Found!

Remember the woman from the parable who lost a coin and carefully searched her whole house, lighting a candle to see the dim corners until she found that coin? Well, I'm not her. I lost my engagement ring last February and did a so-so job of hunting for it around the apartment. I really thought I'd find it eventually, that it would show up somewhere. When it came time to move in July, I just knew somebody would come across it. I found my watch that I'd misplaced right around the same time as the ring, so chances were it would show up, right? Wrong. We moved out of that apartment and into our lovely home and I never once caught a glimpse of my beloved ring. I looked in all my cosmetic bags and purses. No luck. Well, 14 months after I lost the ring, Talani found it today. He was cleaning in our bedroom, going through a box that had been in the bottom of our closet since we moved into this house. There was a pair of chunky candle holders in the box, and he noticed that one had a broken base. Instead of just leaving the broken glass in the box to be thrown out, he lifted the base (for whatever reason) and there, beneath the glass, was my ring. Oh, how I've missed having it! How pleased I am that it's found! Thank You, Lord, that you restored to me that which throught carelessness I lost and through laziness never found. Thank You, Father, that You knew where my ring was all along and that you kept it safe for me. Thank You for teaching me that I didn't need it; thank You for loving me enough to allow me to have it anyway.

The Weekend Scoop

Praise the LORD the weekend had come.......and unfortunately, gone. But still we had fun. The week was long for me and we were all looking forward to the break. This weekend was not going to be as restful as we hoped, but still wanted to get some family time together.

Barbie and the children had Thursday and Friday off for Easter; so as soon as I got off from work on Friday we sped away to the beach for our weekly Kiting experience. Our bi-plane (Fancy) did really well, but Big Jet sustained some damage during unloading and did not fly very well. However, it was fun. Dianna and Jarod just had a blast playing in the sand and "filling" the water with sand. They just had a ball. But all was not peachy keen. Our beach time was cut short by an ugly attitude by Dianna. She fixed it later; all part of growing up with a sin nature.

Barbie and I dropped Dianna and Jarod off at some friend's house for the day, and off to our chaperoning duty for the day. We were scheduled to go on a dolphin "cruise" (it was on a speed boat equipped with two Lamborghini engines in it) out of Destin. Destin is an hour and a half from Pensacola, so we spent that amount of time on a school bus both ways. Our convoy was made up of 100 couples, five sets of chaperones, five school buses, and one emergency vehicle; it was quite a sight. We had fun on the trip; nobody was any real trouble. The gulf was not too choppy, except right at the mouth of harbour. Barbie saw one dolphin, but I did not see it. The divided the group into two groups and the first group on the boat saw seven or eight dolphins. But it was a beautifulday to be on the water. After the dating outing, we picked the children up at about 4:30 and went home to straighten up the house and be together for a little bit. We got a baby sitter so the two of us could go out and be together. Our sitter was fabulous! The children just absolutely loved her. Dianna was so excited about her coming over that she kept referring to her as her new special friend. Too bad she is graduating in less than a month. Barbie and I went to Pensacola's newest restaurant: Red Robin. The experience was amazing. Best part was definitely my date. I was so lucky. The food was good too. Basic run down: decently priced food, but very pricy drinks (e.g., soft drink with free refills - $2.99). We had a great day overall. We love you all and will write again soon.

Jarod and Dianna playing in their house I made out of the box that our lay down freezer came in.

Here we are on the open sea on our search for the elusive dolphin. Dianna "posing" on the beach. She was really trying to keep her hair out of her face so she could smile at her Mama.

The kiddies in one of their outfits that Mom Bailey sent up. Grandma Ella, thank you for the beautiful material. They are so cute!!!

Jarod striking a pose by Mama's hydrangea plant.

Some More Smatterings of Our Week

Okay, I am not entirely sure what I did to have the layout do this, however, here it goes. Well, today is Sunday and the children and I are at home. Thursday, I got a call from the Nursery saying that there had been 2 confirmed cases of "Hand,Foot,and Mouth" (blisters akin to chicken pox spots appear on the palms of the hands, soles of the feet and lips and in the mouth). This is caused by children putting things in their mouths and putting it back down and the next child picks it up, and before the second child can wash their hands, they touch their face or mouth and thats that. Dianna had some blisters on her hands and in her mouth; therefore, she had to go home and could not return to school until she was cleared by a doctor. Barbie took Dianna to the doctor on Friday and was told that Dianna's case was already in its downhill phase and that she would be good to return to school on Monday. Praise the Lord for his mercy and his goodness. So, until Monday, we are trying to keep the children away from other children.

We bought a second kite on Friday. That was "Big Jet" in the first picture. He is much bigger and heavier than "Bird of Fancy", but he still flew great. Who knew that flying a kite was so much fun and so simple. Barbie mentioned that we got the grass cut and the driveway edged. Praise the Lord for good weather and the strength to finish the job. Although, the yard work was not without its casualties. Apparently, a bunny and her bunny family took up residence in our back yard, and in an attempt to divert the evil, loud grass devouring man-made contraption, the mother bunny jumped out to lead the metal beast away from her litter. However, she ended up giving her life for bunny brood. It was very traumatizing for me; I was very sad. So, I took a break and edged the driveway. Did I mention that I was very unaware of the fact that our yard had become a rabbit habitat? Anywho.

After the beach we went to check out a park in nearby Gulf Breeze. A nice place to lunch at but not good for kiting. After that, went to Jarod's most favorite store in the world- Publix (or as he says it "Glucklix"). Publix is a more upscale grocery store. Really nice. Their slogan is: "Publix. Where shopping is a pleasure." While in the Publix shopping center, we visited a chocolate store that had a Hawaiian name (see box below). The chocolates were expensive and nothing really to write home about, and yet, here we are. They did have some interesting coffee offerings, like Macadamia Nut Roast. Yummo! I'll try it sometime and let you all know how it is. Until then, I will have to suffer through the bag of Dunkin Doughnuts Cinnamon Sugar coffee bought for me. I'll take one for the team. We love you all. Have a great week. We will post again later this week and look forward to new posts on each of your blogs. Alofa tele. Until next time.

"Chocolates. Must have chocolates. Mmmm....."

Ta-da! "I love you!"

Barbie and the children flying the kites. Beautiful.

Random Happenings

Another Family Day! God has blessed us by giving us each other and we love to spend time with our family. We enjoyed working around the house this morning. Talani cut the grass and edged the yard . . . it looks great! It doesn't seem possible that just a couple of weeks ago the grass was all winter-brown and the trees were bare. Now, we have a lovely green lawn and the trees are growing shady!
I stayed in the house, mostly, and worked in the kitchen. I made a big pot of red beans to use in meals later on in the week. (They take 2 hours to cook, so if I don't make beans on the weekend, we won't be eating any. And beans are too economical and too healthy to just not eat them.) I'll use some tomorrow after the evening church to make red beans and rice with sausage. The rice and sausages are also already cooked, so we'll have a quick supper before the kids have to go to bed. I made chocolate chip pancakes and bacon for lunch. Then, naptime!
After naps, we got ready for the beach. The weather is beautiful today. Warmer than last week and not quite so painfully windy. Apparently, other people noticed the nice weather, too, because the beach was more crowded today than last Saturday. We had a wonderful time flying our kites. . . I think that Talani will blog more about the kite-flying and will include more pictures. I couldn't help but include this picture of Jarod, though. He had picked up a rock to give to his sister, carried it about 3 steps, and decided to throw it in the air. He looks so happy!

I've been reading from the website www.thefamilyhomestead.com lately and have been intrigued by the homestead homemaker's philosophies of healthy eating and economics. She's inspired me to try baking bread. I used to have a bread-making machine, but got rid of it several years ago. I didn't like that the blade used for mixing was embedded in the cooked loaf so you had to rip your bread apart to get the blade out. I had never tried to make bread from scratch before, but last Sunday evening I decided to give it a go. It was tasty . . . and bread is actually surprisingly easy to make. It went so well, that I decided to make a whole batch - 3 loaves - yesterday, since I was home with the kids from school and they were napping. The following picture is the result of that attempt. I only had 2 loaf pans so I made the 3rd loaf into rolls. After they came out of the oven, I rubbed all the crusts with butter (because I remember my mom doing that; I don't know what it does.) and then rubbed the rolls with a clove of garlic and sprinkled a little kosher salt on them. We ate the rolls with our supper last night and they were so yummy. They had just a slight flavor of garlic, and the salt was perfect. We sliced on of the loaves of bread to eat with our fried rice for tonight's supper, and it was so tasty. Really, has making bread always been so easy? It's time consuming with the two rising times, but easy and with relatively little clean up. I should have started baking bread years ago.
Our fried rice was so yummy tonight. Mom, thanks so much for making summer sausage fried rice in North Carolina last Christmas. I never would have thought of that on my own, and now we rarely eat fried rice without summer sausage. I used to use lots of soy sauce and 2 ramen seasonings for flavor, but now only use a little soy and no ramen seasonings. We love the flavor the summer sausage gives and I like that we are not using so much sodium. To the summer sausage, I added 3 slices of left over bacon and 3 eggs. It was just right. (And I had enough rice left over from the pot that I made to use in tomorrow night's red beans, sausage, and rice supper.)
I hope the boys in the family don't mind reading all this kitchen talk. Sorry, guys.


Jarod was much overdue for a haircut, so we finally stopped procrastinating this week. He doesn't like to sit still for a haircut. He keeps trying to turn around to see what's making the buzzing sound against his head. I think he looks adorable all closely cut now. He looks so grown up!

The kids are in bed and dessert (and dinner clean up) are waiting for me! Talani will be adding more pictures and writing an entry shortly. Love you all!