islands are for friends and family

Today we went to the beautiful island of Put-in-Bay with our friends!

We were in capable hands with Mark and Ken bringing us back to dock!

Ken giving Mark the ok sign - my mom loved the day!

These 2 are as beautiful on the inside as they are on the outside.
So proud of my daughter and daughter-in-law

In most situations these two would be questionable (ornery) -
but they were so gracious to us today!

The precious one!

Poor baby was so captive in this vest!

My dad, my son and my hubby - fishing off another boat !

Aunt Joci allowing Oliver to steer the boat

the town of Put-in-Bay filled with family

To have the kind of friends - two boat loads that would take a day off work, take a day away from their own families and come to take us out fishing and site seeing...well, there are no words to describe how blessed we all feel today!

The Lord blesses our lives with a few handfuls of special friends and today we spent the day with Chris, Ken, Mark and Clayton.  Thankful beyond words!

my day off

It's been a long time since we've taken even a couple of days to get out of town with our family.

It's perfect - everyone can do exactly as they please!  Bicycle or walk to the beach, drive to the pier to fish, walk to DQ or simply sit and watch baseball on TV.  A great change from regular.

Nothing spectacular, but spectacular is not what we require so it's perfect.

The main goal is simply to enjoy our time together - taking in every moment, breathing deeply and moving slowly.  There's no guarantee how many times together any of us have - so I'm determined to create those times.  A good strategy which fits our lives is to do multiple 3 day outings - requiring us not to be away too long and not to use our vacation time all up at one time.

The pictures say the rest, and there will be more pictures - we're leaving for dinner soon which is always an adventure with my family, we will see.

a welcome to Huron!

no offense intended - but, this is the cutes grandson on earth

taking to grandpa

family at the lake

my dad

summer is here

Yesterday finally felt like summer was really here as our family headed off to fish.  It was a riot - hooks nearly missing us as there was one bad cast after another.  My nephew's cast went so wrong the entire reel flew off!


Many large blue gill were hauled ashore only to be released again with a few nice sized bass being caught as well.





The worst thing of the night was the poor turtle that my sister caught!  My husband and son worked and worked to carefully remove the hook - finally resorting to cutting the end of the hook off to slide it out.

My brother in law looked a little too much like the wide mouth bass...frightening!

Laughter rang out and a great night was had by all...except the turtle.

what I learned today

I am going to try something new. Although it is possibly more common to study the Word in the mornings, I'm going to try switching to the end of the day. We will see how it goes.

My thinking is this: It will require me to be more disciplined with my evenings (less tv and computer)! Also, I would love to begin working out in the mornings instead of afternoons - big 'would love to'! The final thing is, I hope it will make me go to bed earlier and go to bed pondering something God wants to teach me. We will see...

Tonight I studied the story of the disciples fishing, just a normal night. A frustrating work day producing - no fish! This is bad if your livelihood depends on fish. This was their routine, day in and day out, fishing. And then Christ walked into their routine day and it became anything but routine! It became amazing!

My study today challenged me to consider when the last time was that I was amazed by God? Typically for me amazement is easy anytime I am out in nature, no matter the weather. But due to the amount of time we have been inside this winter with extremely cold temperatures, I have not gotten my fix of nature for quite some time. Still, God has amazed me in other ways.

He has opened doors recently that I could have only dreamed of in the past. He has chosen this time to amaze us in new ways! When God walks into our routines, ordinary days become amazing!

When Jesus told the disciples to throw there nets on the other side of the boats in deep water after they had fished all night, they couldn't have know how utter amazement of this Christ was about to change everything! After obeying Him their nets were full, something they couldn't accomplish themselves. They knew at that moment they would follow Him anywhere!

Obedience allows God to reveal himself, even when we don't understand fully what He is asking us to do. He has made us all fishers of men, and that is why we follow God's call on our life, to be used of Him is all that matters. To be chosen and used of Him is amazing! That is what I learned today!