I thought it was kind of neat that my 400th post on my blog is my trip to Michigan with my mom. Kristen and her family were so good to my mom and I. You can read my mom's post about the trip
here.
The thing I love most about Kristen (and there are many things to love about her!) is she will not go more than a few minutes without talking about the Lord. Oh, how I wish this was true of me! But I know it is because her life is saturated with the Word of God and when our minds our saturated with something that tends to be what we talk about the majority of the time. The same is true of my mom as well and when you get two women together who are saturated with the Word the conversations are most glorifying to God. After spending a week with these two women together I have been so encouraged in my walk with the Lord and when I got home all I wanted to do was sit down and read my Bible and pray, which is what I have been doing.
I loved spending time with her girls. Katherine is attending Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids and she came home for the weekend we were there. She sang a solo at church on Sunday morning which was beautiful. The twins, Alex and Nicole, were adopted from Romania. They are juniors in high school. Her daughter Marinala was also adopted from Romania and is attending the local college. I spent a lot of time with the twins and they are a lot of fun. We we
nt and saw them play in an indoor soccor game. They may be the shortest girls on the field but they sure are aggressive players! I am really hoping they come visit me in Washington sometime. I think we would have a lot of fun! :) On Saturday we spent some time in the
kitchen. Alex and I worked on some Amish Friendship Bread, Katherine made Texas Sheet Cake and Nicole made "ooblec" with cornstarch and water. They have two dogs. One is Maddie and the other puppy is Kona who is just too cute.
One morning we went swimming in their pool. There is nothing like swimming in a salt water pool with snow falling down outside and being all toasty warm in a humid, tropical building. Kristen showed us her water aerobics she does and then we went in the hot tub afterward. One night we went in their hot tub that is on their deck outside. The most intense part is walking out in the dark in 20 degree weather in your bathing suit and bare feet to get in! And you can't be too quick because you might slip and fall in the snow! And then of course you have to get out of the nice warm hot tub to walk back through the snow into the house.
This is a picture looking out the living room windows toward Lake Michigan during sunset. The lake was frozen and it was so beautiful. We took a very short walk down their boardwalk toward the lake. We didn't stay out very long at all since it was so cold and windy.
On Monday morning some ladies from the church came over for lunch. Even though I had never met these ladies the fact that our common bond is Christ I just instantly felt at home with them. My mom, Kristen and I made a Japanese lunch for them. (Note that Kristen is wearing the Starbucks apron I gave her!)
So, there are some tidbits
from our trip to Michigan. I hope Kristen and h
er husband Dave know how much this trip meant to me (and my mom). There is no better vacation to have than one you return home from encouraged and challenged in your walk with the Lord. All vacations should be like that! Dave and Kristen, thank you so much!
"...not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much more as you see the Day approaching."
Hebrews 10:25
decided to only grow three of them. I realized I was getting a little ambitious seeing as I have never grown tomatoes before. My dad is wanting to grow some tomatoes so I will probably give him the extra seeds. I decided to grow Roma, Ball's Beefsteak and Flamme. Flamme are a small orange tomato which are excellent for adding to salads. Roma are good for making sauces and canning. My mother-in-law Bonita was telling me I could also dehydrate them and then package them in olive oil for "sun" dried tomatoes. Beefsteak are great for sandwiches or just sliced up and sprinkled with a little bit of salt.
First I had to add warm water to the pellets to let them expand. After they expanded fully I then had to pour off the excess water. To plant the seeds I gently peeled back the netting on the top of the pellets. I planted two seeds per pellet and covered them with no more than 1/4 inch of peet.
