Thanksgiving Thanks

Since its Thanksgiving this coming week I thought I'd list a few things I'm thankful for... First of all, my relationship with my Savior...Without Him there would be no real purpose in life. He has blessed us so much and I can never express how thankful I am for that...Also, my wonderful husband who understands me and puts up with all my craziness; my awesome family who is so supportive (both in prayer and otherwise) and loving(that includes both of our families); our precious church people who have been a great blessing to us over the past months; Great friends who have been there when we've needed to chat and pour out our frustrations...and the list could go on and on...we have so much to be thankful for don't we? Why do we wait until this one time of year to express it?! I'm just as guilty as the rest...but hopefully I'll be giving thanks a whole lot more frequently this year... The Lord is so good! ...... "Oh give thanks unto the Lord for HE IS GOOD!"

Our Tree

Our Tree

Trying to grin and bear it! LOL

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Ok, so last night I thought it would be a good idea to take pictures of us in front of our Christmas tree just for fun...well... for those of you who know my husband you know that did NOT sound like fun to him! LOL He HATES getting his picture taken... But.. he was a dear and did it anyways.. although I didn't really get a smile out of him... LOL Oh well... such as they are here you go...

Thanksgiving Highlights

My Thanksgiving pumpkin on the front porch

Our Front Door wreath

Our Beautiful Autumn Foliage Before it disappeared!

Our Church with the Leaves in the background

Our Flag with the Autumn Backdrop

Ok, so enough about Christmas I guess for a little while... let's get through Thanksgiving first! LOL I took some pictures around the house the other day and thought I'd share them with you...

The Christmas Bug Has Bitten!

In my family it has always been my dad and I that have put the Christmas tree up and dragged all the decorations out. If ANY decorating got done it was due to my enthusiasm and dad's willingness to help me. LOL Well, now that I'm married things haven't changed much in that regard! LOL My wonderful husband drug (I don't know if that's proper english but...) all the Christmas decorations down from the attic for me and helped with putting the tree in place and then... It was up to me from there! LOL So we have our tree up and half decorated (I need to pick up a few things to finish it off) and all the other decorations are out. I really wanted to decorate outside too but I don't know if we'll get that done this year or not. I might wait til all the stuff goes on sale and buy up for next year. It's pretty cold today and they said we might get some snow flurries some time this week... maybe it will "begin to look a lot like Christmas" in Virginia after all! :0)

More Pioneer Retreat...

Bro and Sis Marshall and Shayla Blowers

Bro Marshall and Shayla

Bro and Sis Marshall

Luke and Me

Us Again!

Pioneer Retreat

Our table in our room

View of Amish Country from off our balcony

Also from off our balcony

The gorgeous staircase in the lobby all decorated for Christmas!

This is the main floor lobby

Ok I promised pictures in my last post so here they are...

Week Review

Wow... seems like we've been gone from home for a long time but its only been a week! There's so much to catch up on though... I will have to post the pictures later because I haven't gotten the chance to put them on my jump drive to bring them to the library so hopefully I'll get those on soon... Anyhow, where to begin? I guess at the beginning of the week... Monday we travelled up north to attend the calling hours and funeral of Bro Satterfield... Monday was the calling hours from 2-9 and then tuesday was the funeral. It was a touching funeral service with hardly a dry eye in the place. He was truly a loved and respected man and will be missed by many! They estimated 450 people to have attended the funeral and the church was packed! Tuesday night we had to head up to Walnut Creek, Ohio (right in the heart of amish country) for our Pioneer Pastor's retreat at the Carlisle Inn. Bro Jacob Martin (one of my former college professors; and my favorite I might add... LOL) and Bro and Sis Bell from the Franklin Church were the speakers. They all brought very good messages and lectures that encouraged, challenged, and motivated us all to get back in the saddle, so to speak... Thursday we spent at my parents house getting caught up and playing with our niece and nephews who have grown like weeds since we last saw them! Friday I had an eye doc appointment with my old eye doctor and then we headed back down south to come home. We got in a little before midnight last night and got our first phone call at around 8 this morning! LOL ( Which wasn't even for us! ) Oh the joys of living in the parsonage! LOL Just kidding... Anyhow, I think that gives you a pretty good idea how our week went... pictures to come later...

Our Loss, His Gain

Many of you have already heard about the passing of Rev. Ray Satterfield. He passed away last night while at family night with his church family. It still doesn't seem real to me even as I sit here writing this... He was such a busy pastor and a big influence in the denomination. It's so hard to understand sometimes why things like that happen but we can rest in the knowledge that we know where he is. While we are grieving the loss, he is rejoicing in Heaven with his Savior. We do need to remember Sis Satterfield and their children and grandchildren during this time... God is the God of all comfort and only He can truly be a comfort to them during this time. Bro Satterfield had a long "history" so to speak with luke and I... he was the pastor that Luke did his internship under; he and his wife were influential in luke and I meeting; he had a part in our wedding ceremony; and my dad and him were friends since college days... He will truly be missed by us all...

Travelling Again

It seems like ever since we've been married we have been constantly travelling to one place or another... so... in keeping with the tradition, we will be headed out once again next week to Ohio for the Pioneer Outreach Convention in Walnut Creek. Of course, along the way we will get to at least get a peek at our family so that is always exciting! :0) We are looking forward to it though! However, when I think of packing us up once again I could groan... Oh well, that's life! LOL I know we will have a nice time and its actually going to be a "homecoming" of sorts for me in a way because one of my professors from college is one of the speakers! Rev. Jacob Martin is going to be speaking on how to grow your sunday school in this tough age. So I'm looking forward to hearing him since he was my absolute FAVORITE teacher in college... (I had many great teachers don't get me wrong, its just that he was my favorite... LOL) Anyhow, I'm sure it will be a good convention... so pray for us as we travel yet again the laborious 8 hours!!!

Belated Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday was luke's mom and dad's anniversary and of course all their kids forgot! So, here's a stab at trying to make up for it!! LOL They are celebrating 32 years of marriage and that is almost unheard of anymore!! So congratulations to mom and dad LaVan on their anniversary week! We love you!

Election Comments

Yesterday my husband and I did what every good citizen should do-we voted. Some people argue that their one little vote doesn't matter or count but if everyone felt that way and followed that logic no one would vote. Anyhow, things were decided rather quickly this time compared to the last two elections... All I'm going to say is this... America disappointed me greatly in this election but God is still on the Throne and none of this took Him by surprise. We can still trust Him to guide us through whatever the next months and years may bring.

Our Junior Church Kids

Kaiel

Jasmine

Jamisha (althougth everyone calls her "tootie")

Lori

Shanaya

These are some of our Junior church children that the Lord has blessed us with. We hadn't seen these faces for quite some time so it was nice to see them back in church again!

Revival Update

James and Rachel at our house Saturday night.

The two soon-to-be mommy's (both having girls as far as we know!)

Earl and Melissa Pelton

Wow what a week! It went pretty fast though to be honest and Earl and Melissa were the EASIEST people to keep in your home for a week! They even put up with all my crazyness rather well! LOL Revival went well though and the Lord was there in every service and really helped Earl with his messages! It was a real blessing to have them here this week! We were all a little on edge all week though because we didn't know when their baby might decide she wanted to make her grand entrance...but so far so good! They left this morning and I told them to be sure to call us when they get home so we know they made it home without any additional passengers!!! :0) Also this week we had James and Rachel over on saturday night for snack after church. It was cute to see the two soon-to-be mommy's together and they had much to talk about! :0) Sunday we had a good group of kids and some of them were ones that haven't come in a while so that's always encouraging to see! Now life's somewhat back to normal...just the two of us again...