondered how Macy would do because the last time we went to the beach she wasn't too fond of the sand getting on her feet. This time she was ALL ABOUT the sand and getting dirty. We built lots of sand castles, hunted for crabs, looked for sea shells, and took lots of long walks along the shore. The adults even played a game of touch football, soccer, and even a mean game of sand hopscotch. The football game turned a little rough. On one occasion I was rushing the quarterback (Kristie) and tripped and ended up tackling her. Then I was trying to touch tackle their 15 year old son who plays football and he jucked (sp) one way and headed the opposite way causing me to plant my foot in the sand and go down straight on my face. Not cool for this old crippled girl. We stayed up late every night playing cards/board games and slept till we woke up sometimes not until 11:00am. It was awesome. We had a blast.

Here's a glimpse of our vacation. Ready to vacation with us?

Macy helped make a lemon cake...It was SO yummy. We ate

NON STOP.

Macy and Kaleigh making the cake together. Kaleigh is our neighbors oldest daughter. Isn't she beautiful?

Our first day on the beach.

Macy being her normal SASSY self. This picture looks hazy but it's only because the camera had been in the house in the A/C and when I went outside it fogged up. It's still cute nonetheless.

Madeline and her best friend, Rachel, deciding to get in the water or not.

They can't take a picture without "posing".

Playing so nice in the water and sand together.

My happy family on the beach playing together.

One thing that we do every time we go to Galveston is ride the ferry. The kids look forward to feeding the seagulls bread on the back of the ferry. However, you have to be VERY careful. Imagine a TON of seagulls flying overhead, eating bread. You are bound to get some form of bodily bird fluid on you. Poor Mark (our neighbor) got it this trip.

Thanks for the good laugh Mark.

Here is what the ferry's look like.

Here's our "CREW" waiting to board the ferry.

Madeline and Rachel. They are like sisters.

Sweet Little Macy passed out in the car on the way to the ferry. We did wake her up once we were on board. She would have been so sad to have missed it.

Me and my mini me waiting. I love this picture of us. Even if I do have my sunglasses on.

Hubs and Macy right after we woke her up. She was so excited to see the hundreds of seagulls flying overhead.

Here they are feeding the birds.

What a nice looking family.

There is one mini golf place on the island and I think the kids and the hubby's went there 3-4 times. It was cheap entertainment and it took them a couple of hours to play. It was a couple hours that me and Kristie had alone on the beach soaking up the suns rays. There was only a few minor incidents while they played. One trip Macy got mad and THREW her club (she takes after her daddy) and on another trip Rachel smacked Madeline in the eye with her club. HA! All in all they had a blast.

Madeline putting on the last hole.

This is the first hole and this ant squirts water out of it's mouth. When I walked by it the first time it scared me and I nearly broke my ankle when I jumped. HA!

Kaleigh and Colby (neighbors) acting their normal goofy teenage self's.

I loved this picture of Macy. Isn't she beautiful?

One thing we always try to do is have a "Date Night" with NO KIDS. This time we chose to go to Kemah. Kemah is a boardwalk with shopping, tons of restaurants, entertainment, and rides. They have an aquarium too. It's a nice place to go for a few hours and just walk around especially with no kids in tow. Last year when we came we brought the kids and had a blast but it was nice to enjoy it with just adults. Thanks to Kaleigh for watching the kids.

Dressed up and ready to go out for the night.

With our best friends/neighbors, Mark and Kristie. These two are truly GOD SENDS. I can't imagine my life without the two of them in it. I never want to move because if I do I'd have to bring them with me. We love them.

In Kemah

You never know when you might run into Spongebob.

He tried to eat me. HA!

Look at this cutie......We always love trying on all the silly sunglasses in the surf shops. We get good laughs.

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This part of the post is the Before and After section. As you know, last year Galveston was hit by Hurricane Ike. I was still shocked at some of the devastation left from the storm. Enjoy the before and afters.

The beach house we stay in suffered quite a bit of damage on the bottom half and had already had some repairs done to it. Thankfully, nothing was damaged inside. However, the beach is now their backyard. See what a mean.

BEFORE:


This picture was taken from down on the beach. There once was about a 10 foot sea wall and about 200 yards (at least) to the beach from the house.


This is the bridge that took you down to the beach.


AFTER:


There is still a lot of work that needs to be done to the house and you can see that the beach is right up to the house.

This is a pier that was right off the sea wall.

BEFORE:



AFTER:

It is no longer there. Instead this is what it looks like.

Here are just some pictures of some of the damage that is still waiting to be repaired.

This is the house right next to the house we stay in. It looks A LOT worse in person but you can still see a lot of the damage it sustained.

This is the new Murdocks. The last was just as big and GONE. AMAZING!

Another popular place on the east end of the island. On Stewart Beach.

This is the famous Flagship hotel. It has been there a long time.

Can you see in the top left the bed and mirror?

Here's a truck stuck on a fishing pier.

It's just amazing how much damage water can do. It's scary to think what those people were going through. Thankfully it wasn't worse than it was.

I leave you with our group effort of making a sand castle.

Thanks for sticking with me. We have been so busy but I need to take the time to update more. Next update will be about our 4th of July and there will be a post you won't want to miss. It just shows how GREAT our GOD is. Stay tuned.