One Day at a Time

Sweet Jesus

That's all I'm asking from You.

Just give me the strength

To do everyday what I have to do.

Yesterday's gone, sweet Jesus

And tomorrow may never be mine.

Lord help me today, show me the way

One day at a time.

We made it through the past two weeks with His strength. All of it! What a wonderful time we had and now I have a few pics to prove it!! (Well, maybe more than a few.)

The week before Independence Day was filled with more good times on the boat, lunches with friends, and doctor appointments. So glad there are still more good things to report than negative!

Proud Grandpa.

Jack is a little knee board champ behind the boat. 

Amy had great success in pulling Jason while he did the knee board and skied and she also was able to back the boat trailer down the ramp despite the winds. That is a great accomplishment I know because it was always difficult for me.

Life is filled with challenges, anxieties, worries, but oh my goodness, our life is overflowing with blessings. Plus, the truth of knowing that the Lord daily bears our burdens and goes before us fills my heart with joy because I can give Him all those things.

The kids stayed with us and went to church with me on Wednesday night. It was reported to me afterward that Jack had asked Jesus into his heart. See what I'm talking about the joy?

Sweet kids.

We talked about it on the way home and Kate told me the Story of Hearts which had led Jack to make his decision.

July 4 brought Sara and Noah to visit and so Jason and Amy, Kate and Jack came over to play. I cooked an oven brisket using the Pioneer Woman's recipe which turned out so tender and moist. Every bit of it was gone and I'm going to be cooking that again real soon. Roasted sweet potatoes, baked beans and corn on the cob, along with the "ultimate chocolate cupcakes" I baked for Noah's birthday. 

Happy Birthday, Noah.

Yep! Same sweet boy!

On Tuesday, Amy brought Kate and Jack over to spend the night with us. Thanks to Amy's brilliant Tom Sawyer suggestion, we got the kids to scrub out the hot tub, then fill it with water so they could play and cool off.

Scrub a dub, 3 kids in the tub

Afterwards, we went over to Bahama Bucks to check out the sno-cones and verify whether the report on their scrumptiousness was true or not. Yes sir, the experts declared it to be so. Noah and I, not being fans of sno-cones tried out a couple of other items in the menu and they were good too. The kids loved playing this game here so we stayed quite a while before making a shopping trip to Walmart.

The game is Bimini.

How to play

Great sno-cones.

But they love the umbrellas.

The purpose for the Walmart trip was for each child to choose one toy to play with in the hot tub or the pool on Wednesday. Ha! About $75 later, we left and headed back home for pizza. Kate and Jack spent the night and next morning after breakfast, we loaded up all our swim gear to go play in the pool at Alice and Fred's house. 

The dog did not dive in with the kids.

All of us "knuckleheads" had fun!

And where are Alice and Fred in all this? Fred is working hard around the house and Alice is cooking and serving cold drinks, and getting this and that for us. Thanks to them, we had a great time playing, hot dogs for lunch, and a big watermelon. What dear friends to have us over so often to enjoy their hospitality.

Jason called to see if we wanted to go to the lake for the rest of the day. Would we? Oh yes! We had been out on the boat the Friday before, but were ready to go again. 

We had a blast and then after lots of tubing and swimming traveled by boat across the lake for dinner at Sneaky Pete's. As luck would have it, it was our server's first day on the job so service was extremely slow. Good news though is there is a pool at Sneaky Pete's so the kids were able to play in the pool while we waited ... and waited ... and waited for dinner.

The sunset was gorgeous that evening, but this was the best I could do because the boat kept turning and twisting as we pulled the kids on the tube and fought the wind.

On Thursday, Sara left Noah with us, and headed for home. She had stayed a couple of days longer than originally intended, but ended up staying over due to a problem with her car's AC. I'm sorry for Sara's car problem, but it wasn't serious and so it added a couple of days to her stay with us, which was a huge blessing!

We took Noah to see BFG. Noah liked it, but I found it to be a little disturbing. Had I seen the movie as a kid, I would have had nightmares forever. A giant who steals a little girl from her bed at night and takes her to the land of Giants? Wow! It did have a good ending though.

After lunch, I decided to take Noah to the water park where he made a new friend and they had a blast together. I sat in the shade and just enjoyed watching them.

In between all the activities, I introduced Noah to the game of Farkle. He loved it and so we played several times and even got Papa involved with it. 

Yes, he loved beating me at the game.

I also took Noah shopping for one more birthday gift. I had given him four Lego sets, which he put together in one afternoon. He really gets involved doing that. His choice? Another big Nerf gun!

On Friday, we took him home and so we were there for his annual birthday boat party. Lots of fun for everyone. Brady demonstrated his wake board skills behind one of the jet skis as the big party boat took us out to the island where everybody would swim. These kids can do just about whatever they set their minds to.

We couldn't have ordered a more beautiful day for the party. Overcast and a constant breeze. The kids took turns riding the tube behind the jet skis and diving off the boat. 

Most of us were just taking it easy on the boat and never broke a sweat! 

Cousin Colt caught this fish with his bare hands!!

Saturday night we went to Noah's favorite place for dinner, the Japanese Steakhouse. And after we came home from dinner, Brady wanted me to join him on a pallet in the game room to watch The New Karate Kid. I warned him I would probably fall asleep watching the movie but, guess what? He and Noah conked out before me!

Goodbye guys. We love you so much.