A Grateful Heart

It's the time of year when people like to take some time to reflect on all that God has blessed them with. I
 would like to share some of the things that I really and truly am thankful for. These are not really in any order just thoughts as they came to mind...

• My husband. He is a wonderful, thoughtful, loving, caring man. I respect him for his hard work to provide for us. I'm thankful that he enjoys spending time with his family, both immediate and extended. I love when he reads The Word to us and when we discuss biblical topics talked about in church, Sunday school, or on the radio. And those are just a few things...
• My daughter. She brings us such joy! I love her many, many smiles! :) Her happy "talking" is so much fun. I love to snuggle with her, and watching her get excited about things is great. It's fun to watch her grow and learn. I'm glad for her happiness and contentment. It's hard to imagine life without her now. 
• Being able to stay at home. I'm so grateful that I don't have to work and that I can be at home with our beautiful Gracie. I'm thankful that me staying home is a priority for Ryan too.
• My Savior. Christ has loved and chosen me. He came to save me and give me eternal life. He has made me right before the perfect Judge. He has given me the Holy Spirit to be working in me and molding me to be more Christ-like. I'm thankful for the greater understanding I have of Christmas, God's deep love for His children, and of salvation since I've had Grace.
• Family. A family who loves God and each other much. Who can laugh and cry together.
• Friends. Who care and are there. Who can rejoice with each other. Who can laugh together and pray for each other. 
• Music, cookies, sunshine, and yummy food.
• Our home. That is cute, small, nice, comfortable, affordable, and close to family. 
• Godly people. Whose thoughts I respect because of the wisdom God has given them. 
• The internet. To keep in touch with family and friends who are far away. 
• Pictures. That bring back happy memories and make me smile. 
• Quiet days at home. Yes, I like to go out and about, but sometimes it's nice to just be quiet at home with no major plans.
• Unexpected, surprise gifts or thoughts. 
• Prayer. That we can ask and thank God. 
• Letters. The old-fashioned, hand-written, snail mail kind. 
• Brown paper packages tied up with string. Okay, they don't normally come that way, but it's fun to find packages on your doorstep.

Not an extensive list, but a few things I'm glad for...

Sunset

Early-mid July, we went on our annual church camping trip. Always a fun time of enjoying good food and friends! Saturday evening we were able to catch a beautiful sunset on a nearby beach. Enjoy God's beautiful creativity...

"My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun." Malachi 1:11

Our First Anniversary - Part 2

The second part of our trip, we spent quite a bit of time at the beach! It was probably one of our favorite parts of the trip. We loved soaking up the warm sun with the wind blowing off the lake...very relaxing! And yes the water was rather cold! Unlike some of the other beaches, this was nice and quiet, even though there were still a decent number of people. Everyone was spread out along the beach. There was a little creek that was very fun for lots of the kids to play in.

Pretty beach :)

Me way out in the water

Sixth months pregnant

We brought our umbrellas to shade us from the sun

There was quite the storm in the middle of the night, which actually got us out of our tent and into the van for a little bit. Everything dried out though, and the day was quite nice.

We also decided to take in a baseball game. We didn't even know this park was there until we drove by it. It caught our eye because of what the stadium looked like. It looked more like a horse racing stadium than a baseball stadium. Anyways, we went on Tuesday night, and had a fun time!

Not the best picture, but that's what it looked like! Fancy...

It was a wonderful trip with some gorgeous views of God's creation! Just what we needed. :)

Our First Anniversary - Part 1

While our first anniversary was actually almost three months ago (where does time go?!), I'm only now getting around to writing about it! The story of life...

We had a lovely anniversary. We didn't actually do a whole lot on our anniversary, since we worked and then had our childbirth class in the evening. We went out to dinner the next day, and enjoyed a wonderful trip to Michigan shortly thereafter! My dear husband got me some very pretty flowers, and we enjoyed eating some of our wedding cake from a year ago! We watched our wedding...fun to remember!

:) Aren't they lovely?

Thanks to Mrs. M for a delicious and beautiful cake!

We headed up to Michigan on Saturday morning. We camped at a nice KOA somewhat near Traverse City. We enjoyed driving and walking through Sleeping Bear Dunes, Traverse City, a more northern part of Michigan, and the surrounding country. It was very pretty! And it was great just to spend time relaxing with just the two of us. 

Scenic overlook and the BLUE water!

At one of the multiple lighthouses we went to.

Our view at lunch on Sunday

Walking in the water

These are sort of two different lakes that are quite shallow. See the lighter edges especially on the right? That's the sand at the bottom!

This was crazy. The sand dunes are INCREDIBLY STEEP! People were climbing down and then back up them. It took people a few hours to get down and up!

Although you can't see it here, someone wrote in giant letters JESUS SAVES.

More northern part of Michigan

Another lighthouse...I like the old one with the house attached much better!

Homemade Macaroni and Cheese

Want a very delicious homemade macaroni and cheese recipe? Here you go! Thanks to my mother-in-law for the recipe! Ryan and I love it, and I made this for guests, and loved it too!

Homemade Macaroni and Cheese


Ingredients (Proportions are for a small casserole dish, I think it's about 9x9 or so. I have made a much larger version by increasing the proportions.)
-Elbow macaroni (about 2 cups)
-Velveeta (1 lb)
-1/2 stick of butter (sliced into small pieces)
-About 1/2 to 3/4 c. milk

What it looks like before it goes in the oven.

Directions:
-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
-Cook the elbow macaroni as the package says to.
-While that is cooking, cut the Velveeta into small cubes or squares.
-Stir the ingredients into the cooked macaroni.
-Put in your casserole dish.
-Cook for 30 minutes until it is brown and bubbling around the edges. (You will want to take it out and stir it half way through so that it cooks evenly. Also, if you are increasing the proportions, you may want to cook it for longer so it is well heated through.)
-Take out, eat, and enjoy!

The delicious end result!

Strawberry Jam

I decided to try making homemade strawberry jam this summer. It was an experiment that ended up turning out DELICIOUSLY! Ryan and I both loved it, and I ended up making a couple batches of strawberry jam and one of blueberry jam (which I gave away, and those people all loved it!). So here's basically how's it done. If you want to try it, just buy Sure Jell (it comes in little yellow boxes, and you can get it at Walmart) and follow the instructions!

You start by cutting up strawberries and putting them in the blender. (If I remember right, I ended up using 1 box of strawberries. Maybe a bit more or less.)

Blend them until they look about like this.

Put the strawberry goodness into a bowl, and pour in the sugar.

Then stir it until it looks about like this, and then I think it's supposed to sit for about 10 minutes.

Then you combine the Sure Jell (1 package) and water, and bring it to a boil.

Then you combine the Sure Jell/water combo with the strawberry/sugary goodness, and stir it.

Then you pour it into freezer safe containers, and let it sit out for 24 hours. Then you can refrigerate it and eat it, or you can freeze it for up to a year (if it lasts that long!!!).

This is delicious, amazing jam! I can't wait until next summer to make a lot more, so we can have it all throughout the year!

Our Honeymoon - Friday and Saturday

Friday morning we packed up our belongings, took some pictures of the cabin, and wrote in the guestbook (or whatever it is called). We drove down the mountain for the last time and headed back through the Smokies to make our way to Deal's Gap, which is the end/beginning of The Dragon. The Dragon is a very twisty, windy road that motorcyclists love to drive on (and cars too). Some motorcycles tip over with all of the turns (sad!). It was fun to go on (in a car, not a motorcycle!), and there were some pretty views.

Writing in the guestbook.

Where we ate lunch.

 

Then we drove to Knoxville, where we stayed Friday night. After much wandering around, we finally ate supper at the Mellow Mushroom (the least sketchy of many restaurants we went by). Then after several attempts, we finally found a real movie theater and watched Cars 2!

Like the decor? It's fitting.

We had talked about coming part way home between Saturday and Sunday, but we decided to just come all the way back. We drove through a crazy, but very short rainstorm in Indiana, but otherwise it was an uneventful trip home. We had turned off the GPS when we got to "familiar territory," but we turned it back on when we were just a few blocks away from our new home, so that we could hear, "Arriving at destination." :) And of course, my wonderful husband carried me over the threshold of our new home.

The End

Well, at least of our honeymoon stories. :)

Our Honeymoon - Thursday's Adventures

Thursday we decided to drive through the Smokey Mountains a bit. We stopped at some of the scenic overlooks and saw some beautiful views of the mountains! I'll put up a couple of the pictures to give you an idea of how pretty it was.

Funny story about one of the overlooks. We asked an older lady to take a picture of us by this sign, and we handed her the camera. She took the camera and started trying to look through the zoom/lense part sticking out the front! (Wouldn't you think she'd know not to look out the front even if it was a digital camera?!) We helped her turn it around, and miraculously, this is the good picture we got!

At one point, we walked up a rather steep path to a scenic overlook that had been built (and which kind of was shaped like a mushroom). On a clear day, one can see quite far out in the Smokies. We couldn't see incredibly far, but it was still fun to get four different views of the mountains.

The path up to the overlook crossed the Appalachian Trail.

Later int he day, we decided we wanted to see some more scenic views, so we headed down a scenic roadway. We then got to one point (a road off the main drive), where there was a gravel road that went off into the woods and a sign that read "Unimproved Gravel Road." We debated whether we should go down this unimproved gravel road or not, and eventually decided to do it. (It made us feel a little bit better that we had seen another car go down it while we were trying to decide.) It was reasonably flat, but gravel and very, very twisty and windy. Ryan's hope was to see some more bears since it was later afternoon/early evening when we were driving. I documented our little adventure with a few videos, which I will not bore you with. 

One view of the road.

We ended up driving on the road for an hour and twenty minutes. Our GPS only told us we were driving through the forest (not that we were even on a road!). We sadly did not see any bears, but only a bunny and a butterfly. Once we got off the unimproved gravel road, we were very glad to see a two lane road with yellow stripes!

We made our way back to the Pigeon Forge area, where we had a nice dinner at Olive Garden (despite our interesting waiter who called us "Lady" and "Man"). We then headed back to the cabin and watched a movie.

Butterfly Toast

Looking for something yummy, easy, and fun to eat with your kiddos? Check out these beautiful, tasty butterflies!

Butterfly Toast

Ingredients:
-Crescent Rolls
-Butter
-Broiler

Directions: Bake crescent rolls. Cut in half. Butter and place in broiler until toasted.

Notes: I'm sure you could do this other ways, such as with a toaster, and not just butter, etc. Use your imagine and have some fun!

*Thank you to my wonderful husband for this idea!