Thank Heaven for Little Girls and Donna C. and Katie D.!

Thank Heaven for Little Girls....and Talented Friends without Grandchildren!  Donna Cheek and Katie Deese are a God-send!!  Little Addie wanted to have a tea party for her birthday and Donna and Katie volunteered to do everything!  They did such a fabulous job!  Right down to the personalized tea cup/cup cake with cookie saucer with each child's name on the saucer!  It was the cutest thing I have ever seen!  These picture do not do justice to the beauty of it all!  Donna even had the girls spellbound with a story about a little girl having tea with the Queen....and of course, the queen was her grandmother!!!  I knew it!!  The girls all had such a great time and I believe that Katie and Donna did too (even though they worked tirelessly on the project!)  THANK YOU KATIE AND DONNA not only for a great party, but for loving little Addie and little Hope like you do!  (You too, Mr. Cheek!) A little hint:  I think they would consider doing this again....for you and even at their house in their ballroom!  Just ask!  Of course, there may be a small fee...but well worth it!

Happy Birthday, Addie!

Five years old today

She loves her papa...such a brown-noser!

Two....of the Many Presidents!

It was our pleasure to attend a conference this week with a group of missions pastors from some of our SBC churches from all over the country in Ft. Myers, Florida.  We had a great time with them and it was also nice to be with Dr. Jerry Rankin, President of the International Mission Board.  Another President, Dr. John Cross, President of the Florida Baptist State Convention, came and visited with us as well.  It is always good to see John....excuse me, Dr. Cross!  who is STILL single!

Back to Work!

Now that all the celebrating is over, it is time to get back to work.  We saw our first snow this winter as we made our first trip to Louisville, Kentucky to make plans for the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in June.  However, we didn't see the snow in Louisville, it was in Cincinnati, Ohio the same day, after we had our meeting at the convention center.  We flew from there for a VIP visit to the Creation Museum for lunch and a tour of that fabulous facility.  It is well worth taking time to go through if you are ever in the area.

And Then It Was Christmas!

And then it was Christmas.....Wes Cantrell dressed like a little girl and sang "Happy Birthday, Jesus", had Christmas parties, took a 'girl trip' to New York, had more Christmas parties, Hope broke her ankle, Hope didn't break her ankle after all, celebrated Christmas with the family as my brother, sister-in-law and their 4 of their 5 children and son-in-law (I won't tell you who the son-in-law is!) spent Christmas with us and we had a GREAT time! Gave birth to another Granddog....a large Granddog! But cute Granddog! And then went to Gatlinburg, again!  And recuperated!

Senior Staff Christmas Retreat!

We have too much fun!  That is how you describe our Staff Parties!  Our Christmas party was held 'retreat style' as we went to the Ranch for an overnight Christmas celebration thanks to our dear friends, Ann and Mike White, who so graciously hosted us.  We rode all- terrain vehicles, played ladderball, of course, ate, ate, ate, made fun of Jim, played Dirty Santa with gag gifts, experienced some of the most beautiful scenery in Georgia/Tennessee/Alabama, watched a dog pull a stump out of the lake all by himself and had a blast!

Thanksgiving 2008

Thanksgiving was the best yet!  Lazy days on the beach, Katie and Carson taking salsa lessons (the cutest thing I have ever seen!), literally spending hours watching turtles hatch and being with my family  for the entire week made a fabulous Thanksgiving!

Okay! Okay! I'll Try!!

Okay! Okay! I'll Try!  But I can't promise you anything!  Updating after this long is not easy, but I'll give it a shot!  The last post was on my birthday and a lot has happened since then, but too much to write about so I'll just give you a briefing of what has happened since I turned 55!!  The next milestone event for me was the celebration of our 38th wedding anniversary.  Johnny and I celebrated in Mexico the week before our annual family vacation at Thanksgiving.  We had a great time together with friends in Punta Mita, Mexico. I am sure you know this by now, but I have the greatest husband in the universe!

Happy Birthday to Me!

I had such a great birthday yesterday!  The best thing about it was that I was given the opportunity to do anything I wanted on this day, WITH MY SWEET HUSBAND!!!  It began with a visit to Jivan's Wellness Spa!  I have told you about it before.  The greatest place earth for a massage, facial, etc.  I had a 2 hour massage!  Have you ever heard of such?  Then it was off to a great lunch at Atlantic Seafood Restaurant.  After that, we went shopping!  Yes, shopping.....of course, I made Johnny stay in the car (I am sure he talked on his phone) while I went in a few stores and purchased some 'necessaries'!  It was like having my own personal chauffeur while I shopped!  We then picked Katie up from dance lessons and went to Deanna's for a yummy, yummy steak dinner by chef Jake on the grill and then roasted marshmallows, of which I was not very good at!  The family all presented me with great gifts (the best thing about a birthday) that I just loved!  Here was the most interesting gift of the night.....Jake knows that I am in the market for another car so the gift from him and Deanna....a new broom!!  No joke!  It was such a fun night with the family!  I have now reached another double digit milestone!  However, the bling helped to ease the pain!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  We have escaped the ghosts and goblins and have found 'sweet serenity' at PCB!  The weather is here.  Wish you were beautiful!  Happy Trick or Treating!

October Family Night!

Our October Family Night was great..again!!  Papa Johnny was so good to us and treated us to the perfect October treat of going to see "Wicked" at the Fox Theater.  It was fantastic!  Before the show, Mary Mac's Tea Room was the hot spot for the family dinner.  I don't have pictures of us because I thought the battery had died in my camera, but actually, the battery was in the camera the wrong way!  Oh well, Hollie had her 'new' camera so maybe she'll post some of us 'in the act'!  It was Deanna's month to choose the place for the party and she did good!  Next month we get to have a Family Week rather than a Family Night and it will be held in Mexico!!!!  I can't wait!!  We'll be celebrating our 38th anniversary and Deanna's 30+ birthday!

What will she say next?

This child never stops making us wonder where she came from!  You never know what she is going to say next!  Last week Hollie had her hearing checked.  The doctor said that she needed to have one of her ears checked further by the ENT doctor which is not totally abnormal for a child her age.  Addie was asked if she had a hard time hearing just some of the time or all the time and she replied, "I can't hear on Wednesdays and Fridays"!  She also said that she is not smart during the week but she is smart on the weekends!

MiMommy Time!

I finally got to be MiMommy again!  Hollie and Pete went to Gatlinburg for their Church Staff Retreat and I was able to keep Hope and Addie while they were away.  They were very good!  They are getting older which is good and bad!  They are easier to handle but growing too fast!  It was certainly different for me having to get up at 6 am while it is still dark!  I was outside seeing my precious Hope onto the school bus in my bathrobe every morning and I still can't believe it did that, but, it is so dark that time of morning that all I had to do was not turn on the porch light and the bus driver would never know it is not Hollie!  Then, the challenge of little Addie getting ready for school and deciding if I am going to let her wear what she chooses or not!  Of course, I let her wear what she wants, after all, I am leaving on Wednesday and I AM the MiMommy and can get away with things like that.  I don't believe it ever really hurt a child to wear clothes that don't exactly look good together anyway.  Hollie can deal with her when she gets back!  We have had a great time this week doing all the fun things like getting Halloween costumes and going to Chuck E. Cheese.  Yes.  I do find those things fun.  After all, I AM the MiMommy!

We are definitely spoiled!

What a way to travel.  This has definitely spoiled us!  It is just like the Lord to provide just what we need but only when we need it.  In all of our years of ministry, we have never had people offer such generous resources as we have had in the last few months!  The "Presidency" hasn't changed our schedule tremendously because you can't be away but so many days in a week anyway, but travel in planes such as this certainly makes dealing with the travel so much easier and less tiresome.  BUT, there IS a consequence of taking advantage of such gifts.....you get very, very spoiled!!!  I dread to think what life will be like later!  But in the meanwhile, we will just thank Jesus for His generous followers!  Last week Johnny spoke at Thomas Road, Liberty University, Noonday Association, Southern Seminary, Southeastern Seminary and a ministry banquet!  A bench was purchased at Southeastern Seminary in our honor last year. We now have a Chair, Bench and Furnished Room at SEBTS!  We love that place, especially our sweet friends, Danny and Charlotte Akin who it was great seeing last week.  

And you thought I had passed away!

No!  Just VERY busy!  We have been soooo busy that we just HAD to get in some 'alone time' for just me and the husband!  We were scheduled to go to a foreign land, but our visas were denied which left us with a week that there was nothing on the schedule and it was a GOOD thing because the schedule had just about done us in!  Therefore, we spent a few days in Grand Cayman at the Ritz!  It was just as fabulous as it sounds!  We did nothing but rest and rest and rest!  Never went into a store (or church!), except for the gift shop at the resort and didn't spend a dime!  It is bad when you purchase something at the airport gift shop so that you don't have to put $0 on the Customs Form entering back into the US because you didn't purchase anything, so I spent $15!  (The $0 always looks suspicious when Grand Cayman supposedly has such great stores for shopping, but who needed to shop?.....we needed rest!)  The "bed of roses" was a gift from a friend who is an Executive with the Ritz Carlton.  She knew about our upcoming anniversary so that was a special touch! (We were at the Ritz Carlton downtown the night before our flight so we had two nights of roses!  I need to give her the keys to my house!)