Rainbow Falls

One of my favorite places in the Smoky Mountains in the famous Rainbow Falls trail. One of the most visited trails in the mountains, the first part of it follows a beautiful cascading falls. You can stop at any time and check-out the water, which we did. Oh, sure...we've never made it all the way to the actual Rainbow Falls at the top of the trail. But sometimes the walk to the top is the best part of the hike.

Below, Little John had a great time hunting for salamanders under rocks. He saw 8 and caught 3. Don't worry: we're catch-and-release people.

Why Every Girl Needs A Daddy

Prepare yourself for the "awwww" factor... During our week in the mountains, I caught several shots of Anna cleaving onto her Daddy. It was quite heart-warming.

The Great Smoky Mountains

Have you ever had one of those vacations where you say, "Boy, I needed that!"? Well, we just finished one. We spent Spring Break week in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where we relaxed in a cabin, hiked in the Great Smoky Mountains, and made some great memories together as a family. I love hitting the mountains with my children: no laundry piled-up waiting for me, and no homework that needs to be done. Just time together to tell stories and laugh and regroup. I'll be posting some videos and pics of our week together over the coming days. Here are a few of my favorite times this week of me and my babies...

CPBC Easter Egg Hunt 2012

Last Sunday, Clough had its annual Easter egg hunt on the church property. Not only is this always a really fun event for our church kids, but it proves to be a big outreach for unchurched children. As usual, we had numerous guest families with us at church Sunday morning for the event. As you watch these videos, watch how unbelievably quickly the elementary-aged kids picked-up all the eggs; and watch how the babies and pre-schoolers try to weave around all the parents and grandparents taking pictures! As an extra laugh, notice that my daughter (blue dress, yellow ribbon in the middle) will ONLY pick-up pink or purple eggs. How girly is that?!

1648 candy/prize-filled eggs. 50+ children.
How can that not be a great memory???

First Snake Bite

See the look of pride on Little John's face? That's because he got his first snakebite today. (I guess you have to be a 7 year old boy to understand why that's so happy.) He found this baby Northern Water Snake in our creek, and proudly held it. In the process, it bit him. Fortunately, the bite didn't hurt, but only tickled John. Nonetheless, if you look at the bottom picture, you'll see on John's right thumb the tell-tale red fang marks where he got bit. Do I hear grandmothers in West Virginia screaming at Tim and me right now???

What are little boys made of?

Snips and snails, and puppy dogs tails.

That's what little boys are made of!

MCA

Sniff, sniff.... My little Anna is now registered for kindergarten in the fall. The only bright spot I have is that if she goes to MCA, her teacher will be Miss Elizabeth Baker, arguably the greatest kindergarten teacher on Earth! I know, because Miss Baker was John's kindergarten teacher. Isn't it great when you see someone in action who is doing a job everyday that they were called to do? Here's a picture of the night we registered.

I love Miss Baker's room...Below is a painted mural that hangs behind Miss Baker's desk. Those are the handprints of all her first-year teaching students, including our little John: bottom green. John was privledged to be one of Miss Baker's first students.

While at school that evening, we also enjoyed the Science Fair, in which both boys participated.

Below is John's report about flowers. He did an experiment where he put carnations in colored water and saw how the petal colors changed to match the food coloring.

Christopher's class did diagrams of the solar system.

Christopher poses, below, with friend Matthew Finley.

Karate Tournament: John

The cuteness factor is off-the-charts as John participated in a karate tournament this weekend, and had to "spar" with the most adorable little girl, who was a twin. Since the kids were so young, the sparring entailed trying to steal the yellow flags from each other's belts.

Easter Pics

Can you smell it in the air??? Easter in only a few weeks away! My favorite time of year, by far. Yes, even better than Christmas! The temperature reached 80 degrees here today in Cincinnati, the sky was blue, and the Easter clothes were hanging in the closet. So I had to do it: wrangled the children up to the Withrow Nature Preserve right after school and did my very favorite thing in the world... took some pictures of my babies.

My eyes about fell out of their sockets when I saw the pictures of Anna Jean on the computer screen when I got home. It's hard to believe that Anna is only four in these shots: she looks like such a grown-up, Southern young lady. (And YES, my children are very Southern, even though we're north of the Ohio River.) Anna loves wearing hats and gloves and pretty dresses, and she LOVES posing for pictures... Heaven help us twelve years from now!

Association Missions Conference

On Saturday night, our association of 50 churches met to celebrate missions. 25 of the churches met at Urbancrest Baptist, while the other 25 met with us at Mt. Orab. It was an absolutely soul-stirring evening! We began with a great dinner, undoubtedly the biggest potluck I'd ever seen: see that large arrangement of flowers on table? That's the halfway point in the table!. The theme of the potluck was "food from around the world." The funniest thing I saw was when someone sent fried chicken and called it from "Kentucky."

We then moved into the sanctuary for the missions portions of the evening. Below, Tim kicks off the service.

One of the highlights for us when we met a missionary from Eastern Asia who spoke to John about his work. (His family's safety does not allow me to write his name or location on this blog. They could not even introduce him by saying his name over the sound system.) John talks all the time about wanting to be a missionary, and has mentioned China. This guy was great: he even taught John how they baptize people in bathtubs there!

Below are Brad and Amanda Perham, who are preparing to be IMB missionaries to Tajikistan starting in the summer. Brandon grew-up at Clough Pike Baptist...

We heard from wonderful retired missionaries to Japan, who spoke of being there after the tsunami. They tell of speaking to a woman whose idols were all washed away in the water, and who cried that she had no more gods to worship. She said she had no one she could believe in now. They told her about a God who doesn't ever wash away, who never leaves.

Below, our keynote speaker was one of the Vice Presidents of NAMB.

My favorite speaker was "Crazy" John Smith, a NAMB missionary to Detroit. He lives in the most violent area of the country, and pastors in a church that cannot pay him a salary. He joked about how he dropped out of high school 27 years ago, and that as a missionary, God brought him back to the very area that he had grown-up in, to start a church in that very high school. He brought us all to tears telling us about how our cooperative giving funds paid for his daughter to have a brain surgery last year that removed 60% of her brain, after she contracted a rare brain disease.

Christopher had his picture taken with a retired missionary from Ecuador. He showed the boys a piece of currency from Ecuador, in which four of those $100 Ecuardor bills = 1 US penny.

Go ARM!!! We love Appalachian Regional Ministry, and we love Bill Barker! Bill Barker spoke at the Urbancrest gathering on the same night. These people work for Bill.

And our favorite missionaries... Pastor Tim and Julie Cline, pastor and wife of Mt. Orab Baptist Church. They spent ten years on the field as missionaries in Africa. One of our biggest bright spots of our time in Ohio.