Weekend Fun

We had a great weekend celebrating Allison's birthday!

The cupcakes from Sprinkles were yummy! Good idea, Amy!
Happy Birthday Allison!

Get Out and Vote!!

The election is just 5 days away!
Please remember to vote!

Please click on the link, or copy and paste the following into your browser to help in your candidate selection. (Be patient, it takes a minute to load.)

http://www.aarpvote08.org/?d=U2FuZHkgU3RvbGw=

Sandy

Latest Adventure

We took a fun vacation to Wyoming and South Dakota in September. Here are a few pictures from our trip:



















Tell me about your favorite vacation...

Saguaro National Park East

Here are a few photos from our quick jaunt around SNP-East on Labor Day. The desert is lush after our summer rains, and the prickly pear are producing a rainbow of fruit.

Who am I?

A friend sent me a link to this video which I subsequently also found on YouTube. Of course the song is awesome, but I also thought this representation added a perspective worth viewing... and pretty cool to see how they did it.
Hope you enjoy!
- Sandy

A View from All Sides

Views from our recent trip to SW Colorado

Top - Engineer Pass



Bottom - Durango/Silverton Narrow Gauage Railroad



Inside - Mesa Verde National Park



Outside - Painted Desert



Rightside - Yikes!



Downside - !




Upside - Having a great time!

Where 'ya been?

I've been to the land of alligators and mosquitoes for a two week conference our company put on in Miami, Florida. Not the most pleasant of places to visit in mid-June, but interesting anyway.

The Miami area was a place I visited often as a child as my grandparents retired to and lived in Hollywood (just south of Ft. Lauderdale). The last time I'd visited that part of Florida was in 1988... so yes, it had changed some.

It was pleasant to have a day off in the middle of a 17 day trip to see some sites I hadn't seen in 20 years.

It was fun to visit their former home -


- and to visit the cemetery where they are now interred.

It was fun to visit the beach I used to go to as a kid -


- and to drive for miles south on A1A.

It was also fun (although extremely HOT!) to stand on the tip of the land mass of Florida from Everglades National Park and look out into Florida Bay -


- and also not fun to be on the lunch menu for multitudes of mosquitoes.

But, after logging more than 200 working hours and missing my family and friends, it was still exciting to see what lurks in all that water... in fact, a 300 pound relative of the specimen below was apprehended about a mile from our hotel the day before we flew back to Tucson.



Every day I drove past an elementary school on my way to Florida International University. It's nice to see they've selected an appropriate mascot...



I'm thankful I was able to be there!

Telling the Story of Joseph

Hi,
Mike Cope shared this at the Pepperdine Lectures and I subsequently found it on YouTube. Be sure to listen all the way to the end...



If the link doesn't work, here's the Web address to copy and paste: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mIKBNaoh78.

Have a blessed day!
Sandy

Beautiful!

For my birthday last year, I was given the book "1,000 Places to See Before You Die". Yes, the birthday ended in '0'.

Well, last week I added a check mark next to two places I'd never been before - Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park and Yosemite National Park. There aren't many words to describe Yosemite besides "Wow."



If you're in the area, be sure to visit either of these beautiful National Parks. God surely had His hand in their creation.

What's in the next blog?

For those of us who regularly read blogs -

We all have our favorite blogs bookmarked so that we can visit, read, and comment if desired. We each have our own little blog world that we travel in, occasionally making a stop at a new destination found by a comment on a favorite blog.

Have you ever gone travelling in blog world not knowing where you'll stop and visit?

Try this: Just above the blog title is a little link called "Next Blog" (at least on blogger, I'm not sure about Word Press...). Click "Next Blog" and see where you go...

I tried it multiple times from my blog and from a few others and it is a random "next". I never got the same blog twice that was supposedly "next".

I visited lots of photographs, art drawings, other countries and multiple languages. It was a pleasant diversion in my afternoon.

Let me know who you find!

Clean that screen!

Need a screen cleaner for your monitor?

Check this out - http://www.raincitystory.com/flash/screenclean.swf - so cute!

Thanks Allison!

Even if...

Our women's class last night centered on the topic of loving God, being faithful to God, following God "Even If...". We will all face trials in our life on Earth - if everything were perfect here, why would we have or need the hope of heaven?

Here are a few verses from our class:

When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future. Ecclesiastes 7:14 NIV

So then, those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good. 1 Peter 4:19 NIV

I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the Horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. Psalm 18:1-3; 17-18 NIV

"Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed" says the Lord, who has compassion on you. Isaiah 54:10 NIV

There are many trials we may go through, most of which we will not be able to understand. We may ask, "What is happening here, Lord?" A quote we talked about is from Dr. James Dobson: "My strongest advice is that each of us acknowledge before the crisis occurs, if possible, that our trust in Him must be independent of our understanding. There’s nothing wrong with trying to understand, but we must not lean on our ability to comprehend! Sooner or later our intellect will pose questions we cannot possibly answer. At that point, we would be wise to remember His words, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). " James Dobson, When God Doesn’t Make Sense, pp. 236-237. ©1993, Tyndale House Publishers.

If we make the decision to be faithful, to trust in Him before the crisis happens, then we are much more likely to follow Him through the valley and the pain.

I hope you will take a few minutes to watch this short video - http://www.blessyoumovie.com/ . May God bless you today!
Sandy

Are you thirsty?

I want to tell you about a wonderful class we've been attending on Sunday morning - H2O - produced by City on a Hill Productions, Louisville, KY. You can find out more about City on a Hill here , and if you'd like to download a sample of the H2O class, you can find it here .

Whether you are a new Christian or one that has been around the block a few times, these episodes will inspire you in your own walk and help you to talk to other people about Jesus. Check it out!