4th of July

Happy 4th! and Happy 1st-tail-gating party for me!!

Bean bagging with Calvin

Waiting for the food
and the football game!

Yeah! we won!!

Leslie and Brandt!

Congrats to the newly engaged couple!
We are super duper excited for ya both...

....and Leslie, we welcome you to join Christmas with us!
Brandt's been with us for all three Christmas' and so we are really excited you can finally be apart of it! ;)

Sienna and Michael

Pictures says it all...

Congratulations Michael and Sienna!!

"...Grasp on Goods..."

Memorial day weekend is in full swing.
It started off with our community yard sale, where Vincent and I went through our spring cleansing. It's such a great feeling to get rid of stuff/junk. I've been getting antsy over the past year, feeling like I had too much. I've been wanting to down size. However, after getting rid of boxes and boxes of materiel objects, I still possess more then enough. Vincent and I are both memorabilia junkies, which doesn't help much. I've also observed that because we were both raised below middle class for parts of our lives, we have a tendency to save, save, save (not money. but junk.). We collect things thinking we'll need it down the road - like they will be our life savers. It's crazy how material objects can control us.

Anyways, back to the cleansing. Yard sale was Saturday. Vincent and I got rid of a lot and it feels good. We are continually learning to let go of earthly things. Coincidentally the sermon yesterday was from Matt 19 - the passage about the young rich man asking how he can get eternal life. Answer: "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." And thankfully, Jesus continues to say..."With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." God is good.

God is good. My mother is in town. Woodlawn Block Party is today. I'll hopefully share more on these things later.

And thanks to these little girls, we had customers rolling up to buy our stuff!

spring dresses. beautiful friends.

Michael with the help of Milton...

...and the orchestra (music composed by Covenant Senior Brian)....

....brings in the Spring.

(The video is of Michael's conducting for the first time in front of an audience. Yes, I know Drew Belz took a better video with a better angle....but at least I got something :). I couldn't get the lighting right for my camera so I took a video instead. I just wanted a small clip at first, but thought the music was so amazing and Michael was doing so great I felt, out of respect, I should shoot the whole thing. The music was composed by Brian, a graduating Covenant student. )

My Childhood

My brother forwarded the following pictures awhile ago and I just got around to storing them on my computer. Looking at these photos, I remember the fact that I was never fond of my parents taking pictures of me. Now, I appreciate these photos so much. The life in the tribes were hard for me and I couldn't wait for the day I was back living in civilization. I'm realizing now that I was so busy looking forward into my life, that I didn't think twice about leaving my childhood behind. However, thanks to my parents who were committed to capturing our lives every step of the way, I can look back and see that I had a great childhood, though I may not have known it then. (And recognize the importance of living in the now and not being in such hurry to move on.)

To get here....

...so my parents can work....

...we took this plane...

...and this boat, and a fishing boat and a pearl ship.

In the tribe, we played house like any other children around the world.

Instead of a car, my family owned a dug out canoe.

Take your child to work day

Our home. My Mother.