The Good Inside Animals

~ posted by Josiah

This week I was going to talk about the good things about some animals that people might think are pests. I’m going to talk about 2 animals.

#1 Coyotes

Coyotes sometimes will live close to cattle and sheep ranches. But coyotes do a lot to help ranchers.

The coyotes will eat some farm animals, but they will also eat rodents and grasshoppers that eat crops and carry diseases.

But still people trap and kill coyotes. But coyotes can be good. When people hunt and kill them, more grasshoppers will come in and eat the grain that is meant for the cattle in winter. So in a way coyotes can be very good for farms.

#2 Grizzly Bears (the Silvertip of North-America)

Grizzly bears are becoming endangered, so there are some people who are trying to protect them. Right now they are not on the hunting list. But some other people are trying to get them back on the hunting list because they don’t like them.

But grizzly bears are good because they are scavengers, which means they eat dead animals that might carry diseases.

So animals that may seem like pests can also be really good. I hope y’all like my post and I can’t wait to do another one soon!

Sunset Photo Shoot

Before our friends came on Friday, we had a beautiful sunset. Since I had a little time before our guests were due to arrive, I went on a quick photo walk.

I love the golden light during sunset!

Tall grass down by our pond.

Beautiful blue sky with clouds.

Our pecan grove.

A stately tree in one of our neighbor’s pastures.

Beautiful Texas sunset.

The “golden hour” (aka sunset) is one of my favorite times to shoot!

Friday Night Fun

Back on the 21^st, we had one of our monthly movie nights with some of our friends from youth group! Every month, our group seems to grow just a little bit. J This time, we were thankful that we finally had our TV and sound system in the living room fixed. No more squishing into our den! J

This month we watched “The Penny.” I think everyone enjoyed it.

Everybody after the movie.

I think the highlight of the evening was what came after the movie: night photography! My friend J is just getting into photography, and our friend C is much more experienced than we are. We wanted him to teach us how to do steel wool photography and light painting.

The steel wool was really fun! Admittedly, we set the grass on fire quite a few times. But who cares when you live in the country? ;-)

Some of the boys went crazy with the steel wool!

We had lots of fun light painting! We painted each other and also did words.

We stayed up quite late, but it was so much fun! I can’t think of too many better ways to spend a Friday night than enjoying a movie with friends, pizza, and photography!

Foggy Morning Photo Shoot

During one of our morning runs last week, we admired the beautiful fog. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for some fog pictures!

Disappearing fence in the horse pasture.

Winter wheat field.

Eerie.

Fog is fun to photograph!

Spontaneous Photo Shoot

Sometimes I just feel like going on a photo shoot. So one afternoon, I went! I jumped in my car and took off to look for some new places near our house to shoot.

It does my heart good to see some green in the winter! J

Which way does the road go? Backwards or forwards?

I took some of my birthday pictures by this barn, and I couldn’t resist stopping as I drove by.

I love open pastures and big blue skies.

And I love long country roads!

Barbed wire in spring.

Mess of vines.

Photo shoots are so fun! I love finding beauty in the little things that most people just drive by.

Living Water

“…Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.”

(John 4:13a)

~ posted by Betsy ~

Recipe--Chocolate Bars

These chocolate bars make a good pick-me-up afternoon snack, or a great dessert for company! They’re very simple, but delicious. Almost like fancy granola bars!

Chocolate Bars

4 cups quick-cooking oats

½ cup brown sugar

1 cup butter, melted

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup peanut butter

Stir together oats, brown sugar, and butter. Flatten into a greased 13”x9” pan. Bake for 15 minutes at 350°F. In a double boiler (or microwave) melt chocolate chips and peanut butter together. Spread this mixture over the baked, cooled crust. When firm, cut into rectangles that resemble small chocolate bars. Makes 2 dozen.

Our Valentine's Day

~Posted by Roma~

The morning of Valentine’s day, Bianca left for the Passion Conference in Houston, but even though she was gone, we still celebrated!

Every year, we come downstairs in the morning to find goodies on the breakfast table at each of our seats! It usually includes some candy or chocolate, a card from Mom and Dad, maybe a card or two from our siblings, and some other gift, like note paper and envelopes! (So those of us who pen-pal can send cute cards to our friends or relatives.) J

Later in the afternoon something happened that we have wanted for a long time: we got our TV and home sound system fixed in the living room!! For so long, we’ve had to have our Friday night pizza and movie nights with friends in the den, which is a little bit of a squeeze. But now, we could finally watch movies in the living room with our couches and with…space! J And now we could hear music all around the house again!

That night, I made a Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie for dessert! It turned out so yummy! Bianca usually makes it but this time she was gone. I loved doing it—it was so easy—you practically make the whole thing in one bowl, then put it in the pie shell! The family loved it.

While enjoying pizza and the pie, we watched our Valentine DVD with comedian Tim Hawkins. If you haven’t ever heard of Tim, go see him on YouTube! He is the funniest comedian, musically talented, and he makes our stomachs hurt from laughing! It was a wonderful way to end a Friday evening, a Valentine evening with the family.

Happy LATE Valentine’s Day! I am always so thankful not only for my loving family, but for the love Jesus Christ shows me—and how His love never fails!

Afternoon Photo Shoot

Last week, we had one afternoon where the temperatures climbed up towards the 70’s. I couldn’t possibly pass that up, so I donned my photo gear and headed out to take some shots on our property!

Our quickly-dwindling wood pile. With the harsh winter we’ve had, we used a lot of wood for fires!

Buds forming on the pecan trees.

Pecan trees with our house and barn in the background.

Majestic pecan trees.

Wildflowers.

Empty pecan hulls.

I’ve gone on a couple of other photo shoots that I plan to post about soon!

Passion Conference, Part 2

After lunch, we had our fourth session. I don’t remember exactly who led worship; I believe it was the Passion band. Beth Moore spoke on 1 Timothy 6:11-16, and focused on three words: Time, Fight, and Confession.

Matt Redman led worship for the fifth session! I was really excited to see him. Then Judah Smith spoke on 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, focusing on the transformation that occurs after we become a Christian. He was high energy and very funny!

After that, we had a longer break to go get some dinner. That proved to be more difficult than we expected! Just imagine 20,000 people trying to eat dinner within the same few blocks of town. The lines were insane, and some restaurants closed presumably because they ran out of food! I ended up eating at the hotel restaurant (expensive as it was) because the line was the shortest. By the time I got my food, it was time to start walking back to the conference center.

The last session was the crux of the event. We were grateful to get two full rows of seats quite close to the front.

The Passion band—with the addition of Kari Jobe and Matt Redman—led the worship. It was incredible! I am so excited for the CD to come out, so I can continue worshipping to the same songs!

Louie Giglio closed the conference by speaking on 3 common threads of those who’ve encountered God. They are stunned, seared, and sent. After such an incredible time of worship, refreshment, and discussion of justice, they did an excellent job of making it clear that we are SENT. We had just had a “mountaintop experience”, but it was now time to go and minister in the valley.

The conference ended around 10:30 p.m. that night. One of the leaders of our group had ordered pizza for everyone. We looked like a bunch of hobos at the hotel, sitting in the middle of the hallway, eating pizza without napkins or plates! J But we had so much fun. We talked, played the guitar, read Bibles, talked more, and just enjoyed our last evening together. Everyone started to trickle off to bed slowly. Eventually, I was one of four people left. We stayed up laughing and talking for quite awhile. Then we had the bright idea of going downstairs to the hotel restaurant and buying our breakfast now instead of fighting the lines early in the morning.

That will probably be the last time I go down to a hotel lobby at 2 a.m. I was thankful to have a guy with us three girls. Needless to say, we bought our bagels quickly and went back upstairs. I ended up going to bed around 3:30 a.m.

After a couple hours of sleep, I got up at 6:45 a.m. I showered, packed up my things, and headed down to the lobby with my roommates to meet everyone else.

We walked to the bus and pulled out around 8:30 a.m. On our way home, we stopped at the famed “Buc-cees” for a break. Then for lunch we stopped at the same area we had Friday.

Eating at Whataburger with some of my new friends!

We made it back to town around 3:00 p.m. It was good to be home! I had such an amazing time, and learned so much. I would highly recommend that every college student attend this amazing conference! I hope to go back again in the future!

Passion Conference, Part 1

As I mentioned yesterday, I had the privilege of attending the Passion Conference down in Houston, TX this past weekend. I have wanted to go to the conference since 8^th grade, but wasn’t old enough until this year. I found out that the college group from our area was going, and I was able to join them!

We met at the community college early Friday morning. After filling out our emergency contact forms, eating some breakfast, and loading up our luggage, we pulled out! Our group had about 25 people from 4 different churches/groups.

The drive was about 6 hours long including our lunch stop. I had a nice time chatting with others I didn’t know, reading a school book, and napping. For lunch, we parked in a parking lot surrounded by a whole bunch of restaurants. We split up into a few groups to eat. I went with some folks over to Chili’s to get lunch To-Go. I had never eaten there before; it was good!

Then we continued on our drive.

The event—and our hotel—were in downtown Houston. I’m always overwhelmed by how large everything is!

When you have 20,000 people all trying to get to the same area, there will inevitably be some transportation issues. Plus you have all the Friday night traffic of people trying to leave the downtown area. We drove around downtown Houston for quite awhile trying to figure out where we could park. By the time we got things all sorted out, we had about 15 minutes in our rooms to freshen up before leaving again!

I was grateful to be rooming with 3 other girls that I had met before. While all four of us are quite different personality-wise, we also had quite a bit in common regarding more important things such as our life purposes.

We started to walk towards the conference center. We ended up eating McDonald’s for dinner because it was on our way and quite fast. It was the first time I had eaten there in 3 years!

Once we finished eating, we walked to the conference center. The number of people there was incredible. The conference had completely sold out!

We got good seats despite the fact our group was so large! That was thanks to a few people who went ahead of us to save seats. J

The conference began with an Introduction Session. The Passion Band led worship. This band included Chris Tomlin, Kristian Stanfill, Christy and Nathan Nockles, Brett Younker, and more! Right away, I knew the worship time over the weekend was going to be incredible.

It was a really late night! The second session didn’t start until 10:30 p.m., my normal bedtime. J In between the two sessions, Capital Kings played music. I was pleasantly surprised, as I wasn’t expecting them to be there, but I like their music! Things only got better from there! Louie Giglio spoke that night on Isaiah 6:1-5. He focused on us seeing a glimpse of God’s glory. He also gave a very clear presentation of the Gospel, which was a wonderful way to start off the weekend.

The evening ended in an incredible time of worship led by Hillsong United. I was pretty indifferent to their music beforehand, but wow! The Holy Spirit was truly at work that night; it was one of the most incredible times of worship I’ve ever experienced.

We didn’t leave the conference center until about 12:30 a.m. After such an incredible night, most of us weren’t ready for bed yet. J My roommates and I joined some others in their room to talk. We didn’t end up going to bed until about 3 a.m.

Since we went to bed so late, 6:30 a.m. came quite quickly. I got up first, showered, and then did my devotions. Another one of the girls got up after me to get ready, and then the two of us went downstairs for breakfast.

But we discovered that the restaurant at the hotel (Einstein Bros. Bagels) was quite expensive. Another girl had come down and discovered the same thing. We decided that in favor of our wallets, we would walk down to McDonald's for breakfast. The group would be walking past there, and we would join them at 8:15 as planned.

That morning, David Crowder led worship, and Francis Chan spoke. I am familiar with his books and work, so I was excited to hear from him. He spoke on 2 Peter 1:1-9. One of my favorite takeaways from his talk was “Everything we see is temporary; what is invisible is eternal.”

 

Then we broke for lunch. It was incredible how they were able to feed 20,000 of us and keep it organized! They did a great job.

Enjoying lunch with some of the new friends I made from our group!

To be continued . . .

Passion Preview

I just returned from a weekend down in Houston at the famed Passion conference! It was my first time going, and I was blessed with an incredible experience. Come back tomorrow to hear more about it!

Unconditional

The hardest thing you will ever do,

Is Love the one who despises you.

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

(1 John 4:10)

~ posted by Betsy ~

Recipe--Pepperoni Bread

One of our family’s favorite foods is pizza. One of our favorite appetizers for special occasions is pepperoni bread! This bread is very simple, and we almost always have the ingredients on hand. This is definitely a crowd pleaser!

Pepperoni Bread

1 loaf frozen bread dough, thawed

4-oz. pkg. sliced pepperoni

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Roll out bread dough into a 15”x10” rectangle; arrange pepperoni slices and cheese on top. Roll up lengthwise; secure closed with toothpicks. Place on a greased baking sheet; bake at 325 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes. Slice to serve. Makes 12 servings. Optional: serve warm pizza sauce on the side for dipping.

Homeschool Blessings Part 3 (Last One! :-))

~ posted by Rubia

Here is one last post about some of the things I’ve enjoyed working on this past semester in homeschool! Two main subjects that were covered were English and Science.

I have almost always enjoyed English because I love to read and write. (Believe it or not I’m starting to miss my grammar!) Along with many “good reads” over the last few months, I had worked through a fun writing portfolio course with Roma, my twin sister and writing partner! This short course was on “How to Write a Report” by Sally Speer Leber. We started out with some rules about how to work together as writing partners, which helped us keep each other accountable and become better writers. J

The assignment given in the book was to conduct an interview with someone and write a report based on what you learned, both from the interview and from further research. The fun part was that we each got to interview someone in our field of interest for our future lives or jobs.

Because of my interest in missions, I decided to interview a former missionary to Costa Rica who goes to my home church. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures from the interview, but it did go very well. What I learned from this former missionary was very encouraging. Like all who are striving to serve and obey the Lord, he went through many trials with his wife when they were in the mission field. But through those trials, they learned from the Lord and grew closer to Him, while falling in love with the Costa Ricans and the work that God had for them there. I was very refreshed and encouraged by his stories and testimony, even though an actual field trip to Costa Rica was not included. L J (I would’ve liked that!)

Roma interviewed her music teacher, and after she and I both had our drafts written out, we compared them and asked each other questions to make sure that we were writing good reports which accurately, and in the right order, shared all the information necessary.

Though reports can sometimes be hard to write, I hope that it will be easier once I get used to writing them out well, and become a better writer!

We have read some neat books so far this year for Science, English, and God’s Witnesses. These include: “Flight of the Falcon” by Paul Thomsen, “Mountain of Fire” also by Thomsen, “The Great Alaskan Dinosaur Adventure” by Buddy Davis, Mike Liston, and John Whitmore, “Rebekah’s Diary” by Rebekah Pearl, and “Paula the Waldensian,” by Eva Lecomte.

Science was one of my favorite subjects last semester. The course that Roma and I went through wasn’t actually deep science, but rather more of a Biblical apologetics course, giving an introductory overview of astronomy and geology. Bianca and Ben had both completed this in 9^th grade as well. It was the “Answers Academy” course with Ken Ham, Terry Mortenson, and Jason Lisle. It was challenging and encouraging, as they all talked about how important it is to be prepared to give an answer to those who ask you—to be prepared to defend your faith. (1 Peter 3:15) I learned about the many ways that creation proclaims that there is a God; that science backs up the Bible; and that evolution cannot be possible. It cannot be proven. Thus men are without excuse. (Rom. 1:20.)

The Word of Our God

“The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever."

Isaiah 40:8

Girls Night

Last Sunday night, the twins and I got to join a Girls Night at a friend’s house! A couple of months ago, I started meeting twice a month with one of the ladies from our church. She used to be involved in youth ministry, but she is now the children’s ministries director at our church.

Anyway, we’ve talked about having a Girls Night at her house for quite awhile now. But we finally made it happen last week! We decided on a Valentine’s Day theme.

The twins and I were the first ones there. We started helping her prepare Valentines Day pretzel treats (pretzels topped with Hugs and pink, red, and white M&M’s.) As the other girls started arriving, we worked to make Red Velvet Oreo Chocolate Truffle bars. Yes, that was hard to remember! J

Once that was out of the oven, the pizza arrived. After we ate, we piled onto the couches in the living room under blankets to watch “Heaven is Waiting.”

As soon as the movie was over, we dug into the bars. Yes, we were a little uncivilized about it. J They were tasty though!

Then we just sort of plopped onto the kitchen floor and talked. We called our youth pastor and had him tell us a story over speaker phone, and then tried to take some group pictures.

Chatting in the living room. Excuse the mix of facial expressions! J

It was a really fun evening! I’m grateful for the chance to get to know some other girls from our church and the area. We’re looking forward to getting together again (hopefully soon!)