A Time For Every Season....

What a wonderful vacation we had! I think Colorado is as beautiful as Oregon. I greatly enjoyed waking up most morning and sitting out on the deck, spending time with the Lord over some Joel Clarkson classical music and the magnificent snow peaked Rocky Mountains towering over me. The boys were so spent most nights that they slept well past 9 AM, which gave me some quiet mornings to set my pace for the day. Certainly  getting together with family is stressful and it was so difficult to get 13+ people to decide on a  common plan for the day, but overall we had such a great time. The evenings were spent with cards and cribbage and canasta! The days were relaxing with a few adventures thrown in. Our vacation began on Thursday afternoon, we drove to Amarillo and spent the night, then on to Colorado Springs for  two days. We visited the Focus on the Family visitors center and we all played at Wits End! Then on to Breckenridge for a full week in a 4 story cabin - thanks to Gr...

For this weeks Sabbath rest, I picked one of my favorite story tellers - James Herriot. My Aunt Beth sent me a book of James Harriot's favorite stories when I was very little. She knew I just loved animals and wanted to be a veterinarian when I got older. So for our Sabbath we read the first chapter from this book, which was the best stories from James Herriot. I loved looking at the Yorkshire countryside pictures when I was young and always dreamed of going to Derby and seeing the home of James Herriot. Reading this book to my children brought back many memories of sitting in my little apartment room, where the window was eye level with the shrubs and bushes. I'd look out that beautiful Oregon window on the hill of Sexton Mountain while being engrossed with Harriot's many adventures. The book encouraged my love for all creatures great and small - hence Melissa's Multitudes was birthed and a few dozen animals were saved loved - birds, rabbits, cats, dogs, horses, ...

After church on Sunday we had our first Family Sabbath - inspired by the Sally Clarkson conference I went to last month. It was a wonderful time together - instead of cleaning up the messy house, I overlooked the chaos and " civilized the home " with tea and scones and what Charlotte Mason would call a "living book." We read Teddy's Button and ate scones and drank our tea. It was wonderful! Gabe & Abby lasted about 30 minutes and then headed off to nap-land, but Drew was all ears! The book took a little over and hour to read, plus time to answer some deep Drew questions. Teddy's Button is a great book to read  to boys 5 and older. The book feeds on little  boys desires for adventure and addresses the fact that we are our own worst enemy. Teddy even names his fleshly self and the book shows how he wrestles with making good and bad choices and that just because we make good choices it doesn't mean situations will work out the way we would like. T...