6 Questions - Julie's Turn

Thank you Amy, for giving me something to blog about! Here we go. 1. Currently, would you describe yourself as a morning person, a night owl, or something in between? Morning person. I'm usually up at about 5:45 during the week, and weekends I rarely sleep past 8. I feel like so much of the day is wasted when I don't get up and get going. Night owl I am not. 2. What's your favorite thing to do with the twins? Lately, they love to play catch in my room. They will go up on my bed, and I'll be sitting on the floor and we'll throw stuffed animals back and forth. They love to bake, and so we do that quite a bit, and you know how I like that. Our Kitchenaid mixer is a source of endless wonder to them. We also spend a fair amount of time reading cookbooks. Can you guess who they picked that up from? 3. What's your favorite household chore? I don't know if cooking is an easy cop-out, but that would have to be my favorite. Next to that, I like to put groceries away, and washing dishes is quite relaxing. 4. What's your least favorite household chore? Not a big fan of dusting. I don't mind actually doing it, it just seems like it takes so long (especially my room because I have so many little things to dust around) and there are other things I'd rather be doing. 5. Which Sunday School class are you taking this semester? Dad and I are going to a class that is studying the book "How to Read the Bible for all It's Worth." I haven't started the book yet because I didn't sign up early enough, so I won't get it until this week, but I'm really looking forward to it! 6. What is your favorite thing to do as a family? Amy stole one of my answers - watching NCIS. I love our car rides down and back from Bop and Nanny's house, especially before Thanksgiving and Christmas. 7. What's one thing God has been teaching you lately? You had to limit it to one thing, didn't you Amy? Ok, well, after reading the book I mentioned in my last post, I've been learning a lot about the hope of heaven. Not as in, "Oh, I hope I go to heaven when I die," because I know I will, but living each day with the knowledge of what I'm looking forward to influencing everything I do. I listened to a sermon by Francis Chan on heaven, and he said he heard a pastor say once that he wished he could give every Christian a 10-minute look into what hell will be like, because he thought that would make them so fired up (no pun intended) to get out and save the world from what they had seen. Pastor Chan said he would rather give every Christian a 10-minute glance into heaven, for if we could experience, even for a moment, the pure bliss and ecstasy of what's in store for us, we would not be able to return to our lukewarm Christianity that lives for the same goals as the rest of the world. As I read the book, I was struck and convicted about how little I thought of heaven. That is the hope we have been saved for! The knowledge that we have a glorious inheritance should make a difference in our daily lives.

6 Questions

In an attempt to combat our recent blogging writer's block, I (Amy) thought I'd try something that's NEVER, EVER BEEN DONE BEFORE (well, on our blog anyway;-). I'm going to make up a set of six questions that will apply to all of the ladies in my family and see if we can each answer them on our blog this week. Four posts in one week is a pretty lofty goal for us, seeing as how we've been averaging one a week (on a good week ;-). But here goes nothing! I'll start, just to get the ball rolling. Hopefully, our answers to these questions will fill you in on what's happening in our lives. Enjoy!

1. Currently, would you describe yourself as a morning person, a night owl, or something in between? Definitely a night owl! I usually get a second wind sometime around 10:00 at night, at which time I often start on a new school assignment, go for a run, or begin texting one or more of my fellow night owls ;-). For the record, though, I'm working on getting to bed earlier. 2. What's your favorite thing to do with the twins? Oooh, that's a toughie! My very favorite thing to do with them is take them for walks. I love their fascination with simple things like pinecones, sticks, and the drains on the side of the road. It's so fun to be outdoors enjoying the fresh air and exercise together! Here's Kyle collecting leaves on a recent walk with my mom.

3. What's your favorite household chore?

Actually, I love to sweep, but since we don't have any floors to sweep in our house, I'll have to say vacuuming or washing dishes. Anything that lets me sing while I work, and that doesn't involve long periods of sitting still ;-) 5. What is your least favorite household chore? Definitely loading the dishwasher! That's a no-brainer for me. For some reason, touching dirty dishes just grosses me out. Yes, I realize that's ridiculous. (My family likes to remind me of that fact.) And I'm getting over it. Really. After all, they're kind of unavoidable. 4. Which Sunday School class are you taking this semester?

I just started a class called "How to Stay Christian in College," and I think it's going to be great! I really appreciate the fellowship and encouragement of people who are facing trials similar to mine, and I think we'll learn a lot from each other this semester. 5. What's your favorite thing to do with your family?

Hmmm...bike rides or watching NCIS...which to choose? They're both good. I just love watching my family laugh together. I love them sooo much!

Below are my sisters and I at my graduation open house. They're the best!

6. What's one thing God's been teaching you lately? Wow! How to pick just one? Lately, I feel like I'm in the middle of a spiritual overhaul. One lesson God keeps bringing me back to is living abundantly in the moment. I'm learning to accept circumstances for what they are and to live fully for my Savior in each and every situation. I haven't been doing a very good job of that lately. My self keeps getting in the way. But I'm praying that God will give me the strength to keep walking toward Him in every step I take.

I wanted to leave you with one final picture, so here's Ella taking time to "stop and smell the roses!"

New Shelf and Other Things

I (Julie) ran out of room under my bed for all my books, so my dad helped me put in this great new shelf! Bop gave me all his duplicate Louis L'amour books, so I had to find a place for them, and it works great for part of my salt and pepper shaker collection. I am almost ashamed to start posting again because it has been so long! We have been very busy lately, but in all honesty, I can't say that I haven't had a chance to blog, I just haven't felt that I have that much that is worth posting. But here we go anyway. The most exciting bit of news in my little corner of the world is that I am going back to Poland in February! It will be the same outreach I did last year. The trip will be February 4th-21st and I can hardly wait! So far, I am the only one I know of on the team, but there is still plenty of time for other people to sign up. This bit of news is directly responsible for one reason I have been so busy. I decided a couple weeks ago to do a pie fundraiser for Labor Day at church. I had sign-up sheets out for a couple weeks and people could sign up for the kind of pie (or pies) they wanted. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. We have a great church family that is very supportive of missions (or maybe they just really like pie!) Either way, I sold 57 pies. Yes, 57. We bought 4 lugs of peaches from the Youth for Christ fundraiser, and spent hours blanching, peeling, and chopping peaches. My family was wonderful with this part, especially my dad. He said it was practice for blanching his tomatoes for salsa, and that slicing them was like slicing deer steaks. He averaged 11 slices per peach half, and all 11 were perfectly and evenly sliced. I made up all the peach and apple pies beforehand and froze them. Then this past Saturday, our family and our grandparents who came up for the weekend went to our church and had a pie day. We baked all 29 peach and apple pies, and while those were baking, made 14 blueberry pies and 7 banana-berry pies. I still can't believe we got them all done! For those of you math people who are adding up those numbers and noticing they don't equal 57, I have a couple more to make this week for people who weren't going to be there on Sunday. But that is nothing compared to 50, so they almost don't count. I am so thankful for my family who helped so much on this project! Now that it is done, I can relax again for a while. I think I am going to start planning my Christmas baking today, because, you know, Christmas cookies keep well in the freezer. Awana starts next week, and I will be doing the second book for T & T girls, so at this point, I will only have 3 girls, but there will be more moving up throughout the year. Amy will also be helping with the Sparks, and I am looking forward to having her there too. I just finished reading a phenomenal book called "The Slumber of Christianity." It is written by Ted Dekker, who is one of my favorite authors, but all his books I had read before were fiction, while this was not. I highly, highly recommend it.

Confession

Hello friends! Amy here. I wanted to share with you something I've learned a lot about over the past few months. Something the Lord keeps bringing to my mind over and over again. Something I'm horrible at, yet something I'm striving to master. It's a little thing called confession. What do I mean when I use that term? First, let me explain what I don't mean. I am not talking about anonymously telling a priest my wrongdoings in order to receive my punishment and relieve my guilt. I am also not talking about playing Truth or Dare with friends in order to shock them with stories of things I've done or make them laugh about things I've said. In fact, in this post, I'm not even going to talk about confessing my sins to my Savior, although that is certainly a most important aspect of confession. Tonight, I'm talking about the biblical command to "confess your sins to one another and pray for each other" found in James 5:16. But in addition to confessing sin, I'm talking about confessing weaknesses, struggles, and areas of strong temptation. In all honesty, confession in itself is one of my biggest weaknesses. I hate admitting that I've done something wrong. I hate being the first to say I'm sorry. I have a really hard time being vulnerable with people and letting them in on my weaknesses. Yet recently, I worked up the courage to admit a struggle in my life to a friend who was facing a similar problem. To my surprise (and horror), she replied, "I'm really glad you told me that. I was afraid to talk to you about stuff like this because you seem to have it all together." I was shocked to think that my guardedness had prevented us from drawing closer as sisters in Christ, and thankful that the Holy Spirit had moved me to be honest with her in that situation. And I certainly don't "have it all together." The Lord has blessed me beyond my wildest dreams, and has brought me closer and closer to Him since the day I first gave Him my life. Yet there are many things I need to change. Many worries I need to give over to Him. Many desires that pull me away from my Master. I wonder how many times my refusal to confess has driven people away from me. Yet even more than that, I wonder how many times it has driven me away from the One who yearns to be my closest Friend. You see, I left out the most beautiful part of James 5:16. The verse says "confess your sins to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed." There is such freedom and encouragement in being accountable to one another, in giving up sins and strongholds we have long kept hidden, and in praying for forgiveness and strength to conquer those strongholds. I am praying that God will give me wisdom in knowing when, how, and to whom to confess my sins and struggles, and I would encourage each of you to do the same. After all, there is much healing to be had! God bless you, dear friends, as you seek to honor Him in all you do.

Sweet Victory!

We are the champions, my friends! That's right! The EFC Men's Softball team pulled it off to take the 2010 church league title! We are so excited!

After remaining undefeated throughout the season, a championship game was scheduled for Monday night. The playoffs were double elimination, so the opposing team would have had to beat our team twice in order to take the title.

To our horror, the opposing team won the first game and snatched our undefeated title. As the second game began, the tension was high, and nearly 75 fans were at the edge of their seats. Needless to say, the guys pushed through to the end and took the trophy. There was much cheering, and (of course) much ice cream after the game! A wonderful end to a wonderful season!

The good-looking group stops for a photo opp. with their shiny new trophy.

Tuesday Tradition

Our dad plays on our church softball team and has for many years. Their games are on Tuesday nights, and we used to go to the Dairy Queen after every game for a treat (players and fans!). However, our parents decided a couple years ago that was too much to spend every week. But we still had to have our ice cream. So they decided that we would just invite the team and fans over to our house after the games, and we would have our own Dairy Queen. We ask people to chip in a dollar per bowl to cover the cost of ice cream and toppings. This is a picture of our spread last night, minus a couple things we hadn't put out yet. I'll see if I can remember everything. Starting in the left corner, we had: Thin Mints, Whoppers, M & M's, Butterfinger, mom's homemade granola, pecans, coconut, peanuts, Oreos, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, brownies, bananas, butterscotch chips, almonds, strawberry-raspberry-rhubarb sauce, raspberries, pineapple, strawberries, chocolate malt powder, chocolate syrup, strawberry syrup, caramel sauce, butterscotch syrup, and I think I'm forgetting a couple things, but that about covers it! At first, I wasn't thrilled with skipping Dairy Queen, but now I think our selection is much better, and the thing I like most is the fellowship. When we would go to Dairy Queen, not as many players and fans would come, and people would pretty much just eat their ice cream and leave, and it wasn't very easy to visit with a lot of people there. At our house, most of the team and fans come, and people will often stay for 1 or 2 hours, and it is such a delight to visit with everyone. (***Note: our team is currently undefeated on the season. The championship game was supposed to be last night, but it got rained out, so Monday is the big night. Way to go guys!***)

No Fishing

The front yard at Kal's had almost dried up. Almost. Then, just in the past ten minutes, we had such a downpour that our "lake" has returned.