Creation Museum Pictures & Video

The following video is three short clips taken at the Creation Museum.

We hope to go back when we have Wes with us. It was VERY interesting. A great place to visit!

Reading Material

Over the last couple months I've pick up a few books I've wanted to read for awhile. Now if I can only find the time to read!

Here's my list:

I Will Carry You by Angie Smith * currently reading this one & I'm half way through!

5 Conversations You Must Have with Your Daughter by Vicki Courtney

Your Girl by Vicki Courtney

Your Boy by Vicki Courtney

Making Brothers & Sisters Best Friends by Sara, Stephen, & Grace Mally

When You Rise Up by R.C. Sproul Jr.

The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer & Jessie Wise

If you have read one of these books, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts.

Disney Vacation

It's been a BUSY summer of traveling. When we arrived home from Florida I had so much to tell, but not enough time to blog about all our adventures. As you know I wasn't even home long enough to get caught up on laundry and household chores much less blog!

It has taken me a while to sort through pictures and decide how best to blog about our vacation adventures in Florida. After uploading 35+ pictures for one post about Disney I decided a slideshow might be easier, and give you a greater opportunity to share in our memories. I only took 174 photos between our trip to Naples and the trip to Disney in Orlando! Then there was the Disney PhotoPass CD with 74 photos. No wonder this post has been in the making for several weeks!

Anyway, we had an absolute blast at Disney World! After we checked into the Disney Polynesian Resort we took the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom. We strolled down Main Street and headed straight for Cinderella's Castle. Katherine was beaming and Sebastian was too! We continued through the castle and made the decision that the first ride must be 'it's a small world'. We rode in Winni-the-Pooh's honey pot through the Hundred Acre Wood storybook. We helped Buzz defeat the Emperor Zurg on Buzz Lightyear Space Spin Ranger, and visited Jack Sparrow and the Pirates of the Caribbean. We enjoyed some overpriced water and ice cream snacks! We walked through several souvenir shops to visit the air conditioning & attempt to cool off. We walked through Mickey & Minnie's houses and met both of them; however, I hadn't purchased the kids autograph books yet, so we didn't get their autographs at that time.

We stayed for the Electrical Parade that night, and that was where some of our best memories where made! We stood along the extremely crowded main street. Sebastian sat on Wes's shoulders and I was able to get Katherine right up front as the parade started where she could see. Both kids had birthday buttons on as we were celebrating Sebastian's half birthday that day and Katherine's (yes, a little early) on this trip. As Snow White walked by during the parade she wished Katherine happy birthday. Katherine had the biggest smile ever at that moment, and when Tinkerbell rode by Sebastian yelled " Tinkerbell...Tinkerbell... HEY TINK, IS THAT YOU?!?" It was priceless!

Our second day was a little more relaxed. Wes took off to play golf at one of the resort golf courses while the kids and I took the monorail back over to the Magic Kingdom. First stop was to the souvenir shop to buy autograph books! It wasn't long after we left the souvenir shop that we saw Ariel and Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid, so it was a VERY good thing we had our autograph books in hand! Katherine's favorite Disney Princess is Ariel, so she was floating on a cloud at that moment. Sebastian had a special moment with Ariel as she kissed him! Yes, it was another one of those precious & priceless memories! Oh, I almost forgot...per Sebastian.. I'm not supposed to tell that Ariel kissed him...oops! :-)

The kids and I rode on Aladdin's magic carpet and walked through the Swiss Family Robinson's Tree House before we decided it was hot and we'd rather go back to our room and spend a little time swimming in the really cool pool. We swam and played in the water until Wes got back from playing golf, at which time he joined us for a little pool fun.

Later that evening we headed over to Epcot where we rode The Seas with Nemo & Friends & Soarin' before getting autographs from Mickey, Minnie, Daffy Duck, Pluto, & Goofy. By then it was almost mid-night and we were tired. It was time to go to bed!

Day three was spent at Hollywood studio's where we met many more of Katherine & Sebastian's favorite characters. We saw Muppet Vision 3-D & Voyage of The Little Mermaid, rode Toy Story Mania & The Great Movie Ride, as well as enjoyed playing games & eating at Pizza Planet. After leaving Hollywood Studios we headed back to our room to freshen up for a very special dinner. Wes had made us a reservation at the Grand Floridian where we dined at Cinderella's Happily Ever After Dinner at 1900 Park Fare and were greeted by Cinderella, Prince Charming, and Cinderella's step mother & sisters. We finished off the night by watching the fireworks from the beach and swimming in the pool.

As we wrapped up our last day at Disney we went back to the Magic Kingdom and finished with a few rides and shows we missed before. We rode Splash Mountain, Peter Pan's flight, Buzz Lightyear's Space Spin Ranger (again), and saw Mickey's Philharmagic.

We had a wonderful time at Disney World and are looking forward to going back in the future. And now let us share our memories in a 6 minute slide show:

COSI

*Update: Added short video at the end.

Katherine, Sebastian, and I visited the Center of Science & Industry (COSI) in Columbus, Ohio, where we had a fabulous time! The first thing we did after purchasing our tickets was to tour the Titanic exhibit, where I was not allowed to take pictures. Sorry; however, the exhibit was totally awesome! The kids got a little bored during parts of the Titanic exhibit, but I enjoyed every minute. We each received a boarding pass with the name of an actual passenger. Mine and Katherine's boarding pass was from first class passengers while Sebastian's was a second class passenger. By the time we reached the end we didn't look up whether or not we survived, but Katherine and I decided we would look that information up as a school project once we're home.

Once we finished with the Titanic exhibit it was time to hit the Atomic Cafe' for some food. Sebastian and I enjoyed some pizza while Katherine devoured some chicken nuggets. Their dessert of choice was the chocolate pudding topped with whipped cream. I sampled a bite and it was good!

After we had been refueled we did our best to see the rest of the center. Below are just a few of the pictures from the day.

He's going down into a submarine...

Just in case you wondered. And here he is using his superman strength to roll the ball.

The cutest news anchors EVER!!!!!!

Katherine, Sebastian, and a VW bug, What could be better?

Yes, it was a FABULOUS day! Thank you Aunt Elaine for telling us about it!!!!!!

Checking In

The kids and I have been on another little trip. We left Thursday, July 1st, for Wooster, Ohio, to attend the Jentes family reunion, which is held every two years. I drove from Valliant, OK, to Franklin, TN, on Thursday, and then drove onto Wooster, OH, on Friday.

We are currently on our journey home, but we'll be taking our time and visiting a couple museums along the way. We are currently in Columbus, OH, and are planning on stopping by the Center of Science and Industry tomorrow before heading to Petersburg, KY, where we will stop at the Creation Museum.

The kids and I will make it home at some point, but we're really not sure when and aren't in a hurry. We're enjoying ourselves!

Southern Baptist Convention Wrap-Up

(This is going to be a very general wrap-up of what our family enjoyed outside the business of the convention.)

One of my favorite things to do is get to know others in the ministry and their families. This year we had several of our ministry friends staying in the same hotel where we could hang out together. Two of the families had their kids with them and so the kids had hang out time too. It was a wonderful time!

Katherine and Sebastian enjoyed their time at the kids camp provided by the SBC. Every time we picked them up we heard about Dexter, the puppet, and what they learned from Dexter. Katherine & Sebastian had a blast at kid's camp, and I was very thankful to those who made kid's camp possible. What a great thing for the kids and parents too!

We enjoyed our time with friends and having the opportunity to represent Trinity Baptist Church of Valliant, Oklahoma, at the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting.

National Corvette Museum Pictures

This next one was for Uncle Dean & Grandpa Homer!

Katherine's always ready to pose for a picture. I LOVE that girl!


This one is my favorite. He's too cute!

Home

We made it back to our home after being gone for 17 days! We had a blast and I promise to get some pictures and video up this week of our many adventures; however, this quick update & photo will have to do for now.

Thanks for your patience.

Quick Rundown

If you follow me on twitter or facebook then you already know our family is in Orlando, Florida. We began our drive about 10 PM Wednesday, June 9th. We made it all the way to Little Rock, Arkansas, before we stopped to sleep. When we woke Thursday we thought we would drive all the way to our hotel in Muncie, Indiana, but when we called to check on an adding a night to our reservation we discovered all hotels in that area were booked. At that point we decided not to be in a hurry and ended up spending the night in Bowling Green, Kentucky, where the National Corvette Museum just happens to be. And you guessed it, we visited the museum on Friday morning before we started our drive to Anderson/Muncie, Indiana.

Friday night was the rehearsal and dinner, which went really well and was fun. There was a family celebration/party after the dinner, but we opted out and headed back to our hotel. On Saturday the day was filled with getting ready for and enjoying the wedding. All went very smoothly.

We were back on the road after attending part of the dinner reception. We drove out of Muncie, Indiana, at 6:18PM headed to Orlando. Wes drove all night while the kids and I slept. I drove some on Sunday before Wes took over again and drove us into Orlando around 2:30PM.

We met up with some friends at our hotel and went over to the convention center around 6PM. I checked the kids into the kids program where they enjoyed several activities including a HUGE jump house while Wes and I attended part of the evening pastor's conference. Later we enjoyed a nice, but late dinner at Cattlemen's.

Well, that's a run down of what we've done so far. Katherine did take a few pictures at the Corvette Museum and I'll try to get those up later this evening. Currently I must get ready and head over to the convention center, so my kids can enjoy the kids camp activities again. They can't wait!

And so it begins...

Our family is headed to Anderson, Indiana, where we will attend the wedding of Angela Neal to Glen Posthuma. We are excited to see Glen, Wes's cousin, and Angela unite in marriage and spend some time celebrating with family.

After the wedding we will load back into our Ford Expedition and drive to Orlando, Florida, for the Southern Baptist Convention. We are looking forward to arriving in Orlando and spending several days sharing in the business of the convention, while reconnecting with friends who minister all over the country.

On Thursday, June 17th, our family will drive to Naples, Florida, to spend the weekend with Wes's grandparents, Verne & Joanne Kenney. We haven't seen them in 8 years and we're really excited for this opportunity.

As you can see our family will be traveling a LOT over the next two weeks, and we would appreciate your prayers for safe travel and nice vacation. I hope to blog some while we're gone, but if I don't please understand I'll have plenty of fun stories and pictures when I get back.

Why?

(I began this post last week and left it in the editing folder, because I wasn't sure I wanted to share it. After talking with a friend I decided to go ahead and share my thoughts with you.)

*Why do we Christians shy away from praying aloud when in a group?
*Why do we Christians go running to the Lord in prayer when something bad happens, and when all is going fairly well a prayer is never offered?
*Why do we Christians look for feel good sermons or music rather than biblical theology?
* Why don't we Christians pour out our problems to our Heavenly Father instead of our friends?
* Why don't we Christians open our bibles and share from the Word of God when a friend, coworker, or family member begins to share what's happening in their life & wants our advice?
*Why do I blog about spiritual concepts instead of sharing scripture?

Could the answers to several of these questions be:
We Christians (I) do not spend enough time in the Word of God and are still spiritual children or young adults? Yes, I think that's the answer.

Will we (I) be willing to change and begin maturing?
Yes, I desire to be constantly growing. I don't want to be stagnant in my walk with the Lord. I desire to know my Lord and Savior better everyday, and I desire for my family, friends, and strangers to see Christ in my life.

More Saddle Ridge Ranch

Saddle Ridge Ranch

It was a one day vacation bible school on Saturday, June 5th. There were 28 kids and 15 adults who enjoyed a HOT, but fun filled day of Roundin' Up Questions & Drivin' Home Answers on Saddle Ridge Ranch!

Check out some of the highlights...

Still, My Soul Be Still (video)

Tonight the song "Still, My Soul Be Still" by the Getty's is on weighing heavy on my mind.



Still my soul be still
And do not fear
Though winds of change may rage tomorrow
God is at your side
No longer dread
The fires of unexpected sorrow

God You are my God
And I will trust in You and not be shaken
Lord of peace renew
A steadfast spirit with me
To rest in You alone

Still my soul be still
Do not be moved
By lesser lights and fleeting shadows
Hold onto His ways
With shield of faith
Against temptations flaming arrows

Still my soul be still
Do not forsake
The Truth you learned in the beginning
Wait upon the Lord

And hope will rise As stars appear when day is dimming

(My original post from January on this song is here.)

June, Already?

The month of June is always a busy month for our family.
Here is a list of some of the events we have going on this month...

* Vacation Bible School at Trinity Baptist Church of Valliant, OK, on Friday & Saturday June 4-5.

* Wedding of Angela Neal & Glen Posthuma on June 12th in Anderson, Indiana.

* Pastor's Conference & Southern Baptist Convention in Orlando, Florida, June 13th-16th.

*Vacation at Verne Sr. & Joanne Kenney's in Naples, Florida, for several days after the convention.

That list doesn't include all the preparations that must be done before any of those events either. Yes, June is a VERY busy month for our family, but I'm just thankful we have the opportunity to do each one of these things.

Oh, and it looks like we'll be traveling again in July, but that's a whole different post! :-)

Katherine, Sebastian, & Corn Pt. 2

These were taken today. I'd say the corn is growing at a much faster rate, but that's good. I don't want those cute kids growing up ANY faster than they already are.

Backyard Project #3...99% complete

It's all up! There's still a few finishing touches & clean up to do before it's totally complete.





Next up...cleaning up the flower bed & mowing.
Yuck! :-(
Maybe we'll get the pool up first. Hmm; maybe.
Trying to get everything finished before our trips in June.

Backyard Project #3...A work in progress