Father's Day

Well once again I have experienced a great day thanks to my family. My loving wife made 2 delicious coffee cakes for breakfast; one blueberry and one cherry. They were both great. We had another wonderful church service and headed home for barbecued pork chops, noodles and carrots. Once again yum! My daughter baked Pig Out Cake for dessert. After dinner, I was presented two gifts.From Tracy, I received a Jerome Bettis jersey, and the kids got me a snow cone maker and four flavors. Mac gave me sour grape, Autumn gave me rootbeer, Collin gave me fruit punch, and Abigail got me cherry. It was a very hot day outside so we enjoyed refreshing cones together. We lounged around, played a little badminton, watched some Nascar and golf on the tube. We had a light supper of crab dip spread and topped it off with some ice cream. All in all it was a very relaxing Father's Day. I am truly blessed to be a father and thankful the Lord has placed me where he did.



I hope all of you dads out there had a great day as well Happy Father's Day!

Garden update

Well despite all the dry weather(no rain for over two weeks) that we have been having the garden is doing quite well. I have been watering it nightly and to my delight everything is growing . I have peppers and tomatoes on the vine as well as zucchini, watermelon, and cantaloupe. The beans, cabbage, and brussel sprouts are progressing quite nicely. After an intense battle with the potato bugs(one in which I defeated those pesky critters) the potatoes are growing extremely well. I am very pleased with the progress of the garden so far. The only thing that has not done well was the beets. Most of them were washed out soon after they were planted (we could sure use some of that rain now) .

Back Home

As I promised, I will try to post at least once a week. (I was a few days off) The last 2 days of vacation included a wonderful Friday in which we flew kites at Jockey's Ridge Park which is a natural sand dune. It was beautiful. There is no way a machine could have created this awesome display that God's hands carved and placed the sand. We flew kites for over an hour. It was great! All you had to do was let go of the kite and away it went. No running full speed for a mile to get the kite up. We then went to the Lost Colony village on Roanoke Island. We walked around and went into another lighthouse. We spent Saturday morning in the pool and went to the ocean for the last time in the afternoon. It was cold as a storm was moving in. We had great weather the entire week. We left at the right time as it rained Saturday evening and for a good 5-6 hours of our drive on Sunday.

We made it back home safely after a 14 our drive last Sunday. We had a wonderful time. The time off from work was much needed. I felt refreshed, although I was not ready to go back to work. I could have used a few more days off. I was however, ready to come home. The outer banks were great and I hope to go back and spend another week there. But there is something about home that I'm always ready to return to. Even though our whole family was together I was eager to pull in our driveway and walk through our doors and sleep in our bed. The key word in the last sentence being our. Something about that which the Lord has given my family, our home. God has entrusted us and blessed us with a beautiful home. We can go and stay in a bigger, more expensive home for a week, and while it was nice, it was not ours. I have felt this way about all 5 houses Tracy and I have lived in. We often take for granted what the Lord provides us with wanting more than we need or deserve. God is so good to us and we need to be thankful for our homes and all that He blesses us with. We are part of His master plan of life and He places us where we need to be to carry out His will.

By the way, as I predicted there were a lot of weeds waiting to be pulled. Collin and I have gotten most of them taken care of. He (Collin) has been a big help in the garden this year.

Vacation

Well I know that I haven't posted in quite a while. I will try to post at least once a week in the future. My family and I left last Saturday, June 26th for the Outer Banks. We stopped in Greensboro, NC, and spent the evening with my wife's aunt, uncle and cousin. We arose Sunday morning and visited Providence OPC and had a nice worship with them. I have always wanted to attend a church as we passed through a town. We continued on our way after church and arrived to our beautiful beach house around 7:oo PM. Tracy and I headed to the store and picked up some groceries for the week.



The week has been very relaxing. We have spent several days at the beach riding the waves and collecting shells. We took a day trip to Ocracoke Island. This was really neat. We drove our van on to a ferry and sailed 6 miles to the island. We met up with one of Tracy's blogging friends and toured a lighthouse with her.



We ate out one evening at a local restaurant called Barefoot Bernies. This was a real treat that we had planned. You see the owner is a huge Steelers fan and we just had to go due to that fact. We were decked out in our Steeler best. We did get to meet the owner and talked with him about the Steeler's chances for the upcoming season. It has amazed me as to how many Pennsylvania plates we have seen out here.



Our plans for the last two days are to spend one of them back at the ocean and one at a park flying kites and a village of a lost colony. We will head back for home Sunday morning. We will have to miss a week of worship as the drive will take about 12 hours.



Vacation is great and I have really enjoyed the time off from work. It has been great seeing all of God's creation out here. We truly do serve an awesome God. I am looking forward to getting back home and checking out the garden. I am quite sure that things will have grown alot. Including the weeds that will be waiting for me to pull them out.

Garden update

Well after a weekend of major rain fall, I was sure that some of the seeds we planted had washed out. But to my delight, I have radishes and beets up. The potatoes are doing quite well also. I put in the watermelon, cantaloupe, and beans last night. I plan to finish up with all the plants by this weekend. The weeding in the flower beds is now complete and I will soon add mulch and some new flowers.

In the Garden

I have developed a love for gardening in the past 3 years. When I was a young boy I hated it when I was asked to help in the garden. Tilling, planting, weeding, watering, picking, and so on just did not seem like much fun. Now after many years have gone by, I love to work the soil, till it, sow the seeds, water the plants when needed. I do not even mind the weeding. And in the fall when the harvest is ready, I don't mind picking and digging. We have a rather large garden. I liken the garden to your Christian walk. It is a lot of work but the end reward is worth it. As Christians Christ has chosen us but we must work on walking in faith with Him. In the garden you plant the seeds but you must work to get the harvest.

So far this year I have planted the potatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, squash, spaghetti squash, radishes, and beets. Rain prevented me from this evening's plans to plant watermelon, cantaloupe, and beans. I plan to plant tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, peppers, and pumpkins by the end of the week.

I have also taken on the flower garden this year. I have been working each evening getting the weeds out and ready to add new flowers and lay down mulch. I will attempt to keep you all posted on the progress of both the vegetable and flower gardens.

Being a Real Man

Be a man. You often hear this phrase. Man up, be a man, show some male pride. The list could go on and on. But do we as Christians know what it takes to be a real man? I ask you, what do you think a real man is? I would like to hear what you think. I have my opinions of what a real man is and how he conducts himself.

I believe the first characteristic of a real man is that he fears the Lord God Almighty. Without this fear, he is no man at all. A real man must have this fear and be constantly doing what pleases the Lord. Of course, due to our sinful nature we will never achieve this lofty goal. A real man will pray without ceasing at all times. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Pray for your wife, children, family, friends, and so on.

A real man will place his family's needs ahead of his own. Make sacrifices when and where necessary. As I indicated in my post on loving your wife, help out around the house. Contrary to popular opinion, real men cook, clean, and even do laundry. A real man will make sure his family is spiritually led by reading scripture, praying with, and for them and by making sure they are in church and learning while they are there.

A real man will not be ashamed to let everyone know that Christ is in charge of his life. I once saw a t-shirt that read "Real men love Jesus". I couldn't agree more. This is where it must begin for all men. We must desire to be Christlike in everything we do. I by no means claim to be an expert. I, for one, need all the help from the Lord I can get.

We, as men, must strive to take up our cross for the Lord. This will not be an easy task. As we all know, the world is full of so called "men" that have no real clue what it takes to be a real man.