Race at Kenly, NC

We had a race last week, but I don't want to talk about it. (This was NOT a picture of it)

Happy Birthday, Maddie!

Happy Birthday to my sweet niece, Maddie!

She is so adorable (but she is stuck on Julio)!

To see more pictures of her modeling for the store she works for in Wrightsville Beach, NC, go to www.shophallelu.com

Gatlinburg, Tennessee! (oh boy!)

Well....I didn't get any pictures of the Timothy+Barnabas conference in Gatlinburg, but I did get a picture of my wonderful assistant, Sarah, at her first geocache! During the free afternoon at T+B I couldn't find anything better to do than go find a cache and one was a block from our condo. I don't know that Sarah is 'hooked' on geocaching after just one hunt, but she definitely got a good taste of the 'thrill of the hunt'! Thanks, Gulfwind!

Can you believe so many senior adults in one building! This is only the first of two Jubilee Conferences for this week. The first conference sold out quickly with 6,000 registrants so they had to add a second one for the same week. Wow! Jake does such a great job planning and seeing that everyone is taken care of and having a good time. Best of all, I get to spend time with Katie and Carson. Watching them 'work at the conference' and being excited about the opportunity is a great thing. Last night they were walking back to their room from our room with Millie and Scott as their escorts and in just a minute they were banging at our door to get back in. A bear had crossed their path in the parking lot! They were all scared to death! We got in the car and went on a 'bear hunt' riding up and down the parking lot looking for the bear. We couldn't find it then, but later spotted it in the small woods down the hill from the condo. Tonight I heard a lot of banging and realized it may be the bear in our trash can outside and sure enough...there he was, right outside my door! I ran and got Johnny out of bed, sound asleep, to see the bear and by the time he got there, he was gone! Johnny went back to bed, not caring as much about the bear as I did, but caring about me waking him up from his sleep to see a bear that wasn't there! Well...I looked out the front into the parking lot and there he was....again!!! I had to call somebody, so I called Lindsey who is in the next building and finally, she saw the bear!!!! There really are bears in Gatlinburg! (at least one)

Fun Time!

We had two great Timothy+Barnabas Conferences in Atlanta and Gatlinburg this year and I didn't get a single picture that was clear enough to post on my blog! So sad! In between the two conferences during the fall school break for Katie and Carson, I made a quick visit to Disney and Universal Studios with them. We had a great time and wonderful weather. (We managed to be away during all the flooding) While we were there we celebrated Lindsey's birthday. I finally found out that she is good at something....she won the hoola-hoop contest for the adults at the Hard Rock Hotel Pool! If you go to Universal, watch out for the Jimmy Neutron ride! It's a killer!

Congratulations!

Congratulations, Sabrina and Christian! Our 'foster' daughter, Sabrina Williams Dubyak was recently married to a great guy, Christian Pinion. It was a beautiful wedding and of course, she was a beautiful bride. Johnny and I were the 'honorary parents' and it was a pleasure to be the stand in parents for a lovely couple. May God richly bless their marriage!

Home visit with Dr. Billy Graham

We had the incredible privilege of spending time with Dr. Billy Graham at his home recently. It was certainly a day neither Johnny or I will ever forget. He is doing well and was in a great frame of mind, speaking very clearly and was soooo very gracious to us both. We are so very thankful to have been able to sit with such a godly man and certainly one of the greatest preachers of all time.

Hog Heaven!

Atlanta Motor Speedway.....Yeah Baby! I was in hog heaven getting to meet all my favorite drivers at the Labor Day race after getting to meet Joe Gibbs who preached all three of our services on that Sunday morning before the race that evening. He did a fabulous job and is quite a communicator of the gospel. Joe Gibbs is definitely a man who is truly concerned about where people will spend eternity and how they live their life before eternity. It was such a pleasure to get to know this great guy. His new book "Game Plan for Life" is a great book to read. Great Race Day!

Finally Catching Up!

Catching up on all that we have been doing lately is tough. There is always something exciting going on so I'll have to go back to August when we had our staff retreat. As usual, the girls had a great time being together, laughing, talking and just being girls. We usually try to do something different and fun so this year I insisted that we take part in my favorite hobby (other than racing) which you know is....geocaching! We had two teams and several caches to find. The first team to find all the caches and get back to the hotel first won! Of course, my team won and my fellow geocachers are pictured above. The other team, Millie, Kathy, Nancy and Linda did a great job finding the caches but were not quite fast enough.

Then there was Israel! We had a quick but wonderful trip to the Land of our Lord. Our dear friends, Mike and Ann White went with us and it was fast and furious! Much different from our previous trips as we had to move very quickly to see it all and still didn't quite make all the sites we would like to have seen. Of course, while there I just had to do it....I had to find a geocache. There was one at the airstrip at Massada so I dropped off a travel bug that I picked up in Argentina that was traveling the world. How fun!!

OCS

I can't believe I forgot to tell you about our race last Saturday night at the Orange County Speedway in Rougemont, NC. We were about to win that thing when we had a restart (always double file) and the guy we were racing with who was running in 2nd jumped the start and took the lead with only 5 laps left and we couldn't catch him to pass. We finished 2nd.....Hickory Motor Speedway is next on August 29th. We won at that track the last time we were there and of course, I am expecting another win at HMS! Can't wait!

Please Pray!

The first of many meetings of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force met on Tuesday & Wednesday at a hotel here in Atlanta. It seems they got off to a very good start just beginning to lay some ground work and talking about their huge task before them with such a limited time frame in which to accomplish much for the better of our convention. However, this is not going to be easy and they desperately need the prayers of the people. If you have not already done so, please go to www.pray4gcr.com and become an official prayer warrior for this team. They need your prayers! (The photo was taken at the press conference at the end of the meeting on Wednesday)

Happy Birthday, #2!

I know Katie's birthday has passed and was officially last month but we were away at the beach and she couldn't celebrate with her friends at PCB so we had a belated birthday party for her at the mall! Yes.....the mall! It was so very much fun and the girls loved it! They did a scavenger hunt. The girls divided up into three teams. We gave each of them a little purse with $7 in it and a list of 14 items they had to either purchase (all within a certain price range) or questions about the mall they had to answer all within an hour and it was a race to see which team finished first and which team came back with the most money left over after all their purchases. After the hunt, they were each given money to purchase the dinner of their choice in the food court. The little divas were so very cute and extremely well behaved. It was a great party....#2! Happy Birthday, again, Katie!

Final Days in PCB

All good things must come to an end and so did my summer vacation. However, before leaving PCB we had to make our trip to Zooworld! Also, I had the chance to meet my cousin, Kathy Ellis, whom I had not seen in many, many, many years (don't really know when I last saw her!) for dinner along with her sweet family. She is living in Ft. Walton which is not far from Panama City Beach. We had a great time getting to know each other after so many years. We will certainly keep in touch this time.

First Day of School 2009

Hope in 2008 going into First Grade and 2008 going into Second! Addie...Kindergarten here I come!!!

The proof is in the pictures! 2007, 2008 & 2009...growing way too fast....now in 5th & 6th grades!

Are You Squirrelly?

Can you identify with these two squirrels? The prime of life squirrel and the retired PCB squirrel! Latter squirrel, here I come!

Putt-Putt-Putt-Putt....Putt.....

One more night....and it was Putt-Putt! I took the kiddos (Katie, Carson & the Hite girls...Deanna's condo neighbors) to Coconut Creek for Putt-Putt. (It is against the law to go to the beach and not play at least one round and I have been there 5 weeks and this was my first game of the season) I think everybody in PCB goes to that one and I think they were all there that night! Do you know how long it can take to play 18 holes of putt-putt with 4 children? A very long time! However, the Hawaiian Shaved Ice, cotton candy flavor, was definitely a great reward for patience! (I had been wanting one of those for weeks)

Now, to bed to get up early and start H-O-M-E...I'm not happy....I LOVE the beach......why didn't the Lord give us Beach Resort Ministry as a vocation? I know....He didn't want to.... that's why!