Silly Time!

Awhile back the kids got into the headbands and thought they were great fun! Here are some pictures of them.


All 3 together.



Isaac

Abigail

Hannah



"Tough" Isaac with Joanna peeking around his shoulder.


The Simple Joys of Life

The kids love wearing their bicycle helmets, especially Isaac and Joanna. (Or I should say "helmick" for Jojo.)
At nap time the other day, Isaac asked to wear his to bed, so I agreed. (After he fell asleep we unclipped it.)

Great Quote

I "stole" this quote from my sister's blog. I just think it is such a wonderful reminder of how much God cares for us. He knows us so intimately. He will NEVER give us more than we can handle, and He knows what that is better than we do. How many times have people come through difficulties realizing they, with God's amazing grace, were stronger than they could have ever imagined!

I have been reminded so often lately that the narrow road comes with it's hardships. Duh! The wide road has plenty of it's own, too! The question is not about choosing a trouble free path versus a trouble full path, it's whether you choose the path that has God and His army on your side to help you along, or the path that leaves you all alone with no help along the way. No one to fight specifically for you. What a sad, lonely place to be.

I am so thankful that God called me to Himself and I chose to follow. What an awesome army to be a part of! Thanks to all of you, my friends and helpers along this narrow path. I pray that I can help fight for you, too!

The everlasting God has in His wisdom foreseen from eternity the cross that He now presents to you as a gift from His all-knowing eyes,

understood with His Divine mind,

tested with His wise justice,

warmed with loving arms

and weighted with His own hands to see that it be not one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you.

He has blessed it with His holy Name,

anointed it with His grace,

perfumed it with His consolation,

taken one last glance at you and your courage,

and then sent it to you from heaven, a special greeting from God to you, an alms of the all-merciful love of God.

--St Francis de Sales

Happy Birthday!

Rebecca, Happy Birthday to you!

I so admire your passion to follow God wherever he leads you, your passion to know Jesus more, your passion for God's word, your passion for life!

I hope you have a wonderful birthday today!

Work Weekend!

My parents came the last weekend in October for a "Work Weekend". YEAH!! I love work weekends, you get a lot of stuff done and it's a party! :) We put in a new front door, and mom painted it, Dad & Daniel installed a new hot water heater (our old one was leaving a big puddle on the basement floor), they replaced the A/C drainage on the furnace, brought and installed a new (to me) stove, and countless other little jobs.

Plus we were able to eat lots of great food, watch some football and movies, talk (of course), and just have fun being together. Here are some pics from the weekend. Most of the pictures were a last minute idea, so they aren't great, but you get the idea.

THANKS MOM & DAD!!

Here is Dad working on installing the new door. Dad and I did that job on Friday, while Daniel was at work. Mom's job was to watch the kids or let them climb all over her. :) We didn't get any pictures of taking out the old door.

Here's a view of the new door from the outside, before mom painted it.

Inside view

The remains of our old door and frame.

The door all done now and painted from the outside.

Inside view

Dad and Daniel working on the hot water heater.



The night before my parents left mom was looking at our "motherhood" fridge poetry set. The next day I found this. Thanks mom!





The "it live" part I think the kids might have messed with.

Zoo

First, I wanted to let you know that all the pictures from my England posts maxed out my allowed picture space, so I decided to start a blog just for our vacations. I have transferred all of my England posts, except the last one, to that blog. So, if you want to read them again or anything, go there. (I have a link to it under my blogging friends, it's Asher Vacations.) Though, when I transferred the posts, the pictures decided not to work, so I need to re-upload all of them. Thus, it's mostly words at this point. I'm hoping to do that sometime in the near future. :)



The kids and I went to the zoo last week. It was one of the last warmer days for awhile.


Here are some cute pictures of Joanna on the way down to the Zoo. She loves to wear this hat. Notice she has it on inside out!

Here are Hannah, Abby, and Isaac climbing on an Orangutan statue.

This is inside the Chimpanzee and Orangutan house. They had a little alcove for the kids to sit in and watch the chimps. (Sorry it's such a dark picture.)

Now all 4 are climbing on an Orangutan.

Here are Hannah, Abby, and Joanna posing in some tall grass. (You can barely see Jojo in there!)

Joanna just chillin' in the stroller.

The train at the Zoo is free and the kids so enjoy riding on it, so we took a short ride that day. Here are Isaac and Joanna turning around to look at me.

We went to watch the penguins. (This exhibit was just built this past spring.) They mark the different penguins with colorful bands, to keep track of them. Hannah, Abigail, Isaac, and Joanna were picking different colors to be their "teams" , then they would watch them race. If only the penguins had known that!

They would run back and forth watching their penguins go.

We tried to get a picture of all of us together. When you ask strangers to snap a picture for you, you can't be too picky about the turn out. At least we've got some with all of us in it.

I know the date is wrong on all the pictures. I haven't changed it, yet.

England #18

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is my final England post! At last, you say. Tsk, Tsk!

After Westminster, Big Ben, and Parliament we went to catch an evening Riverboat ride down the Thames.

We saw these on the way.


We also saw this. There are all kinds of fountains scattered around London. We thought this one was interesting?

Amy in front of Tower Bridge with the sun on it's way down. We were waiting for our boat to arrive.

Here is a picture of the Riverboat we rode on. We took a tour down the Thames, but I was standing near the side and could only hear the water hitting against the boat and missed everything the tour guide was explaining along the way. Daniel tried to fill me in, but he had difficulty hearing as well.

This is Butler's Wharf. As you can see, it is huge.

Here we are passing under Tower Bridge.

Another view of Hays Galleria. (A wharf turned into a shopping center.)

A mix of old and modern buildings, again.

This is called King's Reach. I believe it's an original dock or something.

This is a replica of the Golden Hind, Sir Francis Drake's pirate ship. I believe it is open for tours.

Then we passed under London Bridge.

A closer view of the London Eye. We never rode on it because it was quite pricey and took about an hour to go all the way around. Plus, not exactly my cup of tea.

A party boat on the Thames, designed after the Queen Mary.

Passing by the London Eye and the County Hall. Today County Hall is the site of businesses and attractions, including Dalí Universe, the London Aquarium, and a Namco Station amusement arcade. The London Eye is next to County Hall, and its visitor centre is inside the building. (wikipedia)

Finally, we passed by Big Ben and Parliament.

After the riverboat tour, we started heading back towards our hotel.

We passed a street artist on the way.

Back to the Underground.Here I am looking pretty tired after a long day!

We saw and heard this said many times. :)

We stopped at Victoria Station to look for a place to eat supper, but did not find anyhting we were interested in. So, we took a few pictures.

Clock at Victoria Station.

This is Victoria Palace.

We ended up eating supper at a restaurant near our hotel. It was called the Slug and Lettuce. The food was delicious and priced nicely! I think it is an Australian restaurant, at least Aussies worked there. We forgot to get a picture of it. :(

We ended up missing our alarm clock the morning we were to leave, so had a bit of a rush to get to the airport. We made it in plenty of time, but they had overbooked the flight which meant we got bumped up to Business Class. NICE!!
Here I am settling into my seat/cubicle.
We had a great flight back, minus the dude next to me (not Daniel!) who had awful gas! Other than that it was quite comfy. We could eat whenever we wanted and had tons of movies, tv shows, music, and video games available to us.


So, that wraps up our trip to London. I can't wait to be able to go again! There was so much we didn't get to see. Until next time.....