Alive

No have not fallen off the face of the earth. Just life and not motivated to update this. Not sure how many people are reading now (or ever were) and with Facebook, I just don't blog. I got so behind on happenings that I guess I gave up. Maybe I will find the motivation after the holidays. Have started an exercise routine, new job and trying to finish projects I started (Mom's scrapbook that was supposed to be a Christmas present a couple years ago!).

Bird Nest

You can just barely see the light blue egg inside the nest. There are actually at least two eggs in it. I have been trying to resurrect this flower basket the past few days (I am terrible at remembering to water). Yesterday morning when I went out to water, this bird flew away but I thought it had just been perched on the edge of the basket. Then last night when I went to water it the bird flapped away like it had been nestled inside sleeping. So I asked Henry if a bird would make a nest in there and when he said definitely, I had him take it down and take a peek. He saw the nest immediately and thought there was one egg but I saw a second one (this was at 10:15pm). He didn't want to get the mama bird too worked up about us investigating so he hung it back up before I had time to run and get my camera. I did grab my phone and this was the best picture I could get. This morning I peeked out to see if I could tell if mama had come back and she had! Now I guess the flowers are going to die after all but hopefully to give life to two birds.

(PS--more posts/updates coming soon. I am off Friday and blogging is on the list of things to do.)

New Yorkers visit NC (again)

Back in November Henry's parents and Grandma came for a visit. They got here on a Friday night and left Wednesday. It was a great time. We went to the Holly Day Fair here in town on Saturday and just kind of relaxed. Went to church Sunday morning and it was such a lovely day.

Mom and Grandma reading on the balcony after church. Such a lovely day that we decided that going to the beach would be a great idea. So we booked a suite (great deal since it was offseason!) and left Monday early afternoon. We went to Ocean Isle, my favorite beach.

When we got checked in and headed out on the beach, the sunset was on one side....
and the moon on the other.
Of course too cold to go in the water although everyone but Grandma and Mom did wade in. We went out the next morning before we checked out too. Dad and Grandma were so funny looking for shells. They both left with a couple large handfuls worth!

Then we drove along the coast to Oak Island to go check out the lighthouse.



Found a plantation/gardens on the map, so continued north along the coast and went to Orton Plantation. It was very interesting but a lot of walking. Below is the main house were people actually live.

We then stopped to eat lunch and were trying to figure if there was something else we could see before heading home. We weren't far from Wilmington so thought we would head over to the USS North Carolina battleship. Turned out we were even closer than we realized and it took about 5 mins to get there. We didn't have quite enough time to see it thoroughly before they closed but it was still really fun.
Always a big grin with a gun in the hands! Or maybe the grin gets bigger the bigger the gun is??? Just wish he'd smile like that when its a picture of us together!


So a great trip! Oh, and we did take them to the Japanese steakhouse. I didn't take hardly any pictures...we had an okay chef. And poor Grandma....growing up in the Depression Era, she always finishes everything on her plate. I had told her beforehand there was no way she would ever be able to finish all the food. But she still tried! She ate more than I did, and I could tell she was past full but kept eating. She couldn't believe that she still took home enough food for 2-3 more meals. One other thing we did was Mom and I went to a formal wear shop so I could hopefully try on the bridesmaid dress for Jennie's wedding. Which I did and ordered it after we got back from the beach. I think that covers pretty much everything (only 2 months late).

The snow!!!!!!!!! The beautiful wonderful close everything down SNOW
This was at about 8am and it hasn't stopped yet.

Melting Pot

Just about gone. And now time for some silly faces.


I need to come up with a name for this face he just loves to do. Here I think we're taking this nice picture and he's making this dopey face!





So then I did it.....and wish I hadn't it because he's actually smiling.

Finally a nice one although the lighting is weird.
This restaurant is unbelievably yummy. I don't know if we would have ever gone if it weren't for a good friend giving us a gift card. We both want to go back but the price will probably keep us away for a little while. In the meantime, I am hoping to get/buy their cookbook soon!! But I'm sure it won't be as good.

God in control

The start of a new year is not very positive for me this year. It means Henry’s one year of being home is coming to an end, and he will be leaving again in a few months. It’s especially on my mind now that they are training like crazy (last week was 5am-9pm every night except Fri when he got home at almost midnight). This week they are in the field, so no contact and climbing into an empty bed alone every night. And of course every night, my thought is “I have 12 months of this to look forward to”. Ugh! The other problem is this thought that has been running through my mind like a broken record, “How many times can we push our luck?” Because this will be the 4th time he’s deployed and so far the worst thing has been this last one when he fell and broke his arm. Well it just hit me, GOD IS STILL IN CONTROL. Our professor at IWU, Dr Martin used to say that if we are true biblical Christians, words such as luck, fortune, chance, etc, cannot be part of our vocabulary. So as I sat here once again thinking “We are pushing our luck”, I realized what I was saying. That God is not in control but luck or chance is. WRONG That is not what has kept Henry safe previously and is not what will in the future! Whew. Can breathe a little easier now. Thankfully God has no limits. No limit on what He can do, to the number of times He will save us, protect us, forgive us..............

And for anybody that says this gets easier….they’re probably lying.

Steal

My most recent steal (deal):

And I LOVE IT! You probably can't tell but it's a Nine West bag. I call it an overnight bag because it's so big and you normally would have to pay $120 for it and may be able to get it for sale around $50-60. I got it for $22!!!!!