Fort Fisher

I've been wanting to go camping for a long time. We used to go fairly often in Baltimore but here we've been involved in more activities and haven't made the time to go camping. When a dear friend said they were going, I thought we could do that too! And we did! 

We made a quick trip to Fort Fisher.  The kids and I left first thing Thursday morning. We wanted to go to the aquarium but it was closed. We were a little sad until we made it to the beach! We spent a few hours at fort-fisher-state-recreation area- it's a really nice spot. Free and has showers, picnic tables, a small discovery room perfect for book reading and cooling off :) Our pics aren't in order but we had a great trip! 

Kids were super excited about camping cereal!

Only downside to our trip was kids were so excited to get out to the beach that I got sunburnt! 

Fun to watch crabs! Bikes were also lots of fun!

Lots of great nature books in the discovery room! 

No words needed for this amazing view!

Resting between waves!

I love sand time! 

Our first camping trip with friends! So fun!

Worn out boy! All were sleeping! 

Walking tacos were a big hit! 

We had such a good trip and definitely want to go again! 

LewCrew Christian Academy Metriculation 2019

This year we had s last minute smaller than normal graduation   metriculation since James says it's not a "graduation." Each of our kids shared a song and their favorite Bible verse. I love how their personalities showed especially as they sang and introduced themselves and also in their pics! 

V going into PK Genesis 4:7

KG going into 5th grade Romans 3:23

T going into 7th 1 Tim 4:12

C going into 8th grade, Joshua 1:9

CE going into 1st Gal 5:22

K going into 10th John 3:34

Serving and playing together

We've had an amazing summer of playing, working, and being together. All the ages and stages are fun- it's really neat to see what kids can accomplish now and especially what we can accomplish together. Here's a few pics

For Manna Serve day we went to Rick's Place and helped with a lot of tasks. It was extra fun that super friends went with us!

We celebrated our serve day at Pelicans! 

So blessed to have friends with a pool. Lot so fun there. 

Family wii night was super fun! 

We always enjoy Chick-Fil-A dress like a Cow day!

Pelicans

Watermelon hits the spot after a hot day serving. 

Summer at Manna nights were also fun!

James and I tried a new spot pharaohs village

cookout fun with friends!

Sandy Cove 2019

We were blessed to be able to go to Sandy Cove in 2009 after James returned from Iraq through Operation Oasis. We really enjoyed our trip and felt led to give back to the scholarship fund. but we had not been back to Sandy Cove until last week. I'm so glad we went back. It was such a refreshing time. We really enjoyed the activities, the food, the time as a family, the time as a couple. Just a wonderful blend of time.
The days followed this basic pattern
-James and I read Bible by the beautiful river (thankful for sleeping teens who can stay in room with sleeping kids.)
-brown bag devotion as a family (thankful for Sandy Cove making it easy and fun to do devotions)
-breakfast (thankful for kitchen staff who made delicious food and cleaned up after us :)
-tennis/ mini-golf
-worship time together as family- fun song, worship song, movement song
-adult worship/ teaching time while kids went to Club Cove/ Cross walk where they learned about God and had lots of fun playing games, canoeing, swimming, kayaking, ...
-spaghetti time- where couples had an hour-ish together to talk about lesson, hang-out, rest
-lunch (ditto above thankful for kitchen staff)
-rest/ fun family time- (thankful for so many fun activities- the marina was a family favorite. also pedal cars, archery, the blob, the pool, ...
-dinner (yum!)
-Club Cove or family fun depending on what we felt like
-evening activity- ice cream sundaes, rocket launching and rootbeer floats, reptile show, s'mores and campfire songs)

we loved the speaker Todd Wilson- the Family Man, the beautiful views, worshipping together, having time as a couple, not having to cook or clean ;) , the family devotions, all the fun together!