Under His Wings

When I saw a link on Facebook this afternoon from my hometown (Binghamton NY) newspaper that there would be a live video of the Spiedie* Fest balloon launch , I was very excited.  I used to attend the festival with my family and some years by myself for many years before I moved to Elmira nearly 16 years ago.   I was able to watch most of the launch live.  I was awestruck at the beauty of the balloons being blown up then take flight. I called my mom, who lives about 5 miles from where the balloons took off, and told her about the video.  She found it and we watched together.  What a neat experience as we could not be physically together.  After a while, my mom decided to go outside to see if the balloons would come her way as they used to on a regular basis when the festival first started nearly 30 years ago.  Sure enough at least 3 balloons came in sight.  I really really got homesick. It brought back a lot of special memories, ...

Recently, my garden was overcome by weeds. I have to say that they were pretty weeds with beautiful white flowers. I hated to pull them out. However, they were covering up my rhubarb! There was also a wild blackberry vine growing right in the middle of my rhubarb with prickly thorns.  I carefully pulled them out too. What a difference a weeding made! Now my garden is just about bare as I was able to share the rhubarb once I could find it.   The area looks so much better! Lately, I’ve been trying to weed out some unwanted areas of my life that have crept in. I’ve been trying to take control of my health by watching my diet closer and exercise more. I’ve tried to find creative ways to exercise like taking walks with my husband during his break while the little ones have been at Vacation Bible School. One day I walked with Anna and her class down to their class picnic at the park. I’ve also tried to get rid of the not so obvious pesk...

Anna jumping rope on Daytona Beach 4/7/12 I took Anna to her cardiologist today to check on the status of her Mitral Valve Stenosis.   She is doing absolutely wonderful.  The dr. told me that if he hadn't been watching her since she was an infant (she's been under this dr's care since she was a day old), he wouldn't pay as close attention to the murmur in her valve.  He reminded me how he thought she would need treatment a long time ago, but her valve continues to work well despite the mild stenosis.  Her EKG and blood pressure was fine.  She's been having annual echocardiogram (more when she was little).  The dr. said this year's was not necessary.  She'll have one in a year.  I am so excited!!!   Just another example of my miracle girl!!!   She's been playing 8 under softball this year vs. the t ball she originally planned to play. It didn't bother her a bit.  Her teacher said he didn't notice any pro...

 Nate's art exhibit picture 5/29/12  A fancy looking invitation came in the mail a few weeks ago.  It was to an open house highlighting artwork from my kids' schools at a neighborhood doctor office.   My son Nate's artwork that was chosen by his art teacher as part of this art display which will be up for a year. "What an honor!"  I kept on reminding Nate when he told me he didn't want to go to the presentation.  It was the fact he was just nervous about it.  Today he was very excited, especially after he found where his picture was hanging.  His art teacher described the picture as peaceful.  I agree.  I found the picture of a woman on the right hand side of the picture.  Nate didn't mean it to be that way.  Nate has always loved to draw and make up stories.  His kindergarten teacher gave him a blank book to write his "Zippy the Zebra" story.  He takes after his mo...

Mom, Dad and I 5/26/12 I had the opportunity to go home to visit my parents yesterday.   What a wonderful time we had!  We had a nice picnic with yummy hot dogs, cabbage salad, pickles and olives and cupcakes for dessert.  It was my Dad's birthday the day before.  After lunch, my mom, Tim, my 3 kids and I played a game of croquet.  What fun memories that brought back.  We used to play a game of croquet at many of our family picnics when I was growing up. It was so neat to see Nate's reaction to the game.   "This is my new favorite sport,"  he kept on saying.   Guess what I'm going to purchase soon!!!!   I'm glad that my kids have shown the desire to continue the family tradition. Then we attempted a Chinese Checkers game.  Trying to play with 6 people was a big challenge.  All our pieces got stuck in the middle.  It was fun trying.  Chinese Checkers was a game I used to play with my G...

                                                   Mom and Dad 40th anniversary 8/06  I've been thinking about my parents a lot lately.  Friday is my dad's birthday.  I'm hoping to get over to see him and mom this weekend to help celebrate. I also was reminded of them when I read a friend's blog about his parents celebrating their 50th anniversary.  When I read Matt's description of his dad's love for his mom, I thought of my dad too.  His love for my mom is very evident and vice versa.   My mom wrote a blog of her own just last night, which made me so proud describing her love for my dad still strong after 46 years.         http://disciplesnook.blogspot.com/201...

I'm back!!!   This laptop crashed about 6 weeks ago.  Thankfully it was just the case of Windows needing to be recovered.  A recovery disk did the trick. Our other computer, an older desktop that was given to us over a year ago, crashed a few weeks later.  We ended up replacing that one last week. Being 2 weeks without a home computer was quite interesting.  I realized how much time I was spending on the computer and how much I relied on it.   Now that I have it back, I struggle with the temptation of being on it more than I should.  I'll keep working on that! I missed chatting with my friends and finding out what's going on.  I missed writing this blog.  I wanted to download pictures of our recent FL vacation. I'll take this opportunity to tell you how much fun it was!!!  My husband drove, which I am thankful for.  We ran into some heavy traffic in some strange places.  We stayed in a hotel half way to FL We star...