"{it is her} hidden person of the heart, 

with the incorruptible beauty 

of a gentle and quiet spirit, 

which is very precious in the sight of God."

I Peter 3:4

Art Class Begins!!!

Semper Fidelis

"Always Faithful"

 Sending Jb off to Parris Island so he could rough it with the Marine guys and play in the swamps was

a great excuse to throw a party - in his honor!!!  We also wanted to fill him up with many kinds

of good food since we all know those MRE's aren't very palatable.  :/  Here we are

getting everything ready!

 His sister did a great job with the cake.  She is so talented and artistic when it comes to baking!!!  I won't tell you how mouth-watering downright fabulous it tasted.

He appears ready to burst - like the balloon!

 We made a photo poster of the last several years of Jb's life  even though we knew he couldn't take it to boot camp with him.  That's ok because it'll be waiting for him when he returns.  He'll remember how much we all love him!!

 Everything's ready.  Just waiting for Jb's friends and family to arrive!!

 Let the party begin!!  Kyle has ARRIVED.

 The evening ended with a prayer blessing.  

What a wonderful and very appropriate wayto send Jb off!!

”To preserve liberty, it is essential 

that the whole body of people 

always possess arms, 

and be taught alike, 

especially when young,

how to use them."

Richard Henry Lee

It's always a fun day when 

our young friends come

for a visit!!!

We headed West to Rocky Gap for an 

end-of-summer/welcome-fall camping trip!

After driving around the loop a couple of times, we picked the perfect site.  It was big enough to hold our ginormous tent (courtesy of the Murray family) and somewhat private with a hiking trail right beside us.  While pitching the tent, we discovered we had left an important piece home - the hub of the tent poles and  without it we would not be able to stand the thing up!  

Oh but not to worry!  Duct tape fixes everything, right?  And we never go camping without our roll of duct tape!!  Mark and Kristine performed a wonderful feat of engineering and soon we were rolling along again.  Until....we realized that we were putting the tent up wrong.  And the piece wasn't missing after all.  So off came the duct tape and up went the tent - correctly.  :)

Once we got past all that fun, we ate dinner and headed down to the beach to take pictures and give the puppy some exercise fetching her Kong Wubba out of the water.    

 

The next day dawned sunny and warm.  We spent most of the day on the beach and in the canoe.  

Back at the campsite, we got a roaring fire going for the evening and used it to roast our steaks for dinner.

Can you tell we like food?  Especially camping food!  This was breakfast the next morning.  Look how efficient we were.  Bacon sizzling, coffee perking and hot water boiling.

While Kristine made French toast for us on the campstove!  :)

After that yummy breakfast, we headed back down to the lake for a relaxing day on the beach and in the water.

All five of my kids are in this pile somewhere.  Really!  

Rocky Gap ended our wonderfully full summer that was filled with fun trips and lots and lots of special friends!!