Thank the Lord for Remembrances

Last night I was laying in bed. For whatever reason I couldn't go to sleep. I was laying there with all kinds of things going through my mind. I told myself that if I couldn't go to sleep I should at least think of good things. I lay there remembering how in meeting Bro. Jerry (who was visiting our assembly) started the song "Jesus Reigns". That song always reminds me of Bro. Benny. He also started "When the Saints go Marching in" which reminds me of my Dad. Then I got to thinking about how certain things remind me of certain people. I remember last week I made cinnamon rolls. I got the recipe from a certain sister who is not doing good spiritually now. I thought and prayed for her the whole time I was making the cinnamon rolls. Then I remembered how every time I make homemade noodles it reminds me of Sis. Cindy. Shortly after I was married she gave me the recipe and showed me how to make homemade noodles. She said "Every sister ought to know how to make homemade noodles"!

Somehow my thoughts strayed to the scrap quilt I made for my brother. I know that the many hours I spent on it I thought of him, and prayed for the different struggles I knew he was going through at the time. He wasn't baptized yet, and he wasn't living at home; so I was kind of hoping that somehow the quilt could be there when he was baptized since I knew I probably wouldn't get to be there. That reminded me of my "baptism blanket"...

The night I was baptized my mother wrapped a certain blanket around me. It was just a plain blanket; nothing special really, but from that time on it was my own personal blanket, and I used it all the time and took it with me everywhere. One year at the Colorado camp-out I was at a baptism of a young man that I had known for a long time. I had brought my blanket to the waters edge with me, and ended up putting it over him after he came out of the water. I told him how it was my blanket from when I was baptized and how maybe someday he could pass it on to someone else. Sometime after that I talked to him again, and he told me that he had passed it on to someone else. I laid in my bed last night wondering where all that blanket has been. I thought it would be neat if I saw it again somewhere unexpectedly. I thought about how maybe I will make special quilts for each of my children to drape over them when they are baptized. (If it works out that way.) My brother's quilt didn't make it to his baptism, but that's ok.

Anyway, I was thankful for my wondering thoughts as I lay on my pillow last night and thought I would share them with you all. Do any of you have certain things that remind you of certain people? As I lay there remembering all this I hoped that if people remembered me from time to time that it was good things they thought of.

Feeding the Ducks

Earlier this summer, Matt's mom came and spent a few days with us. The kids really enjoyed having their Grandma around! One of the things we did while she was here is take the kids to feed some ducks. The kids really enjoyed it and it was cheap entertainment! There's a library next door; so we went to the library too. I'm thinking about taking them again soon.


I had them all sit down and throw the bread so the ducks would come closer.

There were a couple of geese there that would actually eat out of your hand, but Christian was the only one of my kids brave enough to do it.

The Coast on the 4th

Since Matt had the 4th of July off, and it happened to be on a Friday and we got a check in the mail that made it possible;we decided to spend the weekend at the Coast. It was a last minute decision. I called close to 20 Motels, most of them were full, or they were WAY beyond our price range. I actually managed to find one that was a reasonable price; so I jumped on it. We decided to pack up on Thursday and head to the coast right after church. We got to our Motel around 11; which wasn't too bad. For the price we got it for (especially it being 4th of July weekend) it was actually nicer than I expected. There were 2 queen beds in a separate room and then a hide-a-bed, dining area and kitchenette in another room. It was kind of old, and the bed wasn't real comfortable, but I was pretty pleased with what we got for the price. It was a nice enough place to call home for a couple of days. The kids did amazingly well settling down and we all slept pretty good. After having breakfast at a really nice restaurant (where we couldn't even finish all the food we ordered) we stopped at a toy store to get some sand toys and then headed to the beach.

These pictures are backwards. I always forget that you have to put them on your page in the opposite order of how you want them on your page. Well these pictures are of us making sandcastles after getting good and wet; so we are getting good and dirty! Christian wanted to make his castle with no help from anyone or any castle molds. Ruby had help from me. The reason their eyes are squinty is because the wind was blowing pretty hard and they kept getting sand in their faces. Spellcheck is telling me that squinty is not a word, but I'm going to use it anyway!

We were all so dirty after playing in the water and sand that we didn't want to sit in a restaurant; so we ordered pizza and all took showers and then tried to take a nap. That didn't go over too well. It's hard for kids to sleep in that close of quarters; especially when its still daylight outside. I guess we got to rest anyway.

This is the only picture I have of Matt. Isn't that awful! I guess he was taking most of the other pictures.

Christian and Ruby in their soaking wet clothes. I wasn't going to let them get that wet. Just wade around a little, but the water was amazingly warm for the Oregon Coast and they fell in a few times; so I gave up.

Even though Garrison fell a few times and got a little scared; he always got back up and ran with a huge grin on his face to meet the next wave!

Here's Anthony having fun.

Here's me with all the kids except Garrison.


After our showers and resting time we went to a Chinese restaurant. Our kids actually really like Chinese food, mostly the sweet and sour. There were going to be fireworks on the beach about 3 miles from where we were. We were told we could see them from the beach at the town we were at rather than going to the really crowded beach 3 miles away; so we took the sand toys down to the beach again and let the kids play until fireworks time. This time I didn't let them play in the water; so they wouldn't get quite so dirty. There were a lot of people setting off their own fireworks; so we got to see them. A lot of them looked like illegal fireworks. Their were quite a few people on the beach, but not nearly as crowded as the other beach would have been. there were a lot of bonfires on the beach. Some people even shared theirs with us. That was nice. The bad thing about the fires is it was still windy; so if you were downwind from any of them (which we were) it was very smoky. The big fireworks show was disappointing because we could just barely see it. I don't even know if the kids even really noticed it. But they had fun playing in the sand and watching everyone Else's fireworks; so it wasn't a huge disappointment. We had bought some sparklers, but it was just too windy on the beach. we did those a couple of nights later at home.

The kids were so worn out that they went to sleep pretty easy. The next morning we worked on packing up. There was a watermelon that we had cut into the day before and we ate that for breakfast. We had intended to buy breakfast, but it was so late by the time we got out of the Motel it was so late that we just got lunch. Since you have to eat seafood at least once when you go to the coast that's what we had for lunch. We walked around in the shops for a little while. We bought the kids each a silly hat, but sorry, no pictures! There was a carousel in one of the shopping centers; so we all rode on it. It was fun. The kids threw such fits when we had to get off that we figured they were tuckered out and it was time to go home.

Looking back I see that I have rambled on a lot, but now you have all the details of our fun weekend. It was nice to get away and have fun as a family.

Good bye Elephant

When Neena brought to my attention that my sidebar needed to be updated I noticed the picture of Ruby with her elephant. I've been meaning to post about this, but never had.

Here is the story of Ruby and her elephant:

Ruby was probably our worst baby ever. This is probably a horrible thing to say; but it's very true. Maybe she was colicky; I don't know, but she cried a lot. I had a hard time calming her down when she got upset. She did not like to be cuddled; so I couldn't rock her to sleep. Sometimes I literally spent hours trying to get her to go to sleep. Then there were nights she would wake up screaming and it didn't seem like there was anything I could do for her.

One evening we were doing our grocery shopping at Winco and Ruby was starting in on one of her screaming fits and we still hadn't finisher our shopping yet. We passed the stuffed animal section and I snatched a soft and comfy looking elephant. It was grey with a ribbon around it's neck and tusks and had that mixture of loose stuffing and beans. At the time it was probably about as big as her. I think she was somewhere around 10 months at the time. When I gave her the elephant she stopped her fit and was good for the rest of our shopping experience. It was love at first sight! From then on she slept with her elephant every night and she took it everywhere with her.

As a baby she would suck on the tusks when she was sleepy. When she got too old for that she would just rub the tusks with her hands; sometimes I would catch her making a sucking movement with her mouth as she did this. Through the years, the many trips it took, the washings it got and from much loving it became very wore out. She still loved it though. It reminded me of the velveteen rabbit. It's ribbon got lost somewhere along the way; and it's fur wasn't its original silky softness, but she loved it all the same.

There were times she would leave it somewhere and we would have to turn around and go get it. There were a few times as she got older that she would leave it and wouldn't miss it for awhile; but most of the time she took it everywhere with her.

Well, we took it with us to go to Brewster camp out this year. We made a lot of stops along the way, of course. The last stop we made was in Omak to get groceries for the weekend. We really couldn't quite remember if that was the last place we saw the elephant or not; but we were pretty sure Ruby took it in with her. Sometimes we remembered to tell her to leave her elephant in the van so she wouldn't lose it; this time we forgot. It was pretty late and we were quite a ways out of Omak when Ruby realized she didn't have her elephant. This time we didn't turn around (I almost wish we had). We weren't even definitely sure she had it in Wal-Mart and we were already going to be getting in so late. We did call Wal-Mart, but they hadn't found it yet. When we got to the camp out we looked in the van really good, but no elephant. We stopped at Wal-Mart on our way home, but it had not been found. We stopped at a few other places that we remembered stopping at, but nobody had seen Ruby's elephant. It was so tattered and worn that someone who found it might have just thrown it out, not knowing that it was such a special thing to a little 4 year old girl.

I realize it was probably getting to be time to ween Ruby of her elephant; but she loved it so much that I wanted to be able to keep it for her to have when she had children of her own. I really feel sad that she lost it. This may seem kind of silly, but I even have a small hope that somehow God will allow us to find it so that Ruby can keep her beloved elephant. It wasn't even a toy to her. She very rarely played with it. Sometimes she would say that elephant was hungry or tired; but most of the time elephant was just a comforting companion for her.

She's doing fine without elephant, but she still sometimes tells me that she wishes she had elephant. We really do miss that poor old elephant. I'm going to post some pictures that I have of Ruby with her elephant. Most of the time we made her put the elephant down, but we have a few. Now I wish I would have taken more of her with it as a baby.

Elephant at Uncle Brian and Aunt Michelle's house

Elephant at Dennis and Trina's house

Elephant at the pumkin patch

Elephant at the airport.

Traveling Memory

When we were traveling through the mountains yesterday we came upon an accident. It was a good thing there were flares set out or we probably would have hit the car. This car was on its side in our lane. We had to move into the passing lane to miss it. As I said in my last blog our trip took longer, but I'm glad we were far enough behind that were weren't in that accident, or come up on it before flares were set out. After passing the accident I was reminded of a trip I took when I was 12 with my Uncle Gene and Aunt Nadine.

They took me and my sisters with them and their 2 daughters that were our age on a trip through Washington. We went to quite a few different assemblies, and I know there were a lot of things on that trip that helped strengthen my belief in God and my Love for the Brethren; but there is one memory from that trips that really sticks out the most.

It's been a long time ago, but I think we were on our way to Prosser. We were driving on a kind of curvy mountain road when we decided to stop at a viewpoint and look around and read the sign. As we pulled off a van full of people went past us and around the next curve. After looking around for awhile we got back in our van and got back on the road. When we went around the next curve, there was the van that had passed us upside down on the road. Somehow they had lost control and ended up flipping. We stopped to see if they needed help, but they were all OK. As we continued on the road we all marveled at how God had kept us from being in that accident with them because someone would have been hurt for sure then.

The next meeting we sat in was in Spokane. I wasn't in the faith yet, but I know my sisters were and maybe even my cousins I don't remember. I remember thinking all through church about how someone should testify about our near miss, but they never did. I really wanted to tell people about it myself, but I knew I couldn't because I wasn't in the faith yet. I remember that some of my family got up in church, but never mentioned that incident.

After church Uncle Gene said that he thought there was something I wanted to tell everybody. I hadn't even told him how I wanted to tell the brethren about what had happened to us (or what hadn't happened to us). So God had revealed my desire to tell the story to my Uncle Gene and I was able to share with the brethren how God had protected us.

Now the reason I remember this story is not because God protected us on the roads. I know there's been a lot of times that God has protected me on the road and I don't remember it so vividly. What makes it such a wonderful memory for me is that God looked into the heart of a 12 year old and saw what I desired to do and revealed it to someone else. This is one of my many wonderful memories of God's goodness to me.

A Good Memory

Sis. Cherrie has a post on her blog titled "Lost and Found". It reminded me of something that happened to my dad. Some of you might have heard this story before; but it's worth telling again.

As most of you know, my dad owned his own roofing business before he became blind. He had a wrist watch that he used to keep track of his workers hours. If I remember right it was actually a pretty beat up watch, but it had an important purpose. Somehow he lost it. I don't know it it had been lost for a few days, or just one, but he couldn't find it.

He was going to bed one night; his watch was still missing. He decided to pray that God would help him find it. He said that he'd had a dream in the night. In that dream, he'd looked under his bed, and his watch was face down in a certain spot. He turned it over and it said a certain time (I think it was 9 something). The next morning he got up like usually and started going about his day. After awhile he remembered his dream; so he thought he'd go look under his bed for his watch. Sure enough, there it was, face down in the exact same spot as in the dream! He turned it over, and it said the same exact time as in his dream!

Now that story in itself is pretty neat, but it doesn't stop there...

Sometime after this happened my dad misplaced his olive oil bottle. (For those of you who don't know, my dad always carries a tiny bottle of olive oil in his pocket so that he'll always have it handy if he needs to annoint someone, or something). He couldn't remember where he'd put it and he couldn't find it anywhere. He went to go to bed, and remembered how God had helped him find his watch. He thought surely, if God can help me find my wristwatch, surely he will help my find my olive oil bottle. So once again he prayed before going to sleep that God would help him find his olive oil bottle. He woke up the next morning, and he hadn't had a dream like the last time. He was kind of dissapointed because he'd really thought that God would help him find it. Then he went to roll out of bed, and there was his olive oil bottle in his hand!

God is soo amazing! Sometimes we forget the great power of God; It's nice to be reminded by things like this.

Hundred Thousands Place

After reading Sis. Trina's blog titled "Faith in Children" I was reminded of something that happened quite a few years ago...

I was at my Aunt Mary's house helping her out. She homeschools her chidren and I used to go over there quite often to help her. That day Alyssa was working on her Math. She was learning about the number places (you know, ones, tens, hundreds, thousands etc.) Well she had gotten to the part where where she was supposed to be learning the hundred-thousands place. Now Alyssa is a smart girl; so it wasn't like she didn't understand her Math book. She just refused to believe that there was a such thing as the hundred-thousands place. No matter what we told her, or what her book said she would not do her work because there was no such thing! Needless to say we had a very frustrating day with her. We argued with her most of the day about it. She said she'd never heard of it before; so it wasn't so.

We were getting very aggrivated with her. It seemed like there was no way for us to get through to her so that she could continue with her schoolwork.

All of a sudden, it was like a light bulb came on in my head! I asked Alyssa if she believed what the Bible said; even if she wouldn't believe her me, her mom, or her schoolbook. She said she did; so I got a Bible and looked up in Numbers where the people were counted and found a place where there was a number that had a hundred-thousand place. I believe it was six-hundred-thousand something. Anyway, once she saw that it was in the Bible she finally was convinced it was real and went on with her schoolwork! It was as easy as that!

Looking back, it's kind of funny now; but it's always stuck with me that she believed the Bible when she wouldn't believe anything else. I hope that I instill that kind of faith in my children.

Early Memories

I was laying in bed trying to take a nap with the baby (it wasn't working), and I began to think about memories I had while we lived in the little house on Kirk Ave. It's the first house I remember living in. I think I was 4 or 5 when we moved out; so I was pretty little. Anyway, I thought I would share those memories with all of you. As I was remembering these things I was picturing Christian or Ruby doing these things (I must have been around that age). It made me smile.

I remember one time while my big sisters were away at school I found some treasures! I wanted to share them with the family; so I waited for everyone to get home and then I had everybody sit down so I could show them my "treasures". I pulled out of a paper bag a chicken egg! (we had chickens, and this must have been before it was my job to collect the eggs). Anyway, I was very proud that I had went into the chicken pen and retrieved this egg. My mom had to tell me that I wasn't supposed to go into the chicken pen by myself yet. She also had to tell me that it actually wasn't an egg; it was some sort of hard vegetable that she had thrown in there for them to eat. It sure did LOOK like an egg! I also had in my bag of "treasures" a fuzzy caterpillar. Now this was a true treasure and everyone had to ooh and aah over it. I also had to tell everyone how we should get rid of our rooster because he was being mean to the other chickens. I had seen him jumping on them and pecking them! For some reason we didn't get rid of him as I had suggested!

Sara, my aunt, who is my age, was always at our house. I remember there was a neighbor boy that came over a lot too. I think he was kind of ornery. Anyway, he somehow talked Sara into picking up slugs and feeding them to the chickens. The chickens LOVED them! But, Sara had picked all these slugs up with her bare hands (for some reason there had been a lot of them). She tried and tried, but she couldn't wash the slime off of her hands, and we had pizza that night! I remember my dad especially was very mad about the situation.

I can remember my mom laying down with me to take a nap (supposedly to get me to sleep, I assume); but I can remember her going to sleep instead and me getting into things. Somehow this sounds very familiar! Now that I think of it she was probably pregnant with Crispin at the time and very tired. I was probably a handful!

I also remember Alicia sharing with us some Bubble gum that she stole from the store.

Now you know some of my weird early memories. There's a blog idea for some of you that have blogger's block! Share your memories! Maybe next time I'll share some of my more nicer memories; like the time I remember we prayed for dead baby chick who ended up living! But that is when we lived in a different house; so it doesn't belong in this blog!