Fun Beach Trip

We popped down to the beach this morning and had such a nice time. The weather was gorgeous, and all that was missing was the rest of my precious family. Abby, Andy & Andy IV, Brad, Will, Nonny & Cocky--we wish we could've magically zapped you there with us! We hope to go back some more in July. We're working hard to soak up every second of this summer! :)

Humble UMC School's Hope for Children Choir

This morning we had a remarkable experience as our church hosted Humble UMC School's Hope for Children's Choir. The South Georgia Conference has partnered with the East African UM Conference and has helped to tremendously support this school and choir. The children who attend this school are mostly orphans who have lost one or both parents to HIV AIDS, extreme poverty, or the war that has raged on their country in Uganada for more than 20 years. Many of these children were found in refugee camps and were carrying women's babies trying to earn money for food or were carrying large jugs of water to earn money for food. They were homeless and without hope, but this school has brought them a new life. They sing and dance with such passion and gratitude and love. The love of Christ just radiates from their sinewy little bodies. I was so moved by the performance and spent the majority of the service trying to keep myself from going into the "ugly cry". Stan and I were both so struck by the needs of these children and when Stan discovered that none of the leaders or children read any music, he said, "I would love to come and spend some time teaching music at your school." Winston, one of the leaders, told him, "I will begin praying that you will be able to come."
I spoke with Lydia, the choir director, after our lunch, and had such an interesting conversation with her. I told her what Stan had said about us wanting to come, and she said, "Oh, I would love for you to come, because there is no way for you to understand these children's gratitude until you see where they've come from." She said that when they were on the plane coming to America that she was seated next to a little boy in the choir who said to her, "I do not deserve this. I do not deserve this. I cannot believe I am on an airplane to America. None of my people have ever seen an airplane. They will never believe that I flew on a plane to America. Never!" Lydia said to the little boy, "I'm going to write this down in my journal, and I will read this back to you some day when you become a Methodist Bishop as you've said you will, and we will laugh with joy over this!" Lydia herself grew up an orphan and was saved by a similar organization as a child in a refugee camp. She became a member of a school choir and was eventually chosen to be a member of the African Children's Choir which granted her remarkable life opportunities. She eventually became the director of the African Children's Choir and sang with Sandi Patti, Steven Curtis Chapman, and Michael W. Smith on albums of theirs. I believe she is such a huge gift from the Lord to the Humble UMC School's Choir. She brings such talent and abilities. She is also a social worker, and I don't know what her full role is at the school, but I'm sure she is a great asset. She understands where these children have come from and knows the extreme things they have seen and experienced at tender ages. That is why she expressed gratitude over and over again to us for having them come. She said, "This is life changing for these children." Our church's foundation paid for their travel expenses to come for this lengthy tour, and so when she told them that they were to be singing for the congregation that helped them come to America, they all said, "We must sing our best performance for them!"
I know there is no way to fully explain how powerful of a performance it was. Towards the end of the concert, they sang a song that said something like, "If we believe in God, the Holy Spirit will come and Africa will be saved!" They sang this whole song through several times and the last time through they sang, "...the Holy Spirit will come and America will be saved!" Hallelujah! Thank you, Lord, for the faith of these children. Hear their prayers, Lord! Hear their prayers!
The video I'm including is when they sang Josh Groben's popular song "You Raise Me Up". Yeah, this one was a tear-jerker.

Poolside at The Estate D'Rogowski

This is where we spend a lot of our time lately. It is very reminiscent of our backyard when we were kids.
One funny thing that happened this morning that is unrelated to these pictures is that when I went to clear the table after breakfast, I noticed that the peanut butter jar lid was missing. Olivia and I tried to find it without any success. A few minutes later Olivia yells, "Benjamin has it, Momma!" I look over and he was trotting through the family room trying to escape with the lid, and as I ran to catch him, Olivia said, "He did that very sneakretly, didn't he Momma!" I love these contrived words that children make up. I told her I loved that word--Sneakretly! Priceless!

Anniversary lunch

This is a picture that Olivia took of us when we returned from our date. We forgot to take our camera with us, so she sweetly agreed to help us out by photographing us! :)

Yesterday I enjoyed a splendid little get-away lunch date with my marvelous husby! May 23rd marked our 10 year wedding anniversary, but we hadn't had an opportunity to celebrate yet. Stan worked it out to take me to the Jekyll Island Club Hotel for lunch while having his sweet mom babysit. By the way, kuddos to Mary for babysitting so much for us lately with this Crown Financial study we've been taking! What a lifesaver! Anyway, we ate at the Crane Cottage there on the Hotel grounds and enjoyed a delicious meal. I had lobster salad (which had bacon, onions, celery, and avocado in it) on a croissant with onion rings and key lime pie for dessert, and Stan had a dish called Pesto Alfredo (which had sundried tomatoes and olivies in it) with grilled shrimp. He also had a seafood bisque and he had creme brulle for dessert. Yummo! We walked around the hotel grounds a while after lunch, enjoyed the marsh views, saw a wedding in progress, and then we just found a shaded bench and sat and talked and talked. Talk about luxury! Adult conversation during daylight hours without any interruptions! I was a sophomore in highschool, just 16 years old, when Stan first took me to dinner at the Jekyll Island Club's Grand Dining Room for our prom dinner, and ever since then, it has been such a special spot for us. On our way home, we had an interesting mix on our iPod's playlist--Here were the tunes we swayed to in our seats or boogied to (depending on the tune). :)

1. Chet Baker's "Time After Time" (we call this one our song--the first line is "Time after time, I tell myself that I'm, so lucky to be lovin' you) (We actually have another song we call our song, too, but it is from "back in the day" and it's embarassing to admit it used to be our song, so this is our song since we became married.)
   
2. Chet Baker's "Funny Valentine"
   
3. James Brown's "Get Up" 
   
4. Chicago's "What Kind of Man Would I Be?"
   
5. Terry Gibbs' Dream Band "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You"
   
6. Marvin Gay's "Let's Get it On" (As Stan said, "End it on a high note." :)

It was truly a fun day, and to top it all off, we cleaned out the refrigerator and freezer last night--what could be more romantic?! :)

Fun with iPhoto

I was just playing around with some features on iPhoto and came up with these today. The last one was just a picture of Benjamin getting a lesson in remote usage from his Daddy. :) Train 'em young, huh? ugh.
Thanks to Aunt Carrie Beth and cousin David, Olivia has this wonderful Radio Flyer tricycle on loan, and she loves riding it around as you can see. Fun stuff!

Olivia's Dance Photo

We had this picture taken before her dance recital, and I thought it turned out so cute. We had to exceed the legal amount of hair gel in order to achieve this bun, but by golly, we did it! :) What's cuter than a 4 year old in a tutu? Come on!

The Family Photo

Back in March, our church had church directory pictures taken, so we went and had this photo taken of the family. It was a relatively painless process, except for the fact that the air conditioner wasn't on in the room where we were being photographed. And we all happened to be in long sleeves. Yikes! But, the photographer was great, and as you can see, he got a really fun smile out of Olivia. Benjamin was not quite as sold on the guy, but at least he wasn't screaming! :)

Benjamin at almost 14 mos./Summer Begins!

Here are some pics of Benjamin as he's almost reached 14 months old and just some other pics of us enjoying the beginning of summer.