2014 Camping Trip

We had another simple vacation this year - five days at one of our favorite spots on earth - Little Oak Campground on South Holston Lake near Bristol, Tennessee.  This year there were a few new features to our trip.  The first was that Kevin O'Bryan joined us for a few days - now this isn't totally new since Kevin (and his brother, Chris) have both camped with us before.

Also, Rebecca bought a hammock right before the trip and slept outside several nights.  I really enjoyed sleeping and reading in the hammock, too.  We'll definitely take it with us from now on.

Campfire treats this year included two new additions - roasted Starburst (much better than you think), and these dough boys.  Caleb made the wooden dough boy sticks for us before we left.  We cooked crescent roll dough around them and filled them with chocolate, marshmallow, heath bits, etc.  Delicious!

This year we were also able to coax Jingle onto a tube.  She really does not like the water, but she loves being in the boat with us.

I am conscious every time we take a trip now that my kids are growing up and this might be the last time we are all camping together like this.  Make memories while you can!

The trip was so much fun that the boys decided to commemorate it with tattoos:

Well, the tattoos were temporary, but the pictures last forever!

And, of course, we ended the trip with a flat tire on the interstate because that's the way we roll.

2014 Properties

Terry has worked on three properties this year - one a condo to sell, one a condo to rent, and one a house to sell.  I don't have before and after pics of all of these because some photos are on Terry's phone.  The transformations are pretty incredible, though.

Here are a few pics from the condo we sold:

Here is one from the condo we have rented to three sweet gals.  This one totally went from trash to treasure:

Next is the house that is currently on the market.  This one had been vacant for five years.  The roof was damaged, and over 20 raccoons were living in it when we bought it.  

NCFCA

This year Noah decided to join the Guardians, which is a local speech and debate club that is part of NCFCA (National Christian Forensics and Communication Association).  I never dreamed that it would become such a big part of our school year.  Noah competed in tournaments in Memphis, Cleveland, Asheville and Baton Rouge.  Noah prepared an illustrated oratory on Lego and a humorous interp of The Frog Prince Continued.  He qualified for regionals in both of his speeches, and only missed qualifying for nationals by one spot!  Now he has been bit by the speech and debate bug and is planning on competing this next year in platform speech, interpretive speech, team policy debate and apologetics.

We both had a great time at the tournaments, which were intense 3-day events.  At least one parent must attend with each competitor, and the parents serve as judges along with judges from the community.  Competition begins each day at 7:30 am and ends at about 9:30 pm.  Fortunately, Noah loved getting to know the other members of our team - even getting a best friend in the process!

The kids hang out and relax between speech rounds.  That's one of Noah's favorite parts.

I enjoyed hanging out with other Moms, too, and made some great new friends.  At the regional invitational in Baton Rouge, there was a banquet at a plantation where most of the kids dressed up in period costume.  Not me, however.  Noah informed me that he would find that embarrassing.

If you are interested in watching Noah's speeches, they each take about 10 min.  

Sassy Goose

Terry and I spent 4 days in Brevard, NC in late March to celebrate our anniversary.  Brevard is about an hour from Asheville and an hour from Greenville, SC.  It's an area known for lots of waterfalls.  We stayed in a cabin at the Sassy Goose and were the first renters of the season.  We enjoyed our little cabin and had lots of time for hiking, reading, relaxing and eating out.  Our favorite spot to eat was the Jordan street cafe.  The wraps there were fantastic and would be well worth a return trip!  

Cake and Candles

This past year has been one of many "milepost" birthdays in our family.  Caleb turned 16 last October, then Rebecca turned 21, Nathan turned 18 and Nana turned 75! 

I don't have any photos from Caleb's 16th, and I'm not sure how that happened.  Suffice it to say that he can now drive a car. And for his cake he requested an entire maple-glazed ham. 

Rebecca turned 21 on Feb. 22nd.  We surprised her by inviting Steve and Lisa down from Kentucky to spend the weekend.  For a special gift, we bought her an original edition of  21 Balloons, one of her favorite children's books.  I felt like this book signified the big adventure of life that she is embarking on.  To go along with that, we got her a necklace of a house being pulled by balloons - just like the movie Up.  Terry offered to take her up in a tethered hot-air balloon, but she declined.  

We couldn't get the extended family together for another few weeks, so we had another party then.  We tried these candles that were supposed to have different colored flames:

Then the boys got really goofy with the balloons and totally cracked up the birthday girl:

In fact, I was laughing so hard that the camera shook and the shots are blurry:

Nathan had a milestone birthday in June.  We celebrated with a surprise party at the lake.  One of his soccer buddies has the exact same birthday, and one is just a few days younger.  

We gave Nathan the gift of a trip to Colorado to see his friend, Noah Smith.  They enjoyed hiking and some professional soccer:

Last but not least of the birthday updates, we also celebrated Nana's 75th birthday in June.  All her children and grandchildren were there.  One of the cool things we did was wear birthday hats with photos on them of Nana at the same age of the wearer.  

A birthday is just the first day of another 365-day journey around the sun.  Enjoy the trip!

Five Year Follow-Up

Five years ago this week, we got the news that changed our lives. Terry was laid off after a 22-year career as a mechanical engineer at Eastman Chemical Company. As you can see from this post five years ago, we tried to see this as a gift - a new journey that we were starting. We really had no idea that the journey would be so long or that we would learn so much along the way.

I'm putting these thoughts down to remind myself where we've been and how God has been faithful. I'm also hoping that this post might encourage those who find themselves facing a similar situation. This isn't a subject that I hear people talk about much, though it's certainly not uncommon.

First, we learned that God is our provider. Our checks had always come from Eastman Chemical Company (besides being Terry's employer, they were MY only employer since high school), but God was our provider. We knew this intellectually but not experientially. Even after the job loss, it was still easy to trust our bank account. I think that's why, in our case, He had us go through all our severance and savings AND sell our house before we had direction about what to do next.

We learned that brokenness is the path to true spiritual growth. We knew this intellectually as well, but you can't really "break yourself." It's just something that you submit to. I learned that hearing from God is sometimes a slow process. And it's even harder when two people are trying to sync what they hear. I don't have all the answers here, but I can definitely say that we're better at hearing from God than we were five years ago. I learned that I had made an idol of my nice house. I learned that because even when we got offered an incredible amount of money to sell it, I was NOT wanting to let it go. During that time I felt a lot like the story of David in the Bible when he fasted and prayed for God to spare his son. Then when he heard that the son died, he washed his face and worshipped. In my case, I cried and cried over that house until I heard the Lord say "Enough! Let it go!" And when I did, I had incredible peace. When I signed the papers, it was truly an act of worship.

Terry would say that the most important thing I did during that confusing time was to not force him to figure it out. It meant a lot to him that I was just patient with the process (though I wasn't always patient - honestly, sometimes I was very frustrated). It was a full 3 years after the lay-off before we had a true plan of what we were doing next. I feel like the two practical things that helped me the most were:

(1) COUNTING MY BLESSINGS During this time I read Ann Voskamp's book, One Thousand Gifts. I started a list that kept me grateful during a very painful time that included not only joblessness, selling our house and moving but also the loss of my precious Mom. Now I am grateful about so many things that wouldn't have happened if Terry wouldn't have been laid off 5 years ago. Though it's no slam on my old home and friends, I love Knoxville! My kids have numerous opportunities that they wouldn't have had in Johson City, I love being near Terry's family, and I love that he works for himself now. He loves his job - the flexibility, having a ministry with the guys that work for him, the gratifying feeling of being able to provide work for others, and the finished product he gets to see (renovated houses are easier to appreciate than a project to put in new fume hoods in the R&D building at Eastman, for instance). Most of all, he loves that this kind of work keeps him dependent on the Lord and not himself. And though this is secondary, we count the blessings of money as well. In 2012, Terry made more than he made working for Eastman.

(2) KEEPING A JOURNAL I had always tried to get this started, but something about this situation finally got me to start a steady habit of writing things down! Honestly, this helped me a lot in learning to hear from God. It's also been such an encouragement to look back and review what God has been teaching me.