Camp Copass!

We love Camp Copass. Let me just say that again. We LOVE Camp Copass! It is located in Denton, Texas on Lake Lewisville, and everything about it is absolutely beautiful! This was Celestia's third (and last) year to attend, and Tatiana's first. For the last two years, Tatiana has spent the week of camp lamenting that she was not old enough to attend, and she has been looking forward to camp. All. Year. Long.

On Wednesday, I was scheduled to head out to camp and volunteer to help out in one of the "trek times" that the children attend. They are able to choose from activities such as archery, canoeing, soccer, sign language, jewelry making, and many more. These aren't able to happen without volunteers to teach, and to help. It's such a blast to go out and see kids having fun, and learning about God all at the same time. My favourite part of their day (and I really do believe after watching them that it's the kids fav, too) is the morning pep rally (read absolutely amazing worship). We are so blessed to have The Jonathan Project come from Virginia to party with our kiddos for a week. Craig Tackett (the bald guy featured here) has an absolutely infectious energy and passion for Christ! The kids go gaga for them, and as a matter of fact, Celestia's first words to me when I arrived were "Brittany's [Craig's wife] pregnant!" Drew Worsham (quick warning: somebody needs some more bandwith to support all his new fans!) is another repeat performer at camp. He is an absolutely amazing Christian illusionist, and the kids LOVE him!

Now, all that said, this year was just a little different for me volunteering. When I went out on Wednesday, I discovered that one of the ladies staying with our girls had a very unexpected death in her family. Her uncle had gone in on Monday morning to have some routine tests done, and never left the hospital. She was holding together seemingly well, and planning on staying at camp until Friday morning. As I am no longer employed, I offered to stay at camp for her, so she could go home. So, all that worked out, I ran home and stuffed clothes into a bag to come back to camp and play with our kiddos for another day and a half. Like a big dumb dummy-head, I forgot to grab my camera, so all of the pictures here are courtesy of camp and inlightened ministries (but are pictures of the actual week we were there, my kids were in the room when these were taken!), and my mother. All the cabins have Biblicaly themed names, and we stayed in Happiness. It's a really nice cabin, with bunks and bathrooms on either side of a main meeting room. This gives our group a place to meet and hang out with just us at certain times of the day.

I could seriously ramble on all day about what a wonderful camp this is, and what an amazing time the kids had. I could praise for hours the time and devotion that so many people put in from the kitchen workers (really, the food is pretty stinkin' good for camp food) to the DBU rec crew, but I wouldn't want to bore you. I just have one thing left to say... WE LOVE CAMP COPASS!!!!!!

The Prodigal Pup returns!

At approximately 12:30 AM on Friday, July24th, Arynson went nuts. He barked, whined, and scratched at the front door until Jonathan had to send him out into the backyard. He continued to go bonkers until Jonathan opened the front door, despite the fact that he could not see anything through the peephole. He didn't have the door open good before our beloved Floppy was pushing his way into the house! Yes folks, exactly 2 weeks after our doggies escaped from the back yard, Floppy found his way home! He was about 10 pounds underweight, tick infested (um, as a matter of fact, I just found ANOTHER tick while trying to take these pictures. Ewwwwwww!), looking like he had mange, and scared half to death, but HOME! Let me tell you, folks Floppy knew he was home! As you can see by the door frame, if we did not let him in the house, he was going to claw his way in!!! While I shudder to think of the implications of Floppy finding his way home without Calypso (who was most certainly the Alpha around here) I am happy to have him home and relatively healthy. He did NOT have fleas, thank God and is now the proud new owner of a microchip! :) Welcome home, Flopster!!!

A little backwards!

So I know that I've posted SINCE July the 4th, but I never actually posted ABOUT what we did on the 4th! Could be all that mess with Murphy, but that's NO excuse! We had a great 4th of July at FreedomFest in Frisco. The girls were able to play on an inflatable obstacle course, jump in a bungee thingamob (that's a technical name, there!) and meet Elsie the cow. The evening was completed with a fireworks show that was just a little unusual. After what was obviously the grand finale, we hopped in the truck to leave when we suddenly heard another firework. And another. And another... Aparently, they had missed an entire row of fireworks, so we hopped back in the bedof the truck and got a little bonus show. The girls thought that was the best part, and talked about it all the way home. Hope everyone else out there in blog land had a nice holiday weekend!

Murphy lives here.

Have you ever had one of THOSE days?... Or weeks?... Or months? The last few weeks have just been one of THOSE times for our family. You know the kind. You just want to shake your fist at God and shout "Hey You up there! Didn't You promise that You wouldn't give me more than I could handle? I've about had it, here!"
It all started with the truck. I like to make sure we take good care of our truck. After all, it's the only means of transportation we have, and I am thankful for it every day. (Thanks, Dave and Donna!) We had just taken it in to do some regular maintenance on it, and no sooner did we get it back than the air compressor went out and busted one of the brand new belts we had just had put on! Not sure if you've priced air compressors lately, but it's not typically the kind of money I just have hanging around in my back pocket. The next week, the air conditioner in the house stopped working. Now I know what some of you may be thinking... You can live without an air conditioner. Um no, I beg to differ with you. One cannot live without an air conditioner in Texas. Really, people around here literally die from heat exhaustion when their air conditioners go out. While working on an art project Wednesday afternoon and "watching" a movie, I hear a loud "POP" from the television, and realised that the projector lamp in my DLP had burned out. Greaaaaat. Thursday evening, I came home to discover that in a span of about 45 minutes, someone had opened my front gate and two of our dogs were gone. I have spent 5 days now searching for them in every way I know how, and NO ONE has seen them. Today, my internet suddenly stopped working, and I called only to discover that I forgot to pay the bill last month. OOPS! Can't I get a freebie flake moment every now and then? No? OK, I'll pay the re-activation fee, and let's take care of this month's while we're at it. Maybe I won't forget that way.
Sometime in the midst of all this madness that directly affects my life, I learned that one of my friends from high school had passed away unexpectedly. From heart failure. At 32. Not the way you expect to lose a friend when you're in your 30's. He left behind a baby girl, a step-son, and a fiancee who is now a single mother of two.
Reflecting on Drew reminds me that God has not given me more than I can handle. We're really OK. Fixing everything that has broken wasn't cheap, but we had the money squirrelled away in savings. I miss our dogs terribly, and telling the children was awful, but whatever happens, life will go on. Certainly if we never find them, it won't be for lack of looking. We've done all that we can. I only hope that whoever has them (and I really think someone must, or the spoiled ones would have come home by now, looking for that air conditioning we just had fixed) will either contact us, or is caring for them, and loving them.
So, where does that leave us? Well, I can honestly say that I am done with Murphy's Law. Murphy needs to go stay with someone else for a while. But things could be so much worse. I could be in El's shoes - pregnant and separated from my husband. Or I could be in Quiana's shoes - having just lost my love and still needing to take care of my babies. Things have been worse. Jonathan and I have joked many times that we're getting the "worse" and "poorer" out of the way now, so we can enjoy "better" and "richer" later in life. Today, my blog friend Lauren reminded me that this life isn't supposed to be easy. On one hand, God promised that He wouldn't give me more than I could bear, but on the other hand, He tells me to put on armour. This life is supposed to be a battle. Day after day. I take comfort in the fact that He is watching over me. If you don't check out any of the other links in this post, promise me you'll check out that last one. I promise you'll be blessed by it.