Baldwin Happenings

Wedding Stuff

2010-12-02T13:57:00.003-05:00

That seems to be monopolizing my time. Who knew there was so much work in planning a wedding? Well I'll update everyone on details and progress I have made on this overwhelming project!
First off Beau and I wanted all of our brothers and sisters to be in the wedding. Our family was very involved in our courtship and we thought they should be involved in the wedding too. That's an explanation for this long list.... ;-p Beau has 6 groomsmen. Josh is the best man, then Zach, Daniel, Micah, Nathan, and Caleb. That's all the brother's except Noah don't worry he's not left out. I have always wanted to have the same number of bridesmaids as there were groomsmen so I have 6 bridesmaids. Bethany is my Maid of Honor, Tonya Williams is my Matron of Honor, then there's Chelsey Anders, Katie LaFollette, Brittany Muse, and last but not least Francie. Then we have 2 bible bearers Noah and my little cousin Carter Ward. I am very close to Carter and his little sisters. They are more like nieces and a nephew than cousins so of course they had to be included. Then comes the little flower girls 5 to be exact. Ruthie, Abby, Emily Ward, Hailey Ward, and Addyson Ward. We love children (coming from a family with as many kids as both of ours have you have to love kids!) and we wanted the ones who are especially close to be included. Then of course we have our 2 ushers. Critter Anders and Eric Hogan mutual friends of both Beau and I. Actually when you think about it all of our attendants are friends with both of us. But on with details.
We are planning to get married in Lynchburg, VA on Saturday, March 26th, 2011 at 2:00 in the afternoon. We also decided that with as many kids as we have in the wedding we should have our pictures done before the wedding. With all the kids the pictures would probably take a long time and hold up the reception and it will be easier to get kids to smile when they are freshly dressed and not tired of being dressed up yet. If that makes any sense. My colors are red and white. White is the accent color. The bridesmaids will have red floor length dresses with 3/4 length sleeves and a white lace overlay over the bodice and sleeves. Sister Melanie is making the dresses for the bridesmaids! She is awesome! I am so thankful for all the help and advice that everyone has offered! it sure is making everything easier and smoother. Sister Tonya Anders is a wonder! She has been right with me the whole time helping to get me organized and on track and just making sure everything runs smoothly. I don't know what I would do without her. The flower girls are going to wear a white tea length dress with a red sash. Sister Melanie is making the sashes out of the material that the bridesmaids dresses are made with so they will match.
Oh yes flowers. I am having red and white roses with baby's breath. Shannon is doing the flowers and that is definitely a blessing. It sure is a blessing to have all these talented people around who just jump in and help with whatever is needed! Shannon is so creative and she knows what to do! Brother Ben Fulton is going to be our photographer. He is awesome with a camera. He has been friends with my family for years. Grayson is going to be our videographer. He does a great job at that. My cousin Vanessa is going to be our caterer. She actually has a catering business in South Carolina. She is Carter, Emily, Hailey, and Addyson's mother. She has the catering business because it's something she can do from home to help bring in some money but she still gets to be with her children. She does a great job. She is also making our cake.
We are having a firefighter themed wedding. Sort of.... We are just having little touches here and there. My colors are red and white, we are going to have a firefighter and bride cake topper, and cut our cake with a little fireman's axe. Beau's helmet will be sitting next to the guest book and we might have toy fire engines sitting around here and there. We are thinking about having a little wagon made up to look like a fire truck pulled up the aisle with the littlest flower girl in it. Little cutesy things that will still look elegant and weddingish without looking kiddish.
I got my flower girl baskets the other day. I got 5 baskets for just over $30! That's good! I looked and looked for flower girl baskets that were what I wanted but didn't cost an arm and a leg but everything seemed ridiculous. I saw flower girl baskets that cost as much as $60-$70 for one! I have 5 flower girls there is no way I can pay that much for a basket they are going to use once! So $30 for 5 was a great deal and they were exactly what I was looking for. I also got a C.R. Gibson wedding memory book. That book is really nice! It has places for you to write everything down and put pictures and it also doubles as a guest book. It even has a place for you to write down all the gifts that people got you and helps you keep track sending Thank You cards. I ordered the fabric for the bridesmaids dresses the other day and got crepe back satin for $3.80 a yd and shipping and handling was free! Yay!
We are still not for certain who is going to preach the wedding. Pappaw wanted to be able to enjoy it so he's not doing it. We talked to Brother Smith about it and he said he would be happy to do it as long as he is in the country. He was going to try and keep his schedule clear but we won't know for sure until sometime this month. Music just doesn't seem to be going to well for us. Everyone I talked to is going to be out of town during the wedding or is uncomfortable playing wedding music. So we are still checking on that. We are currently on the look out for a place to have the reception. The Lynchburg church has a great sanctuary but a crowded fellowship hall. We checked out the cogop's fellowship hall but Dad and Pappaw both say they want too much money. We are currently checking out fire stations. I am supposed to talk to the Captain of one of the Lynchburg stations tonight. My neighbor lady is the district chaplain for the fire and rescue in this area and that includes Lynchburg so she checked around and got a hold of this guy for me and I'm supposed to talk to him tonight. I might even get to look at the place Saturday afternoon.
Our Thanksgiving was great. Beau came and got to meet some of my family that he hadn't met yet. Friday evening my cousin threw a Pampered Chef Bridal Shower for me. That was fun. Pampered Chef stuff is really neat and handy! I had a good time visiting with all my family. I am jealous of Beau though. Vanessa and Jacob's kids love me and always say they can't wait to see me but when Beau comes the kids make a bee-line for him and I have to coax them to come to me! Not fair! lol He is great with kids and I am happy that the kids like him.
I am flying out the 13th of December to FL. The Cox family is having their get together down there this year. Beau wanted me to come so I'm going. Then Beau and one of the guys and I are driving back to VA with his truck and a trailer the 23rd. We are going to be back in time for Christmas and he is going to get all my stuff and take it back. See his class schedule has been changed and he won't have another break until the wedding. So this is the last chance to get my stuff down before the wedding. So from the time I got home from Thanksgiving I have 2 weeks to get all my stuff packed up and ready to go so it will be ready when he brings me home and be completely ready for the Christmas program and have it the day before I leave! This Saturday is the district minister's banquet in Lynchburg. Mom and Dad are going to that but Bethany, Chelsey, and I are meeting up going out for lunch and then going to see a play. We are going to have a lot of fun. Then hopefully Mama, Daddy, Bethany, and I and possibly Sister Tonya and Chelsey are going to go meet the guy I'm calling tonight and look at the place. Anyway please pray that everything works out. Anyway I have spent way to much time writing and I have a myriad of other things that I need to do! So Long for now!

I'm Engaged!

2010-10-14T14:22:00.002-04:00

And have been for a month and a half.... So why have I not posted before now when I obviously have so much to say? Because I have been tremendously busy! So I know everyone wants the story though I'm pretty sure no one actually reads my blog anymore just because how long I take to post. ;-p But at least it posts to my FB when I post here so two for the price of one you know. So lets start at the very beginning, a very good place to start, lol. The Cox family and our family came in to the assembly the Sunday before it started. August 15th. We got there and unloaded the van and car and headed to the KFC to meet the Cox's for supper. We hadn't seen them for a year so we had quite a reunion. Then we all loaded up and headed to the store where we got our groceries for the week. By the time we got back to the apartments and unloaded our groceries it was after midnight. I was tired and ready to go to bed so I started to get ready to have a shower but Dad stopped me he started talking to me and wanted me to stay up so I did. A few moments later Beau came to the door and said he had something he wanted to show me. I went out the door and Bro. Jerry and Sis. Betsy were out there and Mom and Dad came out too. Beau blindfolded me and took me up a huge hill! I couldn't see a thing and I had no idea what was going on! When we finally stopped Beau told me to look up and close my eyes then he took my blindfold off. He told me to open my eyes and there was this huge white cross lit up with a spotlight it was cloudy that night so the light cast a perfect shadow of the cross on the clouds and the stars shone out around the the clouds. It was beautiful. I will never forget it. While I was still looking up at the cross Beau asked me how I liked it. I told him it was beautiful. He said, "Before we bring this little tour to an end I have a question to ask you." At this point I turned to look at him and when I did he was down on one knee and he took my hand and said, "Charity Baldwin will you marry me?" I was speechless for a minute you would think that I should have expected it with the blindfold and everything but I just wasn't expecting it then. I told him yes! We are so happy. We kept our engagement quiet until we had told all of the grandparents. Then we turned the kids loose and told all of our friends. It was all over the assembly pretty quickly. lol We had a great time at the Assembly. The Lord moved in a mighty way! It was so refreshing and just wonderful! Micah was baptized in the Holy Ghost Saturday night late or early Sunday morning either way you want to look at it. Then my cousin Katie that we had been keeping this summer was baptized in the Holy Ghost Sunday morning during the Sunday School program. It was wonderful! We got home late Monday night then left for SC Friday morning. Papa had his 75th birthday so we had a family party for him down in South Carolina. On the way back home Monday we went to a bridal shop in Fort Mill, SC that specializes in modest bridal gowns and modest formal occasion dresses. It's a christian shop not a Mormon one. Now I've got all my stuff for my "attire" except maybe a tiara I haven't decided on that yet. So we got home late Monday night then Friday morning I went to Roanoke and hopped on a plane to FL to surprise Beau for his birthday. He was definitely surprised! We got a couple registries set up while I was there and had an initial phone conference with Sis. Tonya Anders who is helping us plan our wedding. I also found the perfect shoes for the wedding they go perfectly with my dress and veil. Yay! The best part? They were on huge clearance and I got them for $7.00!!!! Hurrah! Got home Friday evening exhausted. The next day was a surprise birthday party for one of my uncles so we went to Richmond for that. Then I've stayed pretty busy between wedding planning and Church stuff. Had our local planning meeting at our church then of course our Regional Minister's Convention. We picked Nate up there and had him for about a week before we headed down to FL for my birthday. I'm 21! I had a great birthday and thanks to everyone who left me a message on my FB wall! Anyway just got back and finally had an opportunity to post so I am! I will hopefully update soon with some of the wedding plans. I have to go now. Our main computer crashed so we only have the macbook now and that makes it hard to be able to use it. Micah needs it for School now so goodbye for now!

Hello Again

2010-02-27T13:06:00.002-05:00

I don't really have too much to blog about. I'm still babysitting James, I have VLB service twice a month, and sewing every Thursday. Right now I am working on a quilt for my hope chest. I am doing a very simple 6 in. square style quilt. I started on a different design and by the time I finished a one foot block decided that I would much prefer doing 4 seams to a foot block instead of 130 seams. I do have one block of that design though. When I was going through fabric scraps and picking out what I wanted I found myself picking out floral patterns. So I guess it will have a floral theme. Anyway, I guess that's enough about a quilt. I ended up only having one VLB service in February due to snow. In keeping with the Valentine's season I did a service on God's Love for us. Speaking of Valentine's day I sent Beau a firefighter belt buckle and a card. Who said you have to give candy? I knew he'd like the belt buckle so I sent him that. He likes it a lot. Josh says he wears it all the time. Yay! I got something he really likes!!! He sent me a box of gourmet chocolates and a sweet card. Let me assure ya'll we have not gone without teasing specifically from our siblings and on my part all the church folks at my local church with my pastors wife leading the pack. Nathan blushed when he read the card I sent Beau and it wasn't even a sappy card! Mom helped me pick it out. James is getting bigger every day. At least it seems like he does. He just turned 6 months old and he is huge! He is so smart. He recognizes people now. I hadn't watched him for a week while they were on vacation with the whole Williams clan and when he came back and I babysat him he was so excited to see me! He almost jumped out of his car seat and when I picked him up he hugged me. The other day he pulled himself up to a sitting position from laying on his back. He is so sweet. Anyway, that's about it for now. I know not to much to tell but then that's why I haven't blogged...

A new post, finally....

2010-02-03T20:23:00.002-05:00

Yeah, yeah I know, way past time for a new post. But seriously I haven't had time! Lame excuse I know... I have been babysitting little James for Tonya and Steele four days a week. Besides the fact that I haven't really felt like blogging. I know I'm bad. Let's see October hmmm..... Oh yes, at Thanksgiving we went down to South Carolina and saw Mama's family. We got in to Papa and Grandma Jane's late Wednesday evening. Thursday we spent with Aunt Kathy, Aunt Kim, Katie, Vanessa, Jacob, Carter, Emily, Hailey, and Addyson. Beau and Zach came in Friday morning. Then we had our official dinner Friday afternoon at Uncle Wendy's with my immediate family plus Beau, Uncle Wendy, Uncle Doug, Aunt Kim, Katie, and Papa. (Grandma Jane had to work that weekend.) After we had dinner and visited for a while, all of us young folks headed to Vanessa and Jacob's house. We played music and games and watched a movie and had a sleep-over. The little girls fell asleep as soon as the movie started but Carter made it through the whole thing. The next morning Mama and Daddy came over and Vanessa and I made breakfast for everyone. It was a morning of mishaps right Ness? lol Everything ended up good. The guys settled down and watched football while we slaved away in the kitchen... After a while Carter and Emily wanted to show us their fort so Beau, Micah, Bethany, Carter, Emily, Hailey, and I went on a hike. We found the fort and the kids climbed around in it for a while then Carter took off in another direction so we all followed him. Bad idea... Carter got us lost! Beau managed to get us back to the house again after about an hour. Very interesting. Especially if you have three year old who decides she needs to use the bathroom but refuses to use it in the bushes because "That's just disgusting" and there's too many germs. She cracks me up! Meanwhile back at the house Mama and Ness were making a birthday cake for Zach. We hung around there and visited all day. Then headed back to Papa and Grandma Jane's to spend the night. Sunday morning we went and saw all our good friends at the Midway church. After church we had a birthday party for Zach with all the young people and Papa and Uncle Doug. That afternoon they were having a singing so we stuck around and enjoyed the music and were drafted to sing two or three songs. No church that night so we headed back to Papa and Grandma Jane's. Then we took Beau next door to meet my cousin Brad and his wife Kayla. The next day was Monday which meant Beau and Zach had to head back to Florida and we had to go home to Virginia. But not before we met Aunt Kathy and Addyson for lunch and then went over to see Aunt Terry and Uncle Ted. Things kept coming up and it was about four before we actually headed out our different ways. We finally got home and got back into our routine and it seemed like Christmas rushed up on us. We got snow the Friday before Christmas and it knocked out our Christmas play. The snow however did stick around until after Christmas so we had our first white Christmas in years. Beau and Zach came in on the 23rd of December. That evening, Mama, Daddy, Pappaw, Mammaw, Beau, and I went on a triple date to Applebee's in Farmville. Then next morning Beau had to head up to Salem to his grandparent's house. He came back Monday for our Baldwin family Christmas. Then he had to head out Tuesday back to his grandparent's again. He came back New Year's Eve and brought Nate with him and stayed through Saturday morning when he had to head back to Florida. We had a good visit. New Year's Eve we had a watch night service at church and Beau and Nate were able to come to that. Oh yes, Christmas presents. In our family all of us kids draw names. In other words we only have to have a Christmas gift for one sibling much cheaper than having to get one for all four. I had Zachary's name and got him the Greater Vision Live at Oaktree DVD. Micah had my name and got me a bunch of dish towels and potholders for my hope chest. All of us kids went together and got Dad a new Large print Thompson Chain Bible with his name engraved on it. We got Mama a couple of stainless steel muffin tins. Mama and Daddy got me a stainless steel spring-form pan and a stainless steel muffin tin pan. Beau got me a really nice scented candle. It is really cute it has a little lamp shade! I got him a casual shirt and a tie to match a dress shirt I had given him for his birthday. I also gave him a framed picture of him and I that he had requested and a wallet size picture of me. (also requested) The first Sunday in January a baby dedication was held at our local church for James. Brother Jimmy and Sister Vicki and all of their kids including Kaylan and Nate and their little one were there as well as Brother and Sister Creech and Sister Vicki's brother and niece. That evening we had our Christmas program. (better late than never...) Since then nothing much has happened except James is getting bigger and learning new things every day! He is rolling over and can sit up with a little support. He is being spoon fed now as well as bottle fed. It's exciting to see him grow. He is sleeping less and playing more and he can recognize some people's faces and voices. He recognizes his Mommy and his Daddy and Mama and Daddy and all of my brother's and Beth and I. He has started giving hugs! He's given his Mommy one and my Mama one and me one. He is so adorable! I know, I know, I need to post pictures of him but I don't have the time tonight. He is roughly five and a half months old and a cutie pie! Well that's about it for now. Congratulations if you made it all the way to the bottom!

The Secret is Out

2009-10-27T17:48:00.002-04:00

Ok well now that my title got everyone's attention... Since the grapevine is still working quite well, not to mention Facebook posts by excited siblings I assume you all already know. But here it is anyway, Beau Cox and I are courting! Now I can just see the curious looks on ya'lls faces already. Courting? What does that mean? How to explain.... In Josh's words,"Definition of courtship:The process of a man's pursuing a lady to attempt to gain her affection,and has matrimony as its goal." That was quoted directly from his Facebook page. In other words my father has given him permission to win my heart with the intention of marrying me. Understand? So now you are saying well how does that differ from dating? Dating focuses on your needs and desires and on having a good time right now. Courtship looks to the future and says is this the person God has for me? Is this God's will for my life? Courtship includes friends and family. Dating has two young people spending large amounts of unsupervised time together. In courtship, however, the young people are supervised by their family and friends which protects them from making mistakes they would regret their whole lives. In dating there is not that safeguard. In courtship you keep your hands to yourself realizing that touching stirs up desires and emotions that you cannot rightly fulfill. With dating there is no such commitment and young people go around doing things that they will regret if they do not marry that person and sometimes regret even if they do marry them, hugging and kissing and hand-holding. Beau and I have both made a commitment to save kissing for marriage. Hand holding should be saved at least until you are engaged and you should have a short engagement. The dating spirit says I like this guy and I want to be with him right now then when you get tired of them you "break up" and go find another one. I personally believe this is one of the major contributors to the divorce and remarriage evil today. Courting encourages the "one man for one woman" principle that God has planned and helps build strong marriages. These are just a few of the differences between dating and courtship. If you have any questions I'll be happy to try and answer them. Or you can find all sorts of info online. Courtship has made quite a comeback among christian homeschooling families. But I'm sure that you guys are more interested in details other than the differences between dating and courtship. Evidently, Beau has liked me and has been praying a lot about me for quite a while. I was completely oblivious. He was my best-friend. I honestly didn't have a clue. Anyway he talked to his parents extensively and told them that he had prayed about me and felt like God was telling him I was the one for him. They prayed about it and made him wait a while. Then in June when we were down there for Beau's graduation and my cousins wedding they talked to my parents. After both sets of parents talked about it they decided to make him wait a while longer. Meanwhile they were all fasting and praying about it. Then Dad told them he felt good about it. He had been restricted to talking to me only once a week. With Dad's permission this restriction was removed but he was still told to wait. Finally, in October a few days after my birthday, after more talk between the parents and talks between my dad and Beau, my parents talked to me. I was surprised! My parents made it clear that they weren't trying to force me into it the decision was mine and there was no pressure. I didn't need pressure or encouragement I said, yes! You see I had asked the Lord to put me to sleep until it was His time. Around Thanksgiving time last year I discovered that I liked Beau. (Thanks Jacob!) I didn't like that at all!!! I prayed and prayed about it. "Lord I don't like having these feelings, puh-lease puh-lease take them away!!!!" That didn't help any. Then it was, "Lord I want to be in your will so if this isn't the guy you have for me then please help me out here!" I wanted God's will and wanted to do the right thing. I didn't want to lose Beau's friendship. So I just spent a lot of time praying and fasting for God's will and anytime you saw me on my face since then that's probably what I was praying about. So when Mama and Daddy talked to me I said yes! And God is so good to us! Isn't He? I love God so much! Not just because of Beau either! So that's been more than two weeks ago. At Thanksgiving this year we are going down to South Carolina to my Papa and Grandma Jane's house. Beau is going to his Mom's parent's for one day then Friday he's coming to my grandparent's house and staying till Monday! Mama told Papa that we're all going courting and he laughed. Anyway that's my secret that's out. See I told you you'd probably already heard about it. I mean that was one of the major topics people talked to me about this weekend. This was also an explanation for any of ya'll who have seen the relationship status change on Facebook. That's about it. I am expecting comments!

A short one

2009-10-14T11:33:00.002-04:00

I'm blogging again... Well there's not really much to say. I've been pretty busy. I got my Driver's License finally. Mom and I had our Birthdays. I turned twenty. Bethany woke me up about six to say, "Happy Birthday Old Lady." The nerve! To wake someone up when they have permission to sleep in only to call them "old Lady" is awful mean. Lol Bethany likes to tease me about my age. She told me I'd never be young again. She even told me I was going to be an old maid. I'm only twenty! Mom didn't get married till she was thirty so I definitely am not an old maid! We had our Minister's Convention at the end of September. It was really good. The Lord moved and we were all blessed. I was still feeling pretty nasty then but I got prayed for at the Convention and felt a lot better. That stuff hangs on for a long time. We found out afterwards that we had all the symptoms of the Swine Flu. We didn't go to the doctor so it wasn't documented but according to all of our symptoms that's what it was. We are all a lot better now, thank the Lord. I missed a couple of church services because of it though. Before this stuff hit me I couldn't remember the last time I missed Church because I was sick. We love having Brother and Sister Anders in Farmville. Brother Anders is a good preacher and Sister Anders is really sweet. We love them both bunches. We are having a youth revival this weekend with Bro. Tim and Sis. Shannon Cox. Be in prayer for us that the Lord will bless us. I did something to my back this morning. Pinched a nerve or something. It's painful so everybody please pray for me! Ok I have to run. Goodbye!

I'm Back!!!

2009-09-17T14:29:00.002-04:00

Ok I was given a not too subtle hint at the Assembly about needing to blog again so here I go. My summer was extremely busy. Camp was great. The Lord did a wonderful work in the young people. Sister Kim Taylor was our evangelist and she brought Josh Yohe, Chelsei Henderson, and Morgan and Chandler Fox along as a ministry team with her. Everything came together for the gleaner class. Johnna did an awesome job as the teacher and the kids seemed to genuinely enjoy the things I got together to supplement the lessons with. It seemed so strange this year. All of the kids I'd grown up going to camp with were all either working camp or unable to be there because of a job. I guess we are all growing up. I'm starting to feel old. Not really old just I remember thinking people my age were old when I was little. I'm going to be 20. Twenty!!! I used to think life ended when you turned 20 now I'm pretty sure it doesn't but I can't believe how fast life flies by. I came home from camp and by the end of the next week I headed down to South Carolina. I helped Vanessa and Jacob out with their 4 kids for about 2-3 weeks. They were cleaning some apartments in Clemson. It was the turn around season when the apartments are all cleaned and painted and any problems taken care of. So I took care of Carter(8), Emily(5), Hailey(3), and Addyson(8 months). This was basically from the time they left early early in the morning till whenever they came in that night usually around 1-2 in the morning. I learned how to handle a baby and catch a nap and get work done while the baby slept. It didn't take long to figure out that's the only way anything gets done when there's a baby in the house. I did most of the straightening up after I got all the kids down for the night. Although I will freely admit that I was not able to keep the house nearly as clean as I did last November before Addyson was born! It's unbelievable how much a baby changes things. Well I came back home and was there a couple weeks then came Assembly. Beau was unable to come this year because of Fire School. That was really strange. We really missed him a lot. I was very busy this year during the assembly. Sister Wantulock asked us to be in charge of the ushering for Children's assembly again and she also asked our family to do a message for Children's Assembly one day. So that took up every afternoon session and the morning session the day we had to do the message. Then I was Registrar this year and was on duty two other morning sessions this Assembly. Lunch breaks are always busy between choir practice and workers meetings for Children's Assembly and the Mission Luncheon. Then to top it all off dad and Zach were sick. Then the Cox's got sick and Micah, Bethany, and I started coming down with whatever Josh had. So dad and Josh didn't make it to the assembly several sessions. Then we all skipped Saturday morning session and slept in because we were all so worn out. Then the choir had to sing Friday night and Saturday night. Friday night Brother Brad drafted us to help with the baptismal service. Bethany, Micah, and I provided reverent music behind the stage where everyone who was getting baptized had to wait at. Zach and Daniel cleaned up all the water and Mom and Dad helped people in and out of the baptistery. Then we had to sing on the preliminary music program one morning and Brother Horton asked Mom to lead song service one night and she asked him if she could get me to help her and he told her yes. So then the first night(no pressure there) Mom, Bethany, and I ended up leading song service. Oh yeah I forgot that Bethany, Sissy Muse, Esther Orellana, and I were all in the Parade of Nations this year too. Then Mom's friend Dodie who she was roommates with years ago before she married Dad was able to come this year and stayed with us. Or rather she shared a room with Esther and her mother who stayed at the same hotel as the Cox's the Muses', and us. There was a boys room and Micah stayed there every night with the Cox boys. The Assembly was pretty good I guess but I didn't feel that great and was kind of out of it. I did enjoy all the Cox and Muse kids. I will enjoy listening to all the messages again now that I can enjoy them. I am still not feeling that great. I have been running a fever and generally feeling pretty yucky ever since I got home. I'm feeling a lot better but I still feel pretty yucky. I'm congested and that always makes you feel pretty nasty. I think my fever has broken though so that's good. Zach went home with the Cox's he got a job with Brother Deel and will be staying down there at least through December. Anyway I think that's about it for now. Is that okay Sister Tammy... Whoops I shouldn't have given you away ;-p Love ya!

Florida and Convention

2009-06-30T15:00:00.009-04:00

Nate, Micah, and Lil' Aaron
Beau with Micah in the firemans hold
Elijah and Abby
Beau playing with Briana Kay
Jordo, Francie, Nate, Brittany, and Bethany at Washington Oaks
Me and Briana Kay
Giddy
Nate and I playing Skip-Bo
Beau and Daddy tickling each other
Mom, Dad, Beau, and I playing Skip-Bo
Lil' Aaron and Briana Kay
Bethany, Francie, and Brittany at the Muses house
Joshy and Abby sleeping
Beau and Abby at the firestation
Francie at the beach
Beau and Francie
Daniel with our favorite fire fighter
Beau and me
Abby and Caleb
Ruthie and Beau
Noah and Beau
Beau in his firefighter gear with Nate
Zach, Josh, Beau, and I at the graduation
Zach and Beau
Sister Betsy and Brother Jerry
Dad and Mom
Beau and Abby at the beach

Francie, Ruthie, and I at the beach
some of the kids at the beach
Beau in his cap and gown
Well I think the pics do most of the talking for Florida. We had a great time. We went to the beach four times. We go swimming in our clothes at a real deserted beach. It's tons of fun. The first weekend was Beau's graduation and they wanted Zach to participate too. The first week Beau and I spent a lot of time working on a slideshow for his graduation. It takes a lot of time. Beau took a lot of time off work while we were there he only worked a couple of days. The second week we were in Church every night until Friday. Monday we went up and saw Sister Browning and had a home service with her. Then Tuesday we went down and saw Brother and Sister Roberts. We went to the beach on our way home. Then Wednesday of course was nursing home service and church. That weekend was my cousins wedding down in Miami. We went down and saw the Muses on Thursday and stayed for their church service. Then the Cox's and our boys and Lil' Aaron headed back to Palatka and Mom, Dad, Beth, and I spent the night at the Muses house. Friday morning we headed down to Miami in time for the wedding Friday night. Saturday we headed back to Palatka. We got home in time for Beth and I to get our stuff together and go to the beach again. Beau had gone to St. Augustine to take his Agility test for fire school. He passed with flying colors. They made him a squad leader!!! He got back just as we were pulling out so he grabbed a change of clothes and jumped in too. We had a great time. Monday we went to the beach again this time the Muses met us there and Sister Deel rode along. Unfortunately Danielle was not back from her sisters house yet. That night Sister Deel came over when Cathy and Danielle got in so we finally got to meet Cathy. She is beyond crazy!!!! We played our favorite "lying" game, Balderdash! It was hilarious. I'll never forget Gazump.... Anyway Tuesday we headed home to Virginia. We finally arrived early Wednesday morning. Then we rushed around and got ready for Regional Convention which started Friday. The convention was really good. The Lord really moved and worked. Pappaw officially retired from pastoring this year at the convention. He will be 81 in a couple months and he just can't physically do it anymore. Brother Jerry Anders was appointed as our new pastor yay!! I'm glad we get Brother Anders. I love him and Sister Anders so much they are really sweet. When Farmville came into The Church of God from the former organization Brother Anders is the one who took us all in. Anyway Eric Hogan was appointed as the regional BTI booster and Brother Tony was appointed as regional Evangelism coordinator. There were quite a few changes this year but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. Oh Brother Harvey and Sister Cindy Anders are moving to TN to pastor a church down there. :-( I wish those TN people would stop stealing our preachers! ;-p Anyway camp is coming up next. In 9 days as Bethany says. I've got to get ready... Anyway that's it for now. Hope the number of pics hide a multitude of sins as far as how long it's been since I last blogged... ;-p LOL Bye!

It's Me Again

2009-05-16T13:58:00.002-04:00

Hey Everyone I'm posting again! I know, I know but the only thing I've really been able to do lately is check my e-mail and my facebook. No I'm not a traitor. I do like blogs better than Facebook but on Facebook you can quickly see what everyone is doing. The reason I haven't been able to get on here lately is because we've been working on stuff for Zach's graduation on the computer. On the rare occasion the computer is free, there are 4 people in front of me. When I do get on I only have time to check e-mail because 4 other people are clamoring for me to get off so they can get on... Last week I took the GED test and passed it with flying colors. Thank the Lord for that. I was really nervous. According to my test results I scored in the top 1 percent of highschool graduates. Yahoo! Mammaw and Pappaw had their 60th wedding anniversary last week. We surprised Mammaw at Applebees. Everyone went and snuck up on her and surprised her. She didn't know we were all coming she thought it was just her and Pappaw. She was very happy. We safely got home from our second wedding of the year. I helped my cousin with the last minute catering stuff and the set up and tear down it was a lot of work!! It was fun too. You don't realize how much work goes into a reception until you're involved in doing one. Today was the Crewe homecoming. Beth, Eliza, Daniel, Grace, and I went and looked atall the booths and the soapbox derby and all that good stuff. We ate lunch down there too. It is really warm today so now we are all worn out. I know I'm boring and rambling today I'm just tired and my brain doesn't want to think. It's so warm all you really feel like doing is taking a nap. Zach's graduation is May 30th. He is going to be participating with the Central Virginia Homeschoolers graduation. Katlin Horton is also participating. All the invitations will be sent out by Tuesday hopefully. We are waiting on his senior pics to get back from the lab. We are heading down to Florida the 8th of June. Yay!! We get to visit with the Cox's!!!! My cousin is getting married in Miami the following weekend so we'll leave Palatka Thursday to be in time for the wedding Friday then head back to Palatka Saturday. The head home for VA sometime the following week to be home in time for Regional Convention Friday, Saturday, and Sunday! We are going to be busy! Then we have camp and another wedding! Just thinking about it makes me tired. Did I mention that I'm going to be the assistant teacher for the gleaner class at camp this year? And that North carolina and Va are combining our camps this year? We are going to have LOTS of people. Who knows I might end up with an assistant just to help keep order in class! Anyway we are all excited about everything that is going to happen. Anyway that's for now...I'm not in a writing mood...

The Lynchburg Lock-in

2009-04-11T18:18:00.002-04:00

I know it's been quite some time since I last blogged but I honestly have been busy. Even though I finished what I needed to finish to officially graduate last year, because we put our own course together instead of using a state accredited course, the state doesn't recognize me as a high school graduate. So mom and dad decide that I should take my GED. I have been studying for that just about every free moment. I was actually worried about it because I read somewhere that a test was done and 70% of high school graduates who had just graduated were unable to pass the GED test. So naturally I was worried. Zach and I took the practice test Thursday. A perfect score is 800 on the GED. A passing score is 410. Most people want to get a 510. On our predictor test Zach and I both scored high 600's low 700's. The teacher told us, "you guys did really really good." I got a perfect score on my reading section and 750 or 780 on my math. I even scraped by respectably in science, my nemesis. The lady who helps people prepare for the GED told us, "Colleges are starting to take people who scored high on the GED over high school graduates because it's harder to pass the GED than it is to complete high school." I'm just glad I passed the predictor test. It supposedly is just like the GED. Basically they say the score you make on the predictor test is the score you will make on the GED. I prayed a lot during that test. I hate tests and tend to get really nervous and sometimes panic when I can't figure something out. Thank the Lord he helped me and reminded me of things that mom had taught me in school. Anyway, yesterday evening was the Lynchburg Lock-in. We went again this year. We had fun. Some people who are normally really reserved can be hilarious when they haven't slept all night. So we had a blast. Exhaustion and caffeine make for great times. Try playing catch phrase at 6 in the morning when no one has slept all night... I slept for about 5 hours this mid-morning to early afternoon and feel pretty good now. Oh, I don't know how I did it but I beat Dad, Sister Lorrie, and Bethany at Scrabble! I even scored an expert score! It was the way tiles played out. I got 44 points one play by laying one tile! It was funny. Well I guess that's about it for now. so untill next time. Audios

Four Things

2009-03-26T19:02:00.002-04:00

Four Things ....Share

FOUR THINGS:
This one is a bit different from the rest. Here are four things about me that you may or may not know, in no particular order... Some directions are at the end.

Four names that people call me:
1. Charity
2. Carrots (Josh)
3. Aunt Charity (Carter, Emmy, and Hailey)
4. Chair

Four jobs I have had:
1. Baby Sitter
2. House Cleaner
3. VLB Leader
4. Children's Ministry worker

Four movies I would watch more than once:
1. Princess Bride
2. Facing the Giants
3. The Last Sin Eater
4. Fireproof

Four places I have lived: (Since I've only lived in Crewe, 4 places I have stayed for a time)
1. Crewe, VA
2. Palatka, FL
3. Walhalla, SC
4. Collingwood, Ontario, Canada

Four places I have been:
1. Canada (Alberta, Ontario, and Saskatchewan)
2. Tokyo, Japan
3. Malaysia
4. Singapore

Four people who e-mail me regularly:
1. Ashley Stamey (member at Midway SC)
2. Danielle Deel
3. Shannon Cox
4. Vanessa Ward (my cousin)

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Chicken enchilada casserole
2. Fajitas
3. Cabbage
4. Potato salad (I like pretty much anything)

Four places I'd rather be right now:
1. With all my family and friends happy and healthy in Heaven
2. Florida
3. hanging out with my friends
4. Church

Four friends I think will respond:
1. ???
2. ???
3. ???
4. ???

Four things I am looking forward to this year:
1. Going to FL
2. youth convention
3. state convention
4. youth camp

Four TV shows that I watch:
1. I don't watch TV shows they have now I like old ones
2.
3.
4.

RETURN DIRECTIONS:
Now, here's what you're supposed to do... if you want to.
Copy and paste this into a new note.
Erase my answers and type in your answers.

The theory is that you will learn a lot of little known facts about those who know you

Nothing to Blog

2009-03-20T20:04:00.002-04:00

Yep that's pretty much it. I have nothing to blog about. We have no little kids to inspire hilarious stories, no remodeling to report on, and no Church events to tell of. Basically school and work has been the norm. Dad's been sick. Oh Bethany and Daniel had their birthdays. Bethany's was last Sunday and all the church kids were supposed to come over to our house for a little party. For the first time I can ever remember not a single kid was at church Sunday. They were all sick!!! That is something at our church. Never before have they all been sick or gone at the same time. So Bethany just had adults at her birthday. Dad spent all day Sunday in bed sick. He was running a high fever. He was miserable. You could tell he was because when Pappaw teased him about missing church he didn't even crack a smile. Wednesday was VLB service. I've been doing one service a month and getting one of my young people to do the other one each month. It has helped them get over their "stage fright" to a certain extent. They can basically do whatever type of service they want but they have to pass everything by me before they do it. Of course only the ones who are spiritually ready to do that are asked. They have been doing a great job. Bethany did it this week. She did a short devotional and then we had a game night. We hadn't done that in quite a while and everyone seemed to enjoy it. We did a sword drill and a Bible trivia game. The Wednesday before I had done a youth service on Missions. Each one of the young people had to give a reason missions was important to them and then I spoke on "Why the Mission work is important to the VLB work. Then Sis. Gayle did a talk on "why every VLB should work for missions" and then Mom did a talk on "Why VLB's are important to the Mission work." Let me tell ya'll something my mother is not a preacher but she was sure preaching that night! It was great. Everything went together so well. I had been praying about what to do for the VLB service and I felt like the Lord was telling me Missions. Focus on Missions. Then I started thinking about how the VLB work is really just an extension of the mission work at the most basic level. And then 3 topics came to mind and then later that day our Evening Light came. As I read the Evening Light it confirmed the Mission idea. Brother Smith's message was incorporated into the service and the Lord blessed us. I was so glad i followed God's leading instead of doing hat I originally planned! God is so good to us isn't He? This week I've been doing some spring cleaning up in my room. Having a younger sister who's idea of clean is not as high as yours can be quite ttrying sometimes. This time it wasn't really messy it just needed some deep cleaning. Our closet needed some work. The clothes needed to be reorganized so I got that done. Finally late this afternoon I was able to breathe a sigh of relief and smile at my organized and neat closet. Then I made grilled chicken, salad, baked potatoes, and peas for supper. Well that's it maybe I can get Mom or dad or someone who's not watching the NCAA tournament to play Skip-Bo or Rummikub. ;-p

We've got Snow!!!

2009-03-05T15:03:00.003-05:00

Yes that's right Snow! Yay! 11 inches to be exact! 11 inches of perfect packing snow dumped right in our front yard and backyard and sideyard and street and on top of our car and well you get the picture... :-) It all started with an ice storm Saturday night. Which made it practically impossible to have church Sunday morning. So we had sunday school at home. It was mom's week to teach the adult class so we got the full blown completely studied out lesson. She took advantage of the fact that she didn't have a time limit too... Oh while I'm thinking about it, Mom, (my Mom!) told me to get a Facebook. How strange is that? This is even more so. She woke me up at 7:00 on a Sunday morning not to get ready for church but because she wanted me to check my Facebook! Wow! Ok so she had a perfectly good reason for doing it but I wanted the whole wow effect going. Actually my second cousin has a ministry with some soldiers in Iraq and she's got pics and testiminies on her Facebook. There's a catch the only way to see the stuff is to have a facebook and to be on her friends list. So that's the reason. She wanted to use a story in Sunday school class. Anyway Sunday afternoon it started snowing. Huge flakes coming down really fast and it snowed like that for hours. Until that night. We had a break in the snow coming down for maybe an hour or two then it started up again and snowed straight through Monday afternoon at which time it stopped and the sun came out. I woke up with a headache and sore throat Monday morning but if you think that stopped me from going out and spending the whole day playing in the snow like a little kid you are absolutely wrong. We played fox and geese for a long time. (Bethany, Micah, two of the neighbor girls we've been friends with for years, and I) Then we went to Grace and Eliza's (the said neighbor girls) and got warmed up with some hot chocolate and chicken and dumplings. Their mom loves having her kids bring friends home. Then we played bowling on their Wii and headed out for more fun in the snow. We played more Fox and Geese then broke out a sledding path. We slid down the hill for a long time then started a snowball fight. Bethany and Eliza VS. Grace and I. Naturally when you have an 18 and 19 year old taking on two 12 almost 13 year olds the 18 and 19 year old are going to win... I finally headed home after we whipped Eliza and Bethany they didn't take the loss to well. Well I guess I really shouldn't have knocked their snow wall down but they were throwing snow at my camera... Anyway we had fun. The only thing that got cold was my hands. My gloves got soaking wet from making snowballs... Otherwise I was completely warm. What with two long sleeve shirts, one sweatshirt, my heavy coat, two pairs of sweatpants, under a heavy skirt, three pairs of socks and snow boots, not to forget a hat and the hood of my coat plus my gloves I stayed really warm. Once I got back inside I discovered I had a terrible headache, a sore throat, sinus problems, and a low grade fever. So I started pouring in the vitamin C. However, I'm just now finally getting rid of the sicky feeling. Tuesday I had an eye appointment. Now I don't know if any of you have ever been to the eye doctor when you aren't feeling good but it is absolute misery. You go in and sit down in the chair. The optometrist pulls out a flashlight and you are thinking oh no he's going to shine that light in my eyes I've already got a splitting headache and now this but it gets worse. Not only does he shine the light in your eyes he gets right in your face to do it. Now I don't like it when people get in my face and when I'm sick I absolutely hate it. Now some people would go ahead and breathe in this guys face giving him all the germs they currently have in their sick body but not me. It doesn't matter that I just brushed my teeth my eye doctor is a nice old man and I really don't want to make him sick so I do the only logical thing I hold my breath. Piece of cake right? Wrong. He took a really long time. Do you know what it's like to sit in a chair with this nice old man in your face shining a bright light into your eyes when you are sick and you're holding your breath till your face turns blue? It's torture absolute complete torture! And then he says now I'm going to look in your other eye. And you have to go through the same process all over again. Aagh! Then he pulls out the machine thingy that goes on your face and starts flipping lenses in front of your eyes and saying this one or this one. When you have a bad headache your eyes take longer to focus. So he flips them back and forth and your poor sick eyes are struggling to keep up. By the time you are finished your headache is 10 times worse than it was to start with. Are you laughing yet. The entire experience was true but told in a way designed to make you laugh. I even find it amusing now that I'm feeling better. ;-) We didn't have church yesterday because our parking lot is completely covered in snow and ice not to mention it is impossible to get into the parking lot with a vehicle as the sno plows went through and the opening to the parking lot is completely stopped with a cork of snow. Anybody want to fight two feet of snow? Neither did our church folks... The majority of which are older people who have trouble falling even when the ground is dry and flat. So mom and dad and I went to Richmond and got our prescriptions filled at Sears they were having a big sale on eyeglasses. So I should have my new glasses in 10-12 days. Yay! Anyway I got to go get supper ready. I'm going to make Chicken Fajitas.

Pictures from Tim & Shannon's Wedding

2009-02-27T19:18:00.003-05:00

I'll let the pictures do the talking for this post. Sis. Becki here's the pictures you asked for. These are the best ones Zach got.

South Carolina, Wedding, Valentines Dinner

2009-02-20T13:00:00.000-05:00

That is what my life has consisted of the last little while. We had a good visit with our family in South Carolina. Micah and I rode about 20-30 miles in the back of my uncle's truck the Saturday we were down. It was great we were in the mountains and he would go real fast and take the curves fast he gave us a real fun ride. Saturday night we all went to Uncle Wendy's for supper. Papa, Aunt Kim, Katie, Mom, Beth, Micah, Aunt Kathy, Vanessa, Jacob, Carter, Emily, Hailey, Addyson, Uncle Doug, and I. We went to church at Midway that Sunday. It was good to see everyone again. I now have people that claim me at three different churches. Farmville, VA (my home church), Palatka, FL (the Cox's church), and Midway, SC. After church Sunday morning we went over to my Great-Aunt Boot's house and cooked Mexican for lunch. We cooked Mexican food for supper Saturday night too. We eat Mexican a lot in my mom's family. Aunt Kim and Katie, and Aunt Terry and Rhonda and Uncle Doug were there also. We had a good time visiting and playing games together. We left for home Monday morning and stopped by Hamricks on the way home. Bethany and I desperately needed some clothes. I found two nice dress outfits for less than $50! I was happy! I got clearance things and one sweater that was regular price. One was a real pretty lavender skirt and jacket I got a sweater to go with it. The other was a blue green sweater and a matching skirt. I'm getting to be pretty good at finding deals at least for someone who doesn't really like shopping. (If I do say so myself) ;-p Anyway we got home safely and the guys were very happy to see us... (Obviously they were ready for something decent to eat after Zach's cooking) Really though we had things for them to eat while we were gone and Zach is a pretty decent cook. Wednesday was VLB service. Friday we had music lessons and did our house cleaning. Saturday e headed out bright and early for Tim and Shannon's wedding in Roanoke. We got there and got to visit with church folks for a little while before the wedding. Beau slipped out of the back where all the family was and we got to visit a little bit. Ruthie came in and insisted on sitting with me during the wedding. So I ended up with Ruthie on my lap the entire ceremony. I didn't mind one bit. I miss those kids like crazy. The wedding was neat. Francie was the perfect flower girl. Shannon and Bro. Billy Cox came into this song called "I loved her first" it was very sweet and sentimental and made my Dad decide I can never get married. I just reminded him if he wants grandkids he'd better let me get married and that changed his mind. Tim wrote a poem for Shannon and read it. It was mushy and had funny Tim humor in it. After they said their vows they took the church covenant as a couple. Then when they introduced them as "Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Cox" and they came down the steps this music came on. It said, "WEEEEEEEELLLLLLL" and they came down the steps then it said "You make me want to Shout" and they took off running down the aisle and into the foyer. It was great. Everybody liked that. Then we all headed over to the firehouse for the reception. The family came in after a they took pictures. Then we were swarmed with Cox kids and loved it. Abby was sure happy to see me. I was glad to see all of them. After the guys ate. Beau, Josh, Zach, Daniel, Critter, Eric, and Levi went out and trashed Shannon's car. Tim was smart. He left his truck which is what they took on their honeymoon out of the way. So when Bro. Billy and Sis. Deborah Cox and Eric went home Eric had to clean up the mess. They messed it up really good. Nate and Micah headed out there after a while. After a while of visiting Shannon threw her bouquet and Tim threw the garter. It was funny. All the girls went out there and out of everyone out there Bethany caught the bouquet. It was funny. Tim said, "Oh no Bethany caught it" and dad said, "Throw it back Bethany throw it back!" Then Tim threw the garter and that was hilarious. Dustin Washburn stayed up on the balcony where Tim and Shannon were because he didn't want to take any chances. Grayson went right down in front and stood there. Mike Weigand was trotting out there and Lorri stopped him. Then the cavalry came in Zach, Daniel, Beau, and Josh. That's when the fun started. Zach, Daniel, and Josh moved to the back and just stood there. Beau went and stood next to Grayson and acted totally disinterested. Then Tim threw the garter and Grayson leaped for it. Then Beau reached his hand up and caught it. Grayson insists that Beau stole it from him and mom says if you were watching it looked like Grayson caught it. Beau says he was just reacting to something being thrown at his head and grabbing it out of the air. I personally had a front row seat and Beau didn't take it from Grayson in my opinion. But enough about that. Next everyone went outside and waited for Tim and Shannon to come out. Tim stood in front of the window while he was waiting for Shannon and Dustin took a bag of the birdseed and threw it at him and hit him on the shoulder. We were on the ground and Tim was on the second floor. All I'm going to say is that boy has good aim! Anyway they finally came out and we threw birdseed all over them. Then Dalton Cox and Noah and Caleb started a birdseed war. I was just standing there minding my own business talking to Beau and Josh and those little stinkers ambushed me! I had birdseed ground into my hair and in my clothes and it wasn't even my wedding! Anyway we ended up standing in the parking lot visiting for quite a while. It's funny the first time we met them (other than dad and Bro. Jerry of course they already knew each other) was in a Shoney's in Chattanooga and we really visited with them in the parking lot. We have been good friends with them for 5 years and we still can't get away from parking lots. Maybe it's because we always say goodbye in parking lots... Anyway Sunday the gleaners had a Valentine Spaghetti dinner. We were raising money to send the gleaners to camp this year. Tonya, Steele, Sis. Gayle, TJ, and I worked in the kitchen and got everything done before hand. Steele and Tonya and I have decided that people who think church kids never have any fun are delusional. We have fun all the time. Just get a group of us together and we'll teach you what fun is! We even have fun when we're working! Dawn and John were able to be there Sunday so after we finished up and got everything straight they came over to our house and visited for a while. Anyway we had fun. Wednesday was VLB service. I've been working on getting the young people to take turns doing one service a month. I do the first one and then they take turns doing the second one. Zach did it this Wednesday. So I got to sit next to my "boyfriend" and enjoy the service. I know just about now people's eyes are popping out of their heads. I'd better explain. He's so cute I've known him for practically his whole life. He loves me. Don't worry my standards haven't changed, you can all breath a sigh of relief, he's four. His name is Layne and he likes to sit next to me every time he comes to church. He says that I'm his girlfriend and he's going to marry me. He'll grow out of it in time. Anyway this weekend is couples retreat and Mom and Dad headed out this morning. Well I'd better get going.

A Quick Trip

2009-02-07T11:24:00.002-05:00

Yep that's right we took a quick trip. If any trip can really be called a quick trip. It came about like this. Aunt Kim decided to drive over to South Carolina for the weekend. So she called mom up and asked her if she could come down for the weekend as well since it's been almost 2 years since they'd seen each other. So mom loaded up the van and Bethany, Micah, and I and away we went. We left Thursday afternoon after mom's hair appointment and will be staying until Monday morning. Yesterday we visited with Aunt Kim and Katie and then we went over to Vanessa's to visit with her and the kids. We had fun playing with all the little ones again. Emily was glad to see me but Hailey took a little while to warm up. We have come to the conclusion that every time Hailey sees me she thinks her mom is going to leave. When she realized her mom wasn't going anywhere she was quite happy to go play with her cousins. Today we plan to have supper with Uncle Wendy, Uncle Doug, Papa, and brad. Of course by we I mean Mom and us kids and aunt Kim and Katie. (her other four are in Touson) We are going to cook mexican and play games. We have a pile of games with us. Sunday will be church in Midway then lunch with Aunt Boots and Aunt Terry. Then Aunt Kim and Katie will be heading back to Arkansas. We are planning on heading home on Monday morning and stopping in Gaffney at Hamricks. I love that store. Sometimes you can find some really nice things there for pretty reasonable. Tuesday Micah has a dentist appointment and then Wednesday is VLB and saturday is Tim and Shannon's wedding. And I'll get to see Beau and Josh for maybe 5 minutes. 5 minutes is better than no minutes. Anyway that's about it for now.

Nothing Comes to Mind

2009-01-31T12:42:00.002-05:00

Have you ever sat down in front of a blank computer screen and just stared at it. Trying to figure out what in the world to entitle what you are about to write. Inevitably I find myself writing something stupid as a title. So instead of trying to come up with a decent title I decided to write exactly what was in my mind.... nothing! I have found it is hard to concentrate on blogging when my little sister has my favorite movie on in the background. You would think that as many times as I've seen it I would be tired of it. I'm not! The Princess Bride still holds my attention. The Princess Bride always reminds me of sitting in the Cox's living room with all 13 of us kids and the 5 Muse kids and watching it over and over and over again. We introduced that movie to them. Even Beau and Joshy love it! Nate can imitate the preacher saying "Marriage, marriage is what brings us together today..." He does it perfectly just like the guy on the movie. A long time ago we made Nate promise that if Tim ever got married he would say it at Tim's wedding. Bethany just put it on so if I become distracted and misspell a few words and use bad grammar you know why! Although technically I've never been the best speller or very good at grammar for that matter. No my subject has always been and will always remain math. That grand subject that always makes sense. Two and two will always equal four. I don't really remeber much of what has been going on lately. Mammaw and Pappaw have been sick and Dad has been having trouble with paracharditus again. Mammaw and Pappaw are feeling much better now but dad is still under the weather. He didn't do anything to cause it to flare up. He doesn't normally have problems if he doesn't overdo it. Anyway we got Fireproof. It is a pretty good movie. It's got a good story and it's very well made. I like it. It made it to my top movie chart. Along with Facing the Giants, The Princess Bride, and The Last Sin-Eater. They are all first-rate movies. Well at least I thought I liked it until Micah decided he wanted to be a firefighter after watching it and Beau went and joined up as a volunteer firefighter. I still like the movie. Anyway I didn't really have much to say. I guess this has been a rambling post. Sorry everyone maybe next time there will be something more interesting to read.

Catching Up...

2009-01-08T22:33:00.002-05:00

Well I decided it's time to rise to the occasion and catch everyone up on what's been happening around here. I returned home to Virginia on December 15th and immediately jumped into a whirlwind of play practices and dress rehearsals as our program was on the 21st. Our play turned out really well considering I didn't see my lines until the 13th! We had a great time doing it and we had minimal mistakes. We had my grandparents and Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Diane over for Christmas dinner. We had a good time visiting. The Saturday after Christmas we had our Baldwin family Christmas. We had a good time with our family. The next day we had church and then during the afternoon we began preparing for the Cox's visit. They came in on New Years Eve. We had a great time with them. We had our watch night service that evening. Sister Betsy preached a good message. I always enjoy hearing her preach so much. All the Church folks were happy to see Beau again. Evidently he was missed. They stayed all day New Years Day. We played football and cards. That night after the little ones were all asleep Nate, Bethany, Micah, Daniel, Joshy, Zach, Beau, and I watched the Sin Eater. That is a good movie a bit scary but a really good movie. We ended up not going to bed until maybe three the next morning. The next day was sad. Goodbye time. We always hate to say goodbye. I came really really close to going back to Florida with them. Sister Betsy wanted me to. Dad told me to go pack and Brother Jerry said they wouldn't leave until I was ready. I was heading up the stairs when Mom thought of Mammaw. She's really getting feeble and she's not been feeling well lately plus she really clings to me since I've been gone so much lately. So I ended up staying. The really big news concerns one of my closest friends. Tonya Sandy. Steele Williams proposed on the 29th! Tonya told me all about it. He fixed breakfast for the whole family and he put two napkins at her place. If any of you know Tonya you know that she uses lots of napkins. Well she always opens her napkin up like a book before she uses it. Steele opened her second napkin up and wrote, "Marry me Tonya" on the inside of the napkin. Then he put the other one on top. Well Tonya only used the one napkin. Everyone was pretty much done and she still had only used one napkin, so Steele takes grape jelly and smears it across her face. She picks up HIS napkin and wipes it off. He smears more on her face she is kind of aggravated at him and grabs the second napkin and opens it to wipe her face and goes speechless. When she recovered she said yes then he got down on one knee and did it "properly." I still can't believe it Tonya is getting married! Yay! It's so exciting another upside is that Brother Williams won't try to hook me up with Steele anymore!!! Hurrah!!!!! Tonya saw Steele for the first time at our regional Snowtubing youth trip 3 years ago. When she first spotted him she said, " Charity! Who is that? " She was so funny. Steele started back at Liberty this week He is doing an intensive or something like that. Tonya doesn't start back at Longwood until this coming Monday. Steele has been driving back and forth from Lynchburg to Kenbridge all week. Monday morning Tonya and I went with him. We went shopping and got lost and had a few experiences that only Tonya and I can get into. It was great. Then we picked Steele up when he got out of class at about 12:30. We went and got lunch and headed back home. Steele let Tonya drive his corvette with only her and I in it. I spent the night with Tonya and we hung around at the shop Tuesday. Then she and Steele took me home. Then we decided to go with Steele again on Wednesday morning. We hit the mall again and Macy's was having a huge sale. Tonya got two coats. They were normally $100 apiece and Tonya got them for $25 apiece. She got one for her Mom and one for her. I normally just look. But i found a really cute blue jean jacket that is really good quality for $15 it is normally $60. So i got it. Mom loves it. I looked but I couldn't find one her size. Mammaw looked at it and said, "You got it or $15? I would have snagged it too!" I thought she was so funny. We did quite a bit of shopping and then we picked Steele up got lunch and headed for Farmville for church. It was Mom's WMB service. She talked about being Faithful servants until the end. It was good. Today Zach and Beth had eye exams. So I made supper while Mom was gone. I made Roast Chicken, Home made Rolls, Greenbeans (canned from our garden this year), Mashed Potatoes, Baked Sweet Potatoes, and Salad. I made the rolls all by myself. It was the first time I made rolls by myself. Usually I help Mom make them. Zach was so funny. He loves rolls. I was looking at the pile of fresh baked rolls and adsmiring them. I told Zach, "Look at the rolls! Aren't the beautiful?" He responded, "Yes, and they taste beautiful too. They're almost as pretty as you!" I guess it's true that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Because my brother usually doesn't say stuff like that to me unless he's really happy with me. Anyway I'm sitting her typing this post up and watching the College championship game. Go Gators!!! Josh, and Zach, and Beau got me hooked on Tim Tebow. He's a great player and has a good Christian witness. I'll be a Gator's fan as long as he's the quarter back. Anyways this has been an exciting game and I'm going to finish this post up so I can concentrate on it. Goodbye! Oh everyone repeat after me, Go Gators!!!!!!

Another Hailey Update

2008-12-15T19:30:00.002-05:00

Some of Hailey's test results have come back and they aren't good. The infection they tested is full of the worst bad bacteria you can have. It's slow growing so it's been there for a while and finally manifested itself. It is very hard to treat and Hailey's immune system is very weak so it offers no help. This type of bacteria is highly dangerous and can cause death if not gotten rid of. It is very scary for vanessa and Jacob and also for Aunt Kathy. We would greatly appreciate your continued prayers on little Hailey's behalf. Thank You.

Hailey Update

2008-12-09T12:33:00.002-05:00

I thought I'd give everyone the latest news on Hailey. The mass on her neck kept getting bigger and bigger. They tried to aspirate it Thursday and again yesterday with no success. So this morning they went in and surgically removed it. They only took the infection out. The size of the infection was the size of the end of a man's thumb from the tip to just past the joint. They left the incision open with a tube for it to drain. They want it to collapse from the inside so it won't leave hole. They are sending samples to the lab and pathology to do tests on. In about two weeks they are going to go back in and remove the affected lymph nodes. She came through it ok and is in pain but is sleeping right now. Please keep Hailey in your prayers. Also remember Vanessa, her mother, she is exhausted she hasn't gotten more than ten hours sleep since the baby's been born between Hailey and Addyson. My uncle Wendy goes in for a major back surgery Thursday. It can cause paralysis if something goes wrong. Uncle Wendy is not serving the Lord and we would appreciate your prayers for his soul and his safety. Thank You for your prayers.

Baby is Here!

2008-12-02T15:14:00.002-05:00

This is just a quick post to let everyone know, baby is here! Addyson Claire Ward was born yesterday evening at 7:27 pm. She weighs in at 6 pounds 10 ounces and is adorable. She is a quiet baby not at all fussy. She is welcomed by her parents, Jacob and Vanessa Ward, and three older siblings, Carter, Emily, and Hailey. She is also welcomed by grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It was a little funny. Vanessa's best friend Meredeth was expecting her 2nd and she was admitted into the hospital in the room next to Vanessa's. She went into labor yesterday as well and delivered a 9 pound baby girl, Ava Grace, exactly 2 hours and 27 minutes before Addyson was born. How many ladies get to have their best friends be pregnant at the same time they are and have their daughters born on the same day? I thought that was cool.

Prayer Request

2008-12-01T13:18:00.003-05:00

I just wanted to ask everyone to please keep little Hailey in your prayers. When they got the results back from the bloodwork they took it wasn't good. Her blood sed rate was 8 times higher than it should ever be. That is usually a sign of cancer or some other serious disease. She had another appointment with her specialist last Tuesday. They did different tests and the results are that the bump on her neck is a tumor. She has another appointment Wednesday and they are going to do some more tests and probably set the date for a biopsy. She is 2 years old and a real sweetheart. Her mother is still in the hospital. They did another amnio test today and if it's positive they are going to induce her today. I'm back with the kids now. I came back last night. I had a break from Wednesday evening untill last night. It was nice to spend some time with my family. We went to a Greater Vision concert Friday evening. That was great we really enjoyed it. Some of the young people from Midway went with us and then we went out for pizza afterwards. We had our family Thanksgiving on Wednesday with all my moms family. Then Thursday we went to visit my uncle and we played some games there. Friday dad and Zach went to some of the sales at 4 in the morning. (Crazy nuts!) Then that evening we went to the concert. Saturday we hung out at papa's and went and visited my Aunt Boots. Sunday we went to church at Midway then back to papa's for lunch and then back to Vanessa and Jacob's for me. Beth stayed with us last night. The kids loved it. She is still here now. Mom will come by and get her later. Anyway i'd better go Hailey doesn't eat much when she is sick and I need to give her a bolus. Please pray for her! Update - Vanessa just went into labor they didn't have to induce her!

Hello Blogland!

2008-11-21T11:34:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone. It's me again. I've been fairly busy but if I really wanted to I could have found time to blog. (I know, I know I am such a slacker...) You see I believe that for a blog to be interesting the blogger must actually WANT to blog and to put it simply I haven't really wanted to blog. I am in South Carolina at the moment and actually have a free moment. (miraculously!) I'm taking care of my cousin Vanessa's 3 kids. She is STILL in the hospital. This is the end of her third week. To start with they were originally going to induce her last Friday. Then the doctors decided to do it this past Monday. Last Sunday they did an Amnio test to see if the baby's lungs were developed enough. They aren't. The baby is 36 weeks along and they are positive that it's a girl and it's lungs aren't developed. They had given it a couple lung treatments early on to help it's lungs develop but they still aren't developed. They want her to stay in the hospital another week to see if the baby's lungs develop more. In the mean time the two year old, Hailey, has an abscessed lymph node in her neck that is swollen up. She has had it since last Friday. She has been running a 101/102 degree fever and is absolutely miserable. Jacob took her to the doctor last Friday and they put her on an antibiotic. She didn't do anything but get worse. So they took her back Monday and put her on high power antibiotic. She hasn't got any better. So then Jacob's Mom took her Thursday morning to see Hailey's specialist and they took some blood work and now we are waiting for test results. Hailey has been staying with Elaine, Jacob's mom, since Monday night. She really need one and one attention and I can't give her that and take care of Carter and Emily too. So it's been just me and the older kids this week. Carter's pretty good about getting his school done before lunch. So pretty much it's been get up, feed the kids breakfast, help Carter with his school, check on Emily, give her something to do, clean up breakfast dishes, straighten up, check on the kids again, have a quick shower, make lunch, clean up after lunch, let the kids play outside while I do heavier cleaning, feed the animals, (chickens, rabbits, dog, and goats) and fix dinner. Then of course give the kids baths and get them into bed. That is the struggle. Carter has been giving me a rough time about going to bed this week. To top that off we've been stuck inside because there is a coyote hanging around the house and animals and it's not scared of humans! The two rabbits have disappeared. Jacob and I think the coyote got them. Vanessa is really getting tired of the hospital. She hates being stuck in bed and not being with her kids. Despite all the work I am still enjoying the kids. There is something very fulfilling about taing care of kids. I feel useful and have a sense of accomplishment. The kids are so fun to be with and they make me laugh every day. I can't remember half the things Emily does but Hailey is a different matter. Last week before she got sick she was playing with one of those stick horses. You know what i mean. Anyway she's running from one end of the house to the other. All of a sudden she starts running really fast and screaming, "Stop horsey stop! Aunt Charity make it stop it won't stop!" She finally stops when she runs into the door. She was terrified and she was the one making the horsey run! It was hilarious. Carter, Emmy, and I were laughing really hard. I went over and picked her up and she wouldn't let go of me she said, " The horsey wouldn't stop." Later I was changing her diaper and she said, "your my best friend!" I said, "Did you know that I'm your cousin too?" She replied, "Yes and you're my family too." Emily tells me all the time, "I want you, I want you!" and then she climbs up into my lap. Carter does other things like say, "I'm sorry that Mommy doesn't get to have the baby yet but I'm glad too because you get to stay longer." Things like that are the best reward you can get for all the love and work you give and do. Anyway, this week the kids have been watching a movie when they get done with their work. So that's what they are doing right now. Normally they spend more time outside than watching movies but with coyote on the prowl we've been watching movies this week. Anyway I need to go fix lunch. We ate a late breakfast so we're going to eat a late lunch too. Goodbye

Hey

2008-10-22T12:34:00.002-04:00

Hey Everybody! I've been pretty busy lately and I haven't really felt like blogging lately. Where to start... Since August I have been from Virginia to Tennessee (for the Assembly) then through Georgia to Florida (where I stayed with the Cox family for a good long while) then back to Georgia for 1 night and day (visiting Sis. Betsy's parents) then on to South Carolina for a few days then through North Carolina going back home and now I'm getting ready to head back through North Carolina to South Carolina to help my cousin out with her kids while she's in the hospital on bed rest with a high risk pregnancy. (Don't you love my really long run on sentences?) But first things first, back to the Assembly. The Assembly was wonderful. The Lord was there in a mighty way. I thoroughly enjoyed it. We had a good time in the Lord and a good time of fellowship too. You can't help but have a good time when you join together in worship or fellowship with God's people. It seems so sad to just leave such a wonderful Assembly and all those great stories with just that so I'll share two stories and then move on. One night during service Abby had a really wet diaper and she was fussing about it so I took her to the bathroom to change her diaper. I sat her on the changing table and put the diaper next to her. A lady comes in with a little boy and lays him down next to Abby. I'm struggling with Abby's bloomers trying to get them off and I kid you not the lady is talking away and proceeds to take Abby's diaper and put it on her son and walk away leaving me with no diaper. So I put Abby's old diaper back on her (she was not happy with that!) and go back in to our seats and get another diaper from Sister Betsy, go back to the bathroom and put it on her. It was during the healing service and when I went through the line I saw the lady and she came up to me and told me she was sorry. She said she didn't even think about it till she got back to her seat and was fixing her little boys pants when she realized that he wasn't wearing one of his diapers. Then she was like Oh no I took that lady's diaper! That was story number 1 story 2 is shorter and is a Tonya story. One evening after the Assembly Tonya, Steele, TJ, Sis. Gayle, and Bro. Tony invited Zach, Daniel, Micah, Bethany, Josh, Nate, Mike, John, Beau, and I to join them at Steak and Shake. Justin Lott and another guy from GA went also. So anyway Justin finds out that we are all staying at the same place and asks Tonya where it is. So Tonya looks right at the hotel turns around and looks at the Home Depot or whatever it is across the street and says right there and points at the Home Depot! She really did. Steele was like I don't remember picking you up from there, what do you do wait till after I leave and sneak over there? Everyone was laughing including Tonya. Anyway there were no tearful goodbyes this time at least not on my part. I went back to Florida with the Cox's and Beau went home with my family. I helped out with the kids and potty trained (to a certain extent) Abby. I had a good time with the kids. They had me wound around their little fingers. We survived the Tropical storm that came that direction without even a power outage. We all watched the Republican Convention and were really kept up with politics. So it was no surprise that some of the kids formed their own opinions about the presidential candidates. Noah was saying he wanted to vote for Obama and Caleb and Nathan straightened him out. Then a few days later we were talking about the presidential race when Caleb piped up and said I wouldn't ever vote for that Obama guy. Sis. Betsy wanting to hear his reasons asked him why not. He replied "because he wants to kill all the babies, and he wants to take away all the money from the soldiers, and this one is kind of funny but it's one of my main reasons, he said he wants to put lipstick on all the pigs and I don't think that would taste very good." How's that for a 10 year olds take on politics? He came up with that himself from listening to the news and debates. We went to the beach a couple of times while I was there one time with just all of us and one time with Danielle and Sis. Deel. We had a good time both times. We all got completely soaked both times. Josh, Nate, and I like to go out deeper in the water and jump the breakers. The kids like to go digging in the sand. Caleb found a little sea animal and brought it back to the house. Unfortunately, someone dumped the salt water out and put fresh water in there and the next morning the little thing was dead. Caleb was showing it to his dad and Ruthanne when Ruthie exclaimed, "Look it's a girl one cause it's got it's mouth open!" Bro. Jerry said, "that's right Ruthanne and look it's pointed toward the shopping mall too! t was pretty funny. Oh one night Noah w hatas moderating share time during the VLB service and Nathan played "Softly and Tenderly" on his lap steel when he finished Noah got up and said when I first heard that song I thought, "that's some good sleeping music." That got a real good laugh. One day we all went into Jacksonville to get some school stuff. We went to Sam's Club and got some pizza while we were there. Anyway, Sis. Betsy ran to the bathroom and I was sitting at a table with ruthie and Francie on either side of me and Abby on my lap. The boys were sitting at the table right next to us and Noah had just come over and asked me if we were going to get a drink. I told him yes look there's your dad getting them right now. Then he went back to his seat. As soon as he left this lady comes up behind me and leans over and says to me you have such a lovely family. I was stunned for a moment and before I could say anything she was gone. Josh came over and was laughing at me then he realized that she meant he was my son too and he didn't like it too much. Anyway I've been home almost a month now and Friday I will be heading back out. Youth retreat starts Friday evening and ends on Sunday afternoon. I will be leaving from youth retreat and heading down to Vanessa and Jacob's where I will be taking care of the kids and helping Vanessa out with the new baby.

Quick Update

2008-08-03T15:54:00.004-04:00

Sorry everyone! I've been really busy and have barely had time to check my mail much less blog. Camp was wonderful! The Lord was there in a mighty way. The North Carolina Convention was pretty good. Some good messages were preached. Tonya and I made an unplanned trip to NC for their family camp. That was awesome, the Lord is really doing a work in our young people. Mom and I have been really busy getting ready for the Assembly. We are leaving for Cleveland tomorrow morning. I really have some things I need to finish up but I needed to catch everyone up. I probably won't have a chance to blog after the Assembly until the end of September because.... BEAU AND I ARE SWITCHING PLACES! Until the end of September that is. I'm going to be helping out with the little ones getting some experience with that and Beau will be going with Pappaw. Pappaw is a pastor and is always out visiting and working as a chaplain in the hospital and stuff like that. Beau will learn a lot from him. Anyway I just wanted to let everyone know that I haven't dropped off the face of the earth.

Chicken Pox and Regional Convention

2008-07-01T16:27:00.003-04:00

Yes, Chicken Pox but not in my family, the Cox kids are all down with the chicken pox! Even Beau and Joshy have it. They have bad cases where the little ones had light cases! I keep telling Beau it's better for him to get it now than for him to not get it until he's an old man with grandkids. I've come up with this great mental image of him as a stooped over old man and his grandkids smacking his hand and telling him, "Don't scratch pappaw!" Oh well, as terrific as that sight would be it's better that he has them now because they can be seriously dangerous when your way older. I think it's great fun that Beau has them because when Abby, Francie, Noah, and Joshy got them he said, "I'm not going to get the chicken pox." I told him that most probably he would and Sis. Betsy told him, "The only one who can say that is God and the last time I checked you weren't God!" The next day he got the chicken pox! Isn't that great fun! Once again I am right! Usually when we disagree I'm wrong but this time I was right! I'm right so few times I count. I think I've hit four times now! Yay! Beau sent pics of him and Josh because there wasn't any of the little ones. Oh well, these ones of the big boys make up for it! They look awful! Beau hasn't shaved in a while and he looks terrible! (Sorry buddy but that's the honest truth, and the scruffy beard really adds to the terrible look!) I halfway feel sorry for them but then I think of all the teasing I get from them and I can't feel but too bad for them! (Josh is the big tease, Beau's pretty good about not being too bad but there was one time with this rubber glove....) Our regional Convention was great! We had a wonderful Spirit there! We had a wonderful time in the Lord. If you are reading this you need to go to the Assembly so you can hear Sister Connie's message "God's Vortex." Everyone should hear that message it was wonderful! Friday night Bro. Smith preached the first part of a two part message on the nation of Israel going into the promised land and the different things that happened to them and what they represented. Saturday morning Bro. Byers preached a powerful and convicting message on loving the Lord and what it takes to really have revival. Saturday evening Bro. Smith preached the second part of his message. We had wonderful altar services. Then Sunday morning Sis. Connie preached about God's Vortex and I won't say anything about that but you need to hear that message! I love Sister Connie's preaching I always learn something. God took over during her message and a message and interpretation was given and we all ended up in the altar before going on with the schedule. Our youth group had to do our racing skit on the youth program Saturday afternoon. I was so nervous I forgot a few things and I wasn't the only one! So it was a little shorter than originally planned but over all it went fairly well. As soon as the skit was finished I had to rush back and teach Kid's Konvention. We did a few songs and then the story about Jehoshaphat and the singing army. Then we made maroccas out of water bottles. It went well. The kids enjoyed it, or so some of them told their parents. Sunday morning our family did the preliminary music. We sang hymns and Zach, Micah, and I played an instrumental. Anyway dad is wanting the computer so I'll have to go now!

Florida!

2008-06-20T00:18:00.008-04:00

Caleb, Noah, Nate, and Micah goofing around Micah and Nate team mates

Zach and Josh consulting about their definition Nate and Daniel
Mary-Fran, Dad, and Mike
Beau and Mom (you notice who's doing the work and who's hiding from the camera)
Caleb, Noah, and Bethany
Sister Betsy and I

Sister Betsy giving instructions about Lion Country Safari
Bro. Jerry playing Mini golf at Lion Country Safari
Nate the Hula-hoop King!
Beau actually smiling for a picture (It took about 5 tries!)
Abby, Ruthie, and Francie

I'm home and exhausted. We had a wonderful, fantastic, awesome time in Florida. We got there Wednesday night just after church let out. Then Friday morning bright and early the whole gang (all 17 of us) headed down toward Miami. We went to Lion Country safari for a field trip and after a lot of fun and sunburn we headed to a hotel about half an hour out of Miami for the night. The next morning we went to Miami and had service, conducted any business that needed to be done, and had communion and feet washing. Bro. Jerry did a great job. Then we travelled back up to Palatka. The next morning we had a good service at church and enjoyed seeing some of the folks in Palatka again. The first full week we were there we had a Basic Seminar. Talk about busy we were really busy! Trying to squeeze everything in according to peoples work schedules and taking turns on babysitting duty. Taking care of all the kids is fine when you can spread out through the whole house but when they realize they are stuck in one room or outside they can get cantankerous! On the whole they did pretty well. By the end of the visit Abby had gotten to the point where she would leave "her Beau" to come to me. My only regret is that she will probably have forgotten me by the Assembly. One night I was laying the girls down for bed and Francie and Ruthie started asking Abby questions. First they asked her, "Do you love Beau?" She nodded her head and said, "Beau!" Then they said, "Do you love Mommy?" Abby nodded her head yes. Next it was, "Do you love Daddy?" she nodded her head yes. They asked her about "Sister Juwee" and "Brother Dawwell" and Francie and Ruthie and each time Abby nodded her head." Then they asked her, "Do you love Charity?" I was laying next to her and she rolled around and gave me a hug and tried to say, "I wove Charity!" The I came out good and you could tell she was saying love and you could tell she was trying to say my name. That was so sweet. That little 23 month year old can flat out steal your heart! The little ones are so adorable. I have it from a very reliable resource that several of them cried themselves to sleep after we left! The second week we had the VBS. That was a lot of work but it was also a lot of fun. The four oldest Muse kids (Little Aaron, Brittany, Jordan, and Gideon.) came up Tuesday evening and stayed through Sunday evening. Bro. Aaron, Sis. Wendy, and Elijah came Friday night and left after church sunday evening. So from Tuesday till Friday we had 17 kids and four adults staying at the Cox's and from Friday through Sunday there were 18 kids and 6 adults. That's not counting Jade who comes every day for school or Adriana (Bro. Mike McDonald's daughter) who came several days to play with all the kids. It was a lot of fun. It was like camp or something. The kids kept doing washable marker strikes on each other. Of course us older ones were right in there too. Someone (I'm not saying anything except it wasn't me) wrote, "I have problems" on Bethany's leg. You know who you are and so does God and so do I! HA!! Great times! Sunday Morning was Father's Day and we had our VBS presentation. It went well. Afterwards we had a dinner and some folks from an independent pentecostal holiness church came over. They were real nice people and so close to the Truth, some more of those other sheep that are going to come. We were supposed to leave Monday morning but mom hadn't been feeling the best Sunday so we stayed over and left on Tuesday instead. Sunday night everyone from Daniel down to Ruthie played spotlight. (Except for Josh) Dad, Bro. Jerry, Sis. Betsy, Bro. Mike, Zach, Josh, and I played Balderdash. (Beau was sick in bed and so was mom) We played partners. Dad and Mike, Bro. Jerry and Josh, Sis. Betsy and I, and it was supposed to be Zach and Beau, but Beau felt so bad he went to bed instead. Nate and Micah ended up helping Zach when they came in. We had so much fun Sis. Betsy and I do really well together. We left everyone in the dust! Even when we goofed off we did good. Monday we got everything packed up as much as possible for the next day. Then Beau, ( who is almost as bad as Tim at letting anyone touch his truck much less drive it) Dad, Zach, and I went out and Beau taught me how to drive a stick shift (to some extent) and actually let me drive his truck! (So, we were in a parking lot, and he would only let me go in first and reverse, and he never even let me touch the gas, the point is he let me drive it!) He taught me how and when to shift last summer and he lets me shift for him, but this time he actually let me get behind the wheel and drive! ( I only stalled it once! I'm so proud of myself!) Then we went to Wal-Mart and got what we needed and headed home. We played Balderdash again that night. Same teams except Bro. Jerry wasn't there so Zach and Josh teamed up, and Mom and Beau were partners, and Caleb and Beth, and Micah and Nate. We didn't finish the game this time but Dad and Mike and Sis. Betsy and I were neck and neck. Then Zach, Josh, Beau, and I pulled another succesful all-nighter. We stayed up untill 6:30 and headed for bed and slept till 9:00. We didn't get away untill about 2:00 or 2:30 Tuesday. It is so hard to say goodbye. So instead we are counting the days untill we see each other again. Josh came up with the idea. In 46 days I'll be hanging out with my best friends again! Yay!

BTI

2008-05-27T11:05:00.004-04:00

Brother Walters wearing my bonnet!
First Term: Samantha, Charity (Me!), Kandy, and Katlin
Tests are over and everybody's having a good time at Cracker Barrel!
Playing Volleyball Friday afternoon
Brother Smith teaching Pastoral Class

We had an absolutely wonderful BTI! I have been stressing the importance of sending our young people to BTI ever since I got home Saturday evening. BTI is a wonderful asset for teaching and training our young people and not just our young people but our older ones too! I think it should be mandatory for every member to go to BTI for at least one term. Because after they go one term they would have a desire to go until they finished! The Lord was with us in a wonderful way at BTI this year. Many of the instructors and staff agreed that this was the best BTI since the first one after BTI was reinstated. There was such a spirit of unity there. We had a small group this year but as the old song goes, "It doesn't take very many it can be just two or three." The services were awesome. The Spirit of the Lord was with us in a mighty way in our services. Three services God took over and the minister did not get to preach. We had several miraculous healings. One of which I will relate here. Bro. Buford Cox Sr. from VA was one of the first term instructors this year. One day he came up the steps and he didn't sound to good. We of course were busy quizzing each other on the tests and didn't really notice. He told us, "I'll be right back," then he turned and went back downstairs. A moment later the prayer bell rang out and immediately voices were raised in supplication to God. We stayed up in our classroom as we were unaware of what was happening. Bro. Cox was having severe chest pain. He was in such pain that he was being doubled over by it. The general thought, is that he was having a heart attack. But the saints started praying and continued earnestly in prayer for several minutes until the power of God fell mightily and when it did Bro. Cox was instantly healed and felt better than he had for quite a while! Praise the Lord!!! Bro. Cox came back upstairs and told us what had just happened and then proceeded to teach our lesson. Praise God for divine healing! No recovery time needed! God still heals His people today! There were four in first term this year, all ladies. It was the smallest first term ever. For being the smallest first term ever we made quite a stir. We were the first term to ever have all their classes recorded live. We were the first term to ever be linked live to the internet while in class. And we were the first term to ever be entirely made up of ladies. I don't know if this is a record or not but when we started BTI only half of us had the Holy Ghost. When we left all of us were baptized in the Holy Ghost and ready to go home and work! Samantha received the Holy Ghost the first Friday night when third term was in charge of the service. I was filled with the Holy Ghost the next Friday night when we had our commencement service! Let me make a statement real quick. If you left before service Friday night you missed out on a wonderful blessing! That was such a powerful service! The Spirit of the Lord was there in a mighty way! I was so blessed to be able to attend BTI this year and I am already looking forward to next year! Anybody reading this if you have not attended BTI you need to go!!! Not only is BTI spiritually rewarding it is also a lot of fun. We have a great time fellowshipping and getting to know other godly young people. BTI gives you hands on training on how to work for the Lord and for the Church. Tomorrow I am leaving for FL. Our family is doing a seminar and a VBS for the Palatka church. We are really excited about it and looking forward to it. Like I said last year we get to spend time with our best friends and minister to others at the same time. Friday we are going down to the Miami area and having a field trip and the next day Bro. Jerry has to conduct a business meeting for the Miami church. We are excited about meeting more of our church folk in FL and we hope to be a blessing to them. We are planning to be back in Palatka in time for church Sunday morning. The seminar will start Monday evening and will end Saturday. Then the VBS will begin Wednesday evening and will conclude Sunday morning with our VBS program. We should be arriving home sometime that week. Then Sunday the 22nd we will be having my graduation. It will be held at The Church of God at Farmville, Va and will begin at 3:00 in the afternoon. Everyone is invited to attend. So if anyone happens to be in the area feel free to drop by. Anyway I'd better go.

Not Much Happening

2008-04-22T16:41:00.002-04:00

Yeah Right! We are going to be really busy until the middle of July. This weekend is our Regional Youth Convention. Sister Sharon Griffin will be the guest speaker. She will be speaking Friday night and Saturday. Our young people at Farmville will be on program Saturday morning. Please PRAY FOR US!!! We are working on a skit and a song. We want to be a blessing and not just entertainment. We want to let the Spirit of God work through us. Nine of our young people are going this year. Hopefully. Tonya and TJ will only be able to be there Friday night. Dawn and JJ are hopefully coming Saturday. Unless Dawn isn't able to get off work Saturday. Then of course all of our family is going. If it is just our family we will have to make some changes in our skit. We are going to the Shenandoah valley for a week and Daniel will get his school testing done while we are that close. Then we will be home for one week then I'll be heading out to Cleveland and BTI! Yay! I'm excited about BTI! Think of all the learning you can cram into two weeks! I'll probably have pics to share from our trip and from BTI. Then I'll be home one week after BTI and that Thursday or Friday we will be heading out to SC for a family reunion that Saturday. Then Sunday bright and early we'll be leaving for Palatka, FL. Hopefully we'll make it for Sunday evening service maybe. We'll be there for two weeks give or take a few days. The first week we'll be facillitating a Basic Seminar. The second week we will be doing a VBS. I'm still trying to get things organized for that. We'll be having my graduation either the Sunday I get back from BTI or the Sunday after we get home from FL. The last weekend of June we will be heading out to Roanoke for the Regional Convention. Bro. Smith will be the guest speaker. Then the first week of July the first grandchild in the Baldwin family will be getting married. By first I don't mean oldest I mean first to get married. So there is definitely excitement about that. The next week is VA/WV Youth Camp. Anyway just thinking about all that makes me excited and worn out! I have to be going now. ~Goodbye~

Pics

2008-04-19T15:32:00.004-04:00

Zachary Playing Engineer at the railroad museum Micah taking a turn Micah, BJ, Adam, Me, Bethany, Zach, Nate, and Beau seeing how many we could fit on the couch during Tim, Critter, and Adam's visit Saturday.
Beau giving Zach a haircut on Saturday morning
Beau Preaching
Nathan just after arriving in Virginia
Brother Mike McDonald from Palatka Florida
Beau, Zach, Micah, and I at Crewe Railroad Museum
Beau playing engineer
Zach, Micah, Beau, and I sitting on the side of one of the engines

I have some pics from when Beau, Mike, and Nate were down for the youth revival at the beginning of the month. I figured I'd go ahead and try to put a few of the on here. It worked! Yay! The guys arrived on that Thursday afternoon. The pics of Nathan and Bro. Mike are from just after they arrived. On Friday Zach, Micah, and I showed Beau around town and then we went to the Crewe Railroad Museum (big name for little place). There are railroad cars there that you can climb all over and take pics of and on. We had a lot of fun and got a little camera happy there. On Saturday Tim, Critter, and Adam came over and we played football. We went to the Church after a late lunch and played basketball then we all got cleaned up and ready for church that night. After service we had supper and said goodbye to our Roanoke and Catawba visitors. The next day was Sunday. Some of our young people came home from church with us and we hung around until we left for service that night. My aunt and cousin drove over from the coast to surprise my mammaw. We had snacks after church and then we went to my Pappaw and Mammaw's to play a little bit of Rook before heading back to the house. Beau, Mike, and Nathan left to go home to Florida around five the next morning. We really enjoyed our visit with them and the revival that Brother Beau preached for us. I hadn't really said much about the revival earlier so I thought I'd talk about it some now that I had pics! Anyway I need to go. ~Goodbye~

Senior Pictures

2008-04-17T19:27:00.003-04:00

Guess What! I got my senior pictures done today! Yay! Have I mentioned how excited I am about graduating? I am really excited!!! Like really really really excited! Not that I don't like school ( I mean how many other high schoolers dream about Trigonometry) but I will feel like I have accomplished something big when I graduate. I wanted to try and put a couple on here I'm going to try. It worked I can't believe it worked! I got some done dressed up and some done in a cap and gown and some done casual. This is two of them. I like the casual ones better than the dress ones. Mom likes the first one. She says my personality shows through. I'm hoping to be able to go to BTI this year. Everything looks good right now. I'm really excited about that too. Anyway Zach and Daniel bought that movie "Amazing Grace" while we were in Richmond today and they are watching it so I'm going to go. ~ Bye ~

A great revival!

2008-04-10T13:25:00.002-04:00

I have been so busy lately. Two weekends ago we had our VA/WV Ladies retreat. It was wonderful. Sister Betsy Cox was our evangelist. She flew into Richmond airport so mom and I got to pick her up and take her to retreat and then take her to the airport after the retreat ended. We really enjoyed the extra fellowship time! My Aunt Kathy was able to come to the retreat this year and she had a good time. Mom, Sister Betsy, and Aunt Kathy roomed together and had a great time. I mainly hung out with them. They are so much fun for a bunch of OLD ladies!!! ;-p I love Ladies retreat because you can get away from everything and just concentrate on you and the Lord. My favorite time every year is probably hide-away time. The only thing is I have a favorite spot I go every year and it was wet so I had to find a new spot. This past weekend was our youth revival. We had ours a little early to kick off youth emphasis week. Beau Cox, or should I say Brother Buford Cox the third, was our evangelist. It was his first revival and he was really nervous but with God's help he did a wonderful job. Our young people liked him because he was a young person and our older folk liked him because they like just about everybody. Nathan and Brother Mike McDonald from the Palatka FL church drove up with him. Tim, Adam, and Critter came over on saturday and spent the whole day with us. We had a good time of fun and fellowship with them. I had to moderate the revival and you want to talk about nervous I think I was just as nervous as Beau was! God is good though and he helped both of us. Tomorrow we are going to Roanoke church for their youth revival. Brother Hawkins is the evangelist. I'm really working on the VBS stuff I want to have evrything done by the beginning of May so maybe I can go to BTI this year. We are praying about it. Anyway I probably need to go now. Later......

Hello Everyone!

2008-03-20T16:09:00.002-04:00

Dopey title I know. Anyway how is everyone doing? I've been super busy lately. Mom fell and twisted her back and couldn't really do anything so I did a lot of extra cooking, cleaning, and laundry. Then we had District Convention. It was really good. The Lord was with us in the service. You could feel the Spirit in the singing, preaching, testifying, and boosting. Daniel and Bethany both had their birthdays. Daniel is 16 and Bethany is now 12. That means we now have one more VLB at Farmville. The weekend after the Convention the VLB's had a Brunswick Stew Fundraiser. We spent friday night cutting up potatoes and onions and cooking and cutting chicken. Saturday morning early we cooked and stirred the stew then we delivered it that afternoon. All this month we have been making candy eggs to sell. We got a late start this year and only made 700 and some. Our church has been doing it for years so it's kind of a tradition. We make peanutbutter and coconut eggs. They are 4 oz. eggs and then we dip them in chocolate and decorate them. We get $2.50 for each egg. It's a good fundraiser. Anyway it takes a lot of time and energy. Between everything that's going on I haven't had time to even check my e-mail much less blog! Anyway i know this is short but I do need to go. G'bye

I Hate Coming up with a Title!

2008-02-25T15:36:00.002-05:00

I really do! I rack my brain for a title and come up with some dopey thing like, "I'm Posting again." How silly is that? Why is a title neccesary anyway. It's not like this is a book or something. It's a blog! If I wanted to write a book I'd write something more interesting than what I'm working on in school or how I'm doing in Piano! Actually nothing has really happened to inspire me to blog about it. I'm just trying to keep my rather late New Year's Resolution to be a better blogger. I'll even try to upload a picture this time! Keyword Try. Never mind once again I meet with failure. Does anybody know how to compress a picture so that it will actually upload? Anyway I have to go now. But at least I blogged even if I didn't have anything to say!!!

Hey!

2008-02-18T16:23:00.002-05:00

I'm back again. Sorry I know I havn't posted in a while but I've been busy! I know that's no excuse but what can I say? Mom and Dad went to the VA/WV couples retreat that is gradually turning into everybody's couple retreat last week-end. They really enjoyed it. They ditched all of us kids at home alone for 3 whole days. No adult supervision! (I don't really count.) I guess they figured Zach and I are old enough to handle it. It wasn't bad at all. That Sunday morning Sister Betty Bowlin went home to be with Jesus. We will miss her greatly but we couldn't be too sad when we thought of all the pain and suffering she was in. Church was pretty much a memorial service for her that morning. After church a bunch of us young people went out for pizza. We had terrific winds that day and when we were ordering a guy and his son came to open the door. The little boy was trying to open the door for his dad but was having a lot of trouble pulling agaisnt the wind as he was. He finally managed to get the door opened when the wind switched directions and ripped the door out of his hand. The wind slammed the door into this flower pot sitting in front of the outside of the building. All the glass in the door was busted out then the wind caught the frame of the door and swung it around and tore it off it's hinges. It was Amazing I'd never seen anything like it in my life! The only thing connecting the door to the doorway was the hydraulic thingie on the top of the door! The kid who opened the door had this priceless expression on his face. When the door was ripped from his hand the force of the door cut his hand. I had my trust First aid stuff with me so I helped him bandage up his hand. He was pretty shook up. Monday and tuesday of last week were busy with the family night and funeral for sister Betty. Wednesday was VLB service and I did something on true love. Then my Uncle Donnie and his wife came up and spent a few days with my Grandparents. Dad and I went over friday night and we played ROOK. I love that game. I've been told I'm getting half-way decent at it too. Yesterday was our Valentine's dinner at church. We did Spaghetti which is becoming a tradition at our church for the Valentine's dinner anyway. Oh yeah Hey Alaena I saw your comments. I hadn't checked my blog in a while cause i figured no one really reads it. You and Beau are the only ones who really comment anymore and Beau hardly ever has the time. I'll have to be better at keeping on top of things. New Years Resolution (kind of late but who cares, if you do don't say so) To be a better blogger. (yeah right.) Anyway I have to go. I'll blog more later.

Happy Belated New Year!

2008-01-12T16:40:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone Happy New Year! We really really enjoyed our day with the Cox's. We had a ton of fun. Tim decided to come over with them and he seemed to enjoy the fun almost as much as we did. Dad, Bro. Jerry, Tim, Zach, Daniel, Micah, Beau, Josh, Nate, and I played a lot of football. It was a blast. Beau, Josh, Zach, and I attempted to teach Tim how to play Dutch Blitz but Josh kept going too fast for Tim to catch on enough to actually enjoy it. Nevertheless I did enjoy playing. The next day we had our Baldwin family dinner. It was kind of sad this year. Aunt Diane had been gone just a month. We did a lot of laughing and a lot of crying. We had a small watch night service at church New Years Eve. A lot of our church folks were sick with that upper respiratory infection that was going around and could not come this year. This weekend was Men's Retreat all the boys and dad went this year. Bethany went and spent the week-end with Jenny Joyner from church. So it was just Mom and I this week-end it was nice and quiet. We went out to dinner with Mammom and Aunt Debbie last night. It was nice we went to a mexican restaurant in Blackstone. We had a good time. It's been really quiet though. I like quiet every now and then it's restful. Next Sunday night, not tomorrow, Tim is coming to Farmville for a special surprise for a certain person turning 36 and leaving the VLB's. That's all I'm saying except I'll tell everyone about it after it's over. Anyway I need to go. Goodbye.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2007-12-26T20:53:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone had a wonderful day yesterday. Pappaw brought oyster stew over for breakfast yesterday morning and then about 5:00 Mammaw and Pappaw came over for dinner. Oyster stew is a Baldwin family tradition, we have it every Christmas. For dinner this year we had Roast Beef, (or as Bethany and Daniel call it, Roast Beast) mashed potatoes, Gravy, Salad, Rolls, and 2 kinds of Jello salad. We were going to have carrots and peas too but mom accidentally turned the wrong burner on the stove on and burned them. We had pumpkin pie for desert. We decided to skip the normal turkey and ham since we are having that with the whole family Saturday. After dinner Mammaw, Pappaw, Mom, Dad, Zach, and I played a few games of Rook. We had a good time. Mammaw kept getting bad hands so finally she switched seats with Dad and got a GREAT hand. I mean she got an excellent hand. Anyway we had a good time. Today we spent most of the day cleaning the house as the Cox's were supposed to be coming to visit tomorrow. Something came up and they will be coming Friday instead. So we will be doing our cooking for the family dinner tomorrow and our visiting with the Cox's Friday. We are so excited about their visit. Tomorrow I'll be at mammaw's cleaning house then I'll come back and do a little cooking for Friday and Saturday. Anyway I need to go. I should have a few stories and maybe Pictures if I can get them to work next time I blog. Goodbye.

Hey everyone I'M POSTING!!!!

2007-12-11T15:42:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone, I'm back. Sorry I haven't written in such a long time but no one reads my posts anyway so who cares! Though this time I might actually come up with a pretty good excuse. (or excuses?!?) How were every one's Thanksgivings? (which brings me to my first excuse....) We went to Florida for Thanksgiving and had a great time with our dear friends the Cox family. It was a lot of fun except for the fact that Abby, Ruthie, Francie, Noah, and Caleb all got sick in one form or the other. Noah had it easy he only got a cold. The last night we were there, Beau, Josh, Zach, Daniel, and I finally succeeded in pulling our often futilely attempted all nighter!!! (ok so we stayed up till all dedicated farmers and hunters are up, 4:30) Oh yeah you know how I said all the little ones got sick while we were there? Well, Bro. Jerry and Josh were sick the day we left. Then Nathan was sick the following Sunday so everyone got sick except for Beau and Sis. Betsy. We arrived home 5:30 Tuesday morning. We tend to leave late and drive all night. We did school Wednesday then Mom and Dad and micah went to Richmond for an orthodontist appointment Thursday. The rest of us kids stayed home and did school. Mom and Dad got home fairly quick and my dad told us that he had just got a call from my pappaw. My dad's oldest sister, Diane, had just passed away around 11:30 that morning. That ended school for us for a few days. We went right over to my grandparent's house to be with them then Mom and dad and mammaw and pappaw went to Richmond to be with David and the kids. Friday the family all started coming in and the family night was saturday and the funeral sunday. We had family around till the following tuesday. (That's excuse number two) Tuesday we had to go to Richmond for another ortho appointment. We did school wednesday then Thursday everyone went to Richmond except for daniel and I. Neither one of us was feeling very good, in fact I was feeling down right sick! I still felt pretty bad friday. (that's excuse number three) I'm feeling better now except I'm congested. We have all been practicing for our church play. The play is Sunday evening. Our church Banquet is saturday afternoon. It's going to be different this year, we're having Fried chicken instead of turkey or ham! (you might be southern if...) Well i think that's a fairly nice, fairly long, fairly newsy post don't ya'll? well I'll post again later when I get a chance.

No Ladies Retreat

2007-11-09T14:30:00.001-05:00

Yes, it's unfortunately true, Ladies Retreat in VA/WV was cancelled. Bro. Carter's mother passed away and the funeral is this weekend. So many of the people involved in making the Retreat happen need to be at the funeral so they decided to just cancel it. I'm disappointed but I understand. Since there is no Ladies retreat this weekend Pappaw prolonged our Revival another night. We've been having a good revival. My "surgery" went okay. I was in some pain for a few days but that was normal. I slept most of the weekend. I told mom "I don't think I've slept that much since I was a new born." She said that I might have slept more than when I was a baby because I wasn't waking up every two hours crying to be fed! I certainly got a lot of rest. There's not a lot to say really I've been busy between recovery, Revival and getting ready for Sis. Betsy to come back to our house after the Ladies Retreat ended. Which now is not going to happen. I know that God has a purpose and a plan for everything that happens so I'm just going to put it in His hands. Anyway I'm rambling so I'd better go. Later. - Charity

Youth Retreat!

2007-10-29T15:24:00.000-04:00

Youth retreat was wonderful! We thoroughly enjoyed all the fun, food, fellowship, and teaching. Not to mention the wonderful sermons brought to us by Bro. Jared and Tim. Bro. Jared preached on "Get up and win the race." It was a good message. Tim preached on "We have a Great God and that is why we can finish the Race." Of course those might not be the exact titles of their messages but that's just my interpretation. Mom's class was "Racing to Glory in the Fear of the Lord." Sister Ginger's class was "Running in Holiness." They went along together really well. We didn't have a very large group this year. I counted 29 including the staff. (only the ones who stayed overnight.) That was kind of nice. Everyone was together all the time and everyone knew each other and was comfortable with everyone else. We didn't have to waste time getting comfortable with one another. We played Basketball, Four square, Volleyball, Football, Cranium, Apples to Apples, Scrabble, and Catchphrase. Cody Haffley is the King of catchphrase. Anyway There are many stories that could be told but I prefer to talk rather than type so I don't think I'm going to tell them on here. It would be really neat if there was this machine that you could talk into and it would type whatever you said. Maybe I'll get better with electronics and invent it. HMMMM....... Ok I'll let you guys get back to your lives now. Oh, Pray for me on Friday morning I'm getting my wisdom teeth cut/pulled out.

A Visitor

2007-10-22T15:41:00.000-04:00

I told my sister, Bethany, that I needed to tell everyone about our visitor and she said which one, the strange man who came and spoke or the bird. Okay I'll start at the beginning. The "strange man" was the Gideon man he came to do a boost on the Gideon work and we gave him an offering. I was talking about a little bird. We had a wren come into church at the beginning of sunday school. He sat on the window sill and watched us during sunday school. After Sunday School ended he flew up to the front of the church, behind the pulpit. Dad was the sunday scool teacher this sunday and he said that the bird was one of the best students he's had. He didn't hear a single peep out of him the whole service. :-) After the Gideon man spoke Pappaw preached. While Pappaw was preaching the bird started hopping around behind him. After a while it got up it's courage and started flying. He "buzzed" Pappaw while he was preaching. Pappaw just made a joke about it and kept preaching. Dad said the kids eyes never left the front of the building it was one time they've never been told to face forward. And absolutely no one fell asleep. After church we helped the little bird find it's way out. In other news Zach had his wisdom teeth out Friday morning. He came through the surgery fine. He's doing pretty good though he does have some swelling. This weekend is ..... YOUTH RETREAT! We are all looking forward to it. Mom is studying. She has to teach a lesson this weekend on the Fear of the Lord. How does it relate to the Finish Line racing to Glory? We can't even start the race without the fear of the Lord. Well, I'd better get going. I'll post again later. If I have anything to say......

Counseling Seminar

2007-10-16T15:10:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone! I'm back!!!! I had a really exhausting week but I can truthfully say that I learned a lot. We had to get up by six every morning but mom always set her alarm for 5:45. When it went off it always woke me up and then I couldn't fall back to sleep before I had to be up! We had a very full schedule. We were in class most of the day. We got meal breaks and that was pretty much it. Curfew was at 10 but most nights we didn't get out of class till just before 10. By the time we actually made it to our rooms it was usually after 10. Then we would get ready for bed and study for the big exam on saturday till 11 or 12. Then start over again the next day. We had the exam on Saturday morning and........ I passed! Yay! I didn't think I was going to pass when i first turned my sheet over but I prayed and God brought things back to my memory. While we were at the seminar Mr. Gothard told us a funny story. He was driving down to the Counseling Seminar with a bunch of his headquarters staff and they stopped at crackerbarrel for lunch. As they were being seated Mr. Gothard noticed a young man across the room. This man had long hair and at first Mr. Gothard couldn't tell if it was a boy or girl. He had tattoos and piercings all over his bod and was wearing jeans that were really tore up and a black leather jacket. As Mr. Gothard noticed this he thought to himself that young man could really benefit from going to a basic seminar. Just about that time the man looks up and sees Mr. Gothard. He stands to his feet and runs over to him yelling excitedly, " Bill Gothard! You changed my life!" As the young man talked to Mr. Gothard he told him that he had attended 10 basic seminars and was now a youth pastor at his local church. We all thought that was so hilarious. Mr. Gothard told us that we can't judge a book by his cover but man does and we should always have an appearance that would bring glory to God. We stayed overnight with Brother and Sister Buckner going and coming and went to church with them on Sunday morning. Then we drove home Sunday afternoon and made it in time for church at Farmville Sunday evening. Today we started back up on our school schedule. Burkeville CoGoP is having a revival this week. An old friend of our family is the evangelist and we are going over there tonight. Tomorrow is VLB service we are still showing the assembly dvd's. Last week we had a business meeting. I have a new assistant. Sister Gayle Sandy. I think Pappaw said he was going to appoint Tonya to jr. VLB's and gleaners. I still have all the responsibilities I had last year. Dad is now the local CPMA leader. And the boys and dad are all ushers and Dad and Bro. Tony were appointed assistant pastors. Anyway that's about it for now except that Tomorrow is Noah Cox's Birthday and Saturday is Micah's Birthday. Anyway I'll probably have more tomorrow or maybe not!

Happy Birthday Mama!

2007-10-04T15:39:00.000-04:00

Sing with me, "Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Mama, Happy birthday to you." Of course you guys can insert something else in there in the place of Mama! :-) Mom is the big 50. So Happy Birthday to Mama!

Update!

2007-10-02T15:41:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone. We had Minister's Convention last week-end. It was wonderful. The Spirit was there in a wonderful way. Our theme was "I'm Having a Revival! How About You?" We were encouraged to have revival in our own hearts and lives and then challenge others to allow God to work a revival in them. Now if we all take that home with us.... think of all the wonderful things that God can do this year! Guess what! My birthday is Saturday, I'm turning 18 this year. Next week Mom and are going to Indianapolis for a seminar that I need for our home-school program. If I want to take advantage of any of the college courses or ministry opportunities I have to have this seminar. It's called the Counseling Seminar. It's supposed to equip you to work with others. Anyway I'll be gone all week. The only problem is I have to miss Apple Butter! It's so sad. Dad and the boys and Beth will get to go to Apple Butter though. I'm going to try and post the latest pictures I actually have on the computer. Some of them anyway. They are from February when we went to see the Cox's. Everyone's grown some since these pictures were taken.

Pictures (Hopefully!)

2007-09-26T15:34:00.000-04:00

(TJ, Eric, Chelsey, Megan,Kaitlin, Isaiah, and Allen)
(TJ, Allen, me, Megan, Chelsey, and Eric)

Hey everyone. I'm posting again. TJ Orcino sent me a couple of pics that he took of the IYC crowd at the Assembly. These are just some of the young people that were at IYC. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so I don't have any pics except these. Kaitlin didn't attend IYC but she visited one night with Bro. Carter. Apparently everyone was looking for me and couldn't find me that's the reason I'm not in the first picture. Isaiah had already left by the time they took the second picture. Wow I actually successfully posted a picture. In fact 2 pictures! Ha! With this triumph I shall retire for now. Goodbye!

Surprise! I'm posting!

2007-09-19T15:14:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone! I'm posting! Now isn't everyone proud of me? You think with a grand total of 1 hr. of computer time every school day I would find some time to blog. No instead I go and blow it all on sending personal e-mails to my friends. You think I would have figured out by now that the best way to communicate with everyone is to send a group e-mail or a little note saying "Go look at my blog." But no I just can't be impersonal like that. I have to go and spend 45 min. responding to 3 (count them 1, 2, 3) e-mails. School has gotten started (obviously) and we are on a schedule. My only complaint is that I only get to talk to my Canadian friends on the weekend because of time differences. I have a pretty light load this year for school. I'm just finishing off a few things and I'll graduate this spring. I don't know what I'm going to do next though. I do feel a burden for our young people and little ones. So many of our young people need training and not just training but a real relationship with God. I want to see some of the things I've heard my parents and grandparents talk about. I want to see people healed. I want to see the Spirit of God come on the place so strong that no one is able to stand before Him. I want to see sinners walk in the door and conviction hit them so hard that they run to the altar right then. I want to see children seeking God with all their hearts, souls, minds, and strength. I want to see the Church moving forward toward perfection. I want to see the latter rain. I want to see the Lord pour out His Spirit like He promised that He would. Sorry for preaching at ya'll. As Josh says to me, "You're not a preacher but sometimes you get to teaching pretty good." Anyway Micah started guitar lessons last Wednesday. He learned four chords came home and started picking out songs by ear. He can play Psalms 100, Amazing Grace, and How Great is our God. He has even showed me how to play several chords. I'm happy with that because as some of you know, I have secretly wanted to learn how to play the guitar for several years. My Grandma Miller played the guitar. She was really good and I have memories of standing next to her and singing with her while she played when I was just a little girl. She went to heaven 10 years ago and every time I hear a guitar it reminds me of Grandma Miller. Anyway I rambled long enough. G'bye everybody.

A wonderful Assembly

2007-09-03T14:34:00.000-04:00

Hey! IYC was great! I made new friends and spent time with old ones. The workshops were great we got a lot of good teaching and training. I loved it. I felt like I was actually learning things that were applicable to my life. I learned new things. At regular camp you mainly get milk in the services and in the classes at IYC we were fed meat. The Assembly was wonderful as well. This year there was a spirit of unity that has not been there in the past. Sunday after IYC and before the Assembly I spent the day with the Cox's untill Mom and Dad got to Cleveland. It was great spending ime with them. The little ones were so happy to see me. They were literally fighting over who was going to sit next to me or hold my hand. I felt like a celebrity or something. I love those kids. The baby is getting so big. Soon she won't be a baby anymore! It was great hanging out with the boys too. Just about every night after we got back to the hotel we would go to the lobby and play Dutch Blitz. Aaron Brooks and the Williams kids found their way to the lobby by the end of the week. One night we had like 3 decks of Blitz cards going. It was crazy. I enjoyed seeing the kids from Midway, SC and the friends I had made at IYC like Megan Mack, Joleesa Nowling, Isaiah Peters, and TJ Orcino again. Megan and TJ worked in the Children's Assembly as ushers. I got to see them often. I was really busy this year at the Assembly. The VA/NC choir had to sing several times and our family sang plus I was in the IYC choir and involved in the Parade of Nations and the Children's Assembly. I really enjoyed the messages this year. I just enjoyed the entire Assembly. Every bit of it. The only problem is that it went by so fast. Anyway I have to go. Later.

Home! (Only for a week-and-a-half)

2007-08-13T16:33:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone! I'm home again! The homeschool conference was great. I worked as a teacher in the children's program. It was originally created for 6-12 year olds but we used it for 4-7 year olds. We did a lot of changing in the curriculum to fit the ages of our kids. It was great. I always learn a lot from working with that age group. This year I learned how to deal with kids who cry when they don't get their way.... ignore them but first explain to them that if they cry you aren't going to pay any attention to them. I had one kid who cried almost constantly the first day but by the last day he had gotten a lot better and only cried once! There is actually more to it than that but i am really not that good at explaining things to people! This year at the conference I received a Presidential Award for volunteer community service. I was also in the Congressional record for service overseas. I got to see 3 of my closest friends from the Asia mission team that I was on last summer. It was really good to see them again. Anna and David Beaulieu and Brianne Norcross. Anna saw me the first day and found out I was a teacher in the Children's program and requested that her brother be put on my team. I saw her name as a teacher in the program bethany was in so I requested that Bethany be put on her team. Bethany asked her if she was friends with me. She replied, " Well what do you think? I asked for my brother to be on her team and she put you on my team." I only saw David a couple of times and we really didn't have a chance to talk much. I got to talk to Brianne a number of times. Surprisingly she never ran into Anna or David. I was the only one any of them saw. Except Anna and David of course saw each other. We did get to see our Canadian friends. We spent all of our time hanging out with them. Their last name is McMillan. They have 3 sons. Josh is my age, Seth is a year older than Micah, and Nic is Bethany's age. It was nice to see them again. We kept up our old tradition of trading kids and then getting lost. We wandered around Indianapolis for our whole supper break one night trying to figure out how to get to the place we were having the conference. It was a mess. It was also funny. Well that's about it. I am going to spend the night with my Mammaw tonight cause Pappaw went down to visit his sister and he doesn't like to leave Mammaw alone. If any of you guys know of someone who is interested in working as a Children's Assembly usher please let me know. Our family is in charge of the Children's assembly ushers this year. Next Tuesday I am leaving for Roanoke. I'll spend the night with some church folks there and then the next morning early Chelsey and I are riding down with Tim to IYC. So I will see a bunch of you guys at the Assembly. Bye Bye

Home from Camp

2007-07-25T13:27:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone! I'm back again. Camp was good. We had a lot of fun. It seemed a bit different to me this year, but maybe I was just out of it. We had Over 90 people including staff at camp this year. It was cool. The weather was perfect. We had like 0 humidity. That is amazing for VA. One night a little girl testified and said that she had been "Sanitated." She meant sanctified. It was funny and she was so cute. One day this guy nearly walked into girls swim time accidently, he was stopped just in time. (Names are purposely being left out so no ones reputation gets ruined.) :-P Another day 3 guys had to drink baby bottles in front of everyone at camp. Someone else was proven to be a big monkey. And someone else will forever be known as "Traitor." Lots of things happened. Bro. Jared is a good baseball player. He's an awesome fielder and if he ever hits the ball it's going somewhere. Sister Connie Wilson preached the 1st night. She did a great job. Brother Levi Stephens preached the 2nd night. He did a great job. He is a good preacher. Brother Justin Lott, from Georgia, drove up to be the boys lifeguard and he preached the 3rd night. I really enjoyed his message. Brother Tim Cox preached the last night he had a skit at the end of his message that was funny and made a point. It was good. The last night we were at camp the older kids were allowed to stay up late. We were all up till just after 2. Justin, and this guy named Angel that he had brought with him, left around 2 a.m. to drive 10hrs back to GA. They didn't even take a nap. They played Basketball and Torpedo ball all night. I hope they made it home all right. Tyler and Seth got into trouble with some nail polish. They did Tim's fingernails and Steele's toenails and started on Cody and he woke up so they tried to get Justin (from Marion) and he woke up. They had to clean the boys bathrooms by themselves the last day. Guess what! I was selected as 1 of the IYC representitives from VA/WV. I was completely shocked. I thought for sure it would be Eric Hogan this year. Tyler Sheets is the other Rep. and Chelsey Anders and Eric Hogan were selected as our alternates. Anyway I need to go now. I'll write more later.

I'm Back!!!

2007-06-30T17:14:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone. I'm back! VBS went great. We had around 20 kids. Not counting workers. We had songs, stories, lessons, Bible verses, and skits. It was demanding but a lot of fun and definately worth it! There is a family that goes to Palatka church that have 5 kids. Their name is the Muse family. They live over an hour and a half away so they only came Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. They stayed at the Cox's home with all of us. It was a lot of fun. There were 24 people staying in one house and 18 of them were kids! That was awesome! While they were there someone went a little crazy with markers.... Beau, Josh, and I were going to get Bethany, Mary-Frances, and Brittany Muse with markers but Josh knocked a cup of milk over and when he was cleaning it up Brittany woke up and got suspicious because Josh was right next to her head so she wouldn't go back to sleep and we gave that up for that night. The next morning we come to find out that Noah, Zach, Josh, and Nate had all been drawn on! Little Aaron, Caleb, Micah, Daniel, and Beau didn't get touched. They were naturally suspects but it wasn't any of them. Zach and Josh did it and did themselves as a blind! The next night the girls turn came and Beau, Josh, and i carried out our plan! It was great! People kept marking on other people the rest of the time we were there. Beau never got it cause all the kids knew he would get them back good! I never got it either untill one night when Beau wasn't there. Then all the kids except for Ruthie and Abby got it. They were using washable markers so it wasn't that big of a deal. All the parents thought it was funny. Nate kept getting Zach so the last day Zach got Nate good! He wrote PAYBACK! and MARKER BOY! on him. It was hilarious! Nate thought Daniel did it so he wrote Got YOU BACK! andMARKER MAN on him. Then just before we left we were playing Dutch Blitz and Zach called Nate Marker Boy. Nate's eyes flew wide open and he jumped to his feet then he realized we were still playing so he finished the game. It was a lot of fun. Sister Betsy kept saying this is just like family camp! We didn't get away till 7 something Thursday evening. The Cox kids kept trying to hide in our van. At one time we had 4 or 5 of them in there. Beau and Noah had the best hiding places and no one would have known they were there if one of the little ones hadn't given them away! Their crazy antics kept us all laughing so no one cried this time. Untill after we left. Now all of us are looking forward to the Assembly... Next weekend is our regional Convention. I wonder what it will be like this year. I guess we will find out. That's about it for now. Goodbye!

Picnics and Sunburns

2007-06-14T22:04:00.000-04:00

Hello everybody out there in blogdom! The Church picnic was great! The VLB's played lots of different games including, football, kickball, softball, badminton, volleyball, and croquet. We are getting ready for camp! I got slightly sunburned at the picnic. It doesn't hurt though because I'm Cherokee and it eventually turns into a tan. (reddish though that tan may be) Beth had her eye appointment Wednesday morning. Then that evening it was VLB service. It was Arise Shine day so I did a short commemorative program and then we had some games. I had originally planned it as a game night and then I realized it was June 13th so I gave everything a Church of God slant. Our sword drill was made up of familiar church scriptures such as the Spirit and the Bride say come, and My Dove my undefiled is but one, and others like that. It was interesting. Afterwards we had a time of fellowship and then we attempted to practice because our VLB's are supposed to be singing at the convention. It's impossible to practice unless Dad's there to make people behave. So we only attempted to practice.... Sunday evening or Monday morning we will be heading south, though not for the winter.... We are going down to FL to do the VBS! YAY! YAY! YAY! We are really excited and so are the Cox's. How many people get to go and spend time with their best friends and call it ministry? We do and it's going to be great! I guess that's about it we are really busy getting ready with VBS stuff and getting ready to go. G'bye

Going, Going, Always Going

2007-06-09T09:45:00.000-04:00

Do you guys ever feel like you're always going? Going here going there going somewhere? This week has been one of those weeks. Mom and Dad were in Richmond on Monday. Then Wednesday we had Dentists appointments. They want to pull my wisdom teeth out. then Thursday we had eye appointments and piano lessons. I remember when I first got glasses I used to forget about them and leave them all over the place. At camp, by the end of the week my councelor would ask me, "Did you remember your glasses?" I kept having to ask for permission to run back to the cabin and get my glasses. I'm so glad i got used to wearing them and don't forget them anymore! Piano lessons are now officialy over for the summer! YAY!!! Then Friday we went to Richmond again this time for my cousin Kennon's graduation. We were there all day and it was HOT! And Humid, and sticky, and miserable, and it's only spring! Today Dad, Zach, and Daniel went to Richmond to the convention center to work at the ALERT booktable at the homeschool bookfair. Then this evening Micah has a baseball game. His team is undefeated this year. Tomorrow after church is our church picnic. We have one every year. We go out to Bro. Earl and Sis. Dot's and have it out there. We have fun and it's a great chance for fellowship. Next week the older boys and dad are going to Jamestown area to work as crowd control. It's the big homeschool celebration at Jamestown next week and they asked the ALERT cadet fathers and older sons to come work crowd control. Then the week after that.... We are going to do the VBS in FL!!!!!!! That's about it. G-bye.

You make me sick!

2007-06-05T11:32:00.000-04:00

Ok so it's not you that make me sick. In fact I'm not the one who is or was sick. Zach is the victim of the fiendish bug. Ok I'll start at the beginning. My mom and my sister and I went down to SC for my cousins graduation. We went down Friday morning and were planning on coming home Monday evening. Yeah Right! Beth got sick on Monday and we didn't come home untill Wednesday evening. Beth was feeling perfectly fine and normal Wednesday so we thought we were out of the woods and started home. Who would have thought that she was still contagious? Anyway we got home really late Wednesday night and went to bed. Everyone was fine Thursday and Friday untill... Friday night came. Micah, Zach, and Daniel share a room upstairs. We have 2 bunkbeds in their room, Daniel and Micah share one and Zach sleeps on the bottom bunk of the other. Micah sleeps on the top. Micah wakes up in the middle of the night and just starts throwing up over the side.... right on top of Daniel. Daniel gets mom and dad and Mom cleans the carpet and gets Micah cleaned up and Zach runs into the bathroom and starts throwing up. While he is still in there Micah runs in and says hurry up hurry up. Let's just say the rest of the night was pretty hectic. Bethany and I are completely oblivious to all this fuss untill the next morning. We had piano recital on Sunday and Saturday was the rehearsal. I had 3 songs and 2 of them were played with Zach so when he couldn't come Saturday I was suddenly left with one song. Anyway, Zach didn't look very good so I asked if he wanted a drink of water. He said yes so I hurried off to get him one. He said it tasted weird and asked for tea instead so I went to get tea. Upon opening the fridge I was amazed to discover we had 2 types of juice in there so I asked if he would like juice instead he said yes. So I went to get him juice and poured a little in a glass for him to try. He tasted it didn't like it so I went to get him apple juice instead. I put the other juice away and was just getting the apple juice out when the other juice got knocked out of the fridge hit the side of the cupboards and the lid was knocked off. Horrors, this red juice was pouring all across the kitche floor. I quickly picked the bottle up but not before it managed to spill under the fridge and stove. So I cleaned the mess up, Pulled the fridge out cleaned under there, pulled the stove out and cleaned under there. What a mess!!! Then I poured Zach some apple juice and took it to him. Now I know why Jesus said if you give someone a cup of water in my name you will not lose your reward....... because he knew that sometimes it can be incredibly difficult to give someone a cup of water! After beth and I came back from rehearsal I was talking to Zach and we called the Cox's to see how far they had gotten. Anyway Zach told Sister Betsy that Bethany makes him sick! HA! Here Zach is feeling terrible and he still can't help but make a joke. Thankfully he felt well enough by Sunday afternoon to go to the recital if he stayed away from people so he went and we were able to play our songs. Yay! Everyone is feeling better now including Micah. There are no stories about him on here because he slept the entire time he was sick. Anyway thats about it except it's only two weeks untill we go down to FL and do the VBS! Yay! We are all so excited! We are going to visit with the Cox's again and have a ministry at the same time! What could be better than that?

Busy, Busy, Incredibly Busy....

2007-05-22T16:45:00.000-04:00

Much, much too busy to blog! Ha yet here I found myself once again quickly typing away. It's strawberry season! Yay! We picked 12 baskets of strawberries this morning and worked on standardized tests! Hah! I feel like I got something accomplished! Now I have to clean and cut and freeze strawberries. Lots of strawberries...... Mom and Dad are in Lynchburg right now. Sis. Betty Bowlin, our lady at church who is terminaly ill with cancer, fell and broke her hip at 2 a.m. Saturday morning. It's been hectic running back and forth to visit her and finish our testing. I've also been working on VBS stuff. We are going down to FL to do one at Palatka. It's going to be fun but right now I've got to get the work out of the way so that i will have time for fun! I've really been boosting Youth Camp to my young people this year and I think we might have a crowd from Farmville. YAY! This weekend Mom and Beth and I are going down to SC for my cousins graduation and to see the new baby and all of my mom's family. It's going to be nice. Anyway, I hear strawberries calling my name so I'd better run.

Hi Everyone

2007-04-17T17:15:00.000-04:00

Ok so I did it again, maybe I'm not so hot at this blogging thing after all. :-) I'll do my best to bring ya'll up to speed but I really am incredibly busy. We had a good crowd on Resurrection Sunday. We must of had around 100. Lot's of kids. Huge Children's Church class. Dawn and John came over after Church and we played games and worked on an idea for VLB posters for the youth march at youth convention next weekend. We raised $200 dollars for the banner program from the eggs that we made. Lots of work trust me. Wednesday we had VLB service we started working on Posters. Then Friday Lynchburg Church had their lock-in. It was a blast! I'd never been to a lock-in before so it was a new experience for me. We enjoyed it immensely. Tonya and TJ came too. TJ seems to fit right in with the guys. Tonya is starting to get more comfortable with everyone. It's going to be tougher for her because she grew up in the COGOP and has lots of friends that are still in the COGOP and she doesn't really know anyone and she's trying to fit in. Sunday was Church again then I'll have VLB again on Wednesday. WHEW!!! Pray for me! We are going to work on Posters again tomorrow night. My cousins wife had her baby! It's a girl her name is Chloe Sienna Miller and she weighed 8lbs exactly. Pretty big for a first baby. That's about it so I'll say goodbye untill the next time I get a sudden urge to blog!

Sorry....

2007-03-27T13:46:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry everyone for not being a better blogger. I ought to be kicked out of the club ( if I was ever in it in the first place..) All I can do is humbly express my sincere apologies and hope to do better next time before I make you totally forget there was anything to be forgiven with my wonderful news!!!!! I have been incredibly busy lately. My Mammaw is making Easter eggs to sell for church and I am being taught how. Then of course we have to sell them. We went to S.C. over the weekend two weeks ago for my cousins baby shower. Number 1 for my cousin David ,the former marine, and his wife Katie. They are so excited! While we were there we were able to visit the Midway Church. It was so nice to walk into that Church and feel the love you always feel wherever you go in the Church. The people there are very friendly. I'm so glad we have somewhere to go when we visit family! Ok now for the good news..... We had another awesome service. God is so good! In those two services we had 1 saved, 3 sanctified, and 1 filled with the Holy Ghost. We just had our District Convention Saturday which was very good. The Sandys came and really enjoyed it. Bro. Tony stayed up praying all night Saturday and, drumroll please, Sunday morning they, the whole family, joined the Church! We have our 10% increase! Not to mention, we also have a 50% increase in our VLB band! That's right Farmville now has 12 VLB's! Tonya and T.J. and Autumn and Jennifer. Two were gleaners that turned 12 this year but the other two are new! Yeah! Wow I caught you guys up fast.... I guess that's it. Goodbye!

"O what singing, O what shouting..."

2007-03-09T19:49:00.000-05:00

The observation has been made that every time the Baldwins go to Florida we have an awesome service the Sunday after we get back. It's only happened twice but it seems to be true. Sunday morning we came back from the nursing home and as soon as you opened the door you could hear shouting and singing. It was great. Sunday School was evidently not even dismissed. We have a very annointed teacher in our adult sunday school class and we've really really been enjoying our lessons this quarter. Anyway she was teaching and then she started preaching and God started moving and there was a message and interpretation given and the Holy Spirit started convicting some of the folks that come all the time but aren't saved. One of our member's daughters who was raised in the church but hasn't been serving God for years was saved. She was so happy she was just laughing and crying and saying, "Bro. Frank I'm back!" It was great! I mean we really had a time. We even had a Victory March. It reminds me of that song heaven's jubilee. I remember some of our older members testified saying it's like old times! Now for a cute kid story as I promised.... The first night we were at the Cox's, Ruthie and Mary-Fran were fighting over who was going to sleep with me. Mary-Fran said, "I'm gonna sleep with you" so I said, "who's gonna sleep with Bethany?" She said, "Ruthie can." Ruthie interjects at this point, "No I'm gonna sleep with Charity!" Sister Betsy says, "Mary-Frances why don't you want to sleep with Bethany?" Mary-Fran replies, " I wanna sleep with Charity cause Charity suffereth long and is kind." That was their memory verse for that week and let me tell you I got the full effect of it! The guys are all like "Yes! we can do anything we want to to Charity and she won't do anything about it cause she suffers long and is kind!" I'm sure there are lots of other stories I just can't remember all the details. Oh yeah Caleb came to me when I was changing Abby's diaper and said, "Did you know, I didn't know this, but did you know that when Abby was born she was born with finger nails and toe nails?!" I thought that was hilarious he is right though it is wonderful that God creates babies with all their finger nails and toe nails! O that we could see through eyes of wonder like little children do. They can always see there is a Creator because their eyes behold the wonder of the creation! No wonder Jesus said of such are the kingdom of heaven! Well I'll write more later. Beth is wanting to use the phone.

Home Again

2007-03-03T17:14:00.000-05:00

I am home in good ol' Virginy. Florida was great and we would have loved to stay longer. However, we have certain responsibilities at church this Sunday which we need to complete so we had to leave, amid much lamentation, and come home. March is World Mission Month and we have to get started on our missions drive. March also happens to be when our young people are responsible to hold Sunday services at the local Nursing Home. Anyway, we had a great time with the Cox's. We arrived just after 7:00 Thursday night and said our hello's and the next thing I knew I was hiding in a bush telling Francie to be quiet or the big boys would find us. War had broken out. I really don't think it was quite fair. Zach, Beau, Josh, and Daniel were on one team and Micah, Nate, Caleb, Noah, Bethany, Francie, and I were the other team. We had the bigger team but there were a couple of problems. Beth and Francie would scream at the top of their lungs whenever we saw the big boys which directed their attention to us, Caleb talked the entire time we were hiding, and when Noah got caught he would show them where we were hiding. Thus it was really Micah, Nathan, and I against the big boys. It was still pretty fun and the 3 of us made a deal that we would never give up. We ended in a truce. We went to St. Augustine the next day and had a lot of fun and learned quite a bit. We went to the Spanish Quarter, Fort Matanzez, and The Old Florida Museum. Saturday we rested up and Sunday there was a dinner and singing at the Palatka Church. After the dinner we went to the hospital and visited a couple of the members. That evening it was VLB service. We played a Bible Trivia game, we won by the way, and then Beau had a short devotional and alter call. I really enjoyed Beau's devotional he had a great visual aid. Zach, Beau, Josh, and I learned Amazing Grace on our respective instruments and played together. It was a lot of fun. I taught all the Cox kids, except for Abby, the Bright Arrow Song. Beau and Josh weren't too keen about it but they learned it anyway. The rest of our visit was filled with Basketball, War, Spotlight, Dutch Blitz, and lots of talking, laughing, and joking. We also made one more trip to St. Augustine and visited the Castillo De San Marcos. That was very interesting. We also visited a quiet and deserted strip of the beach and played Frisbee, built sand castles, and got our feet wet. Friday was a sad and dreary day. It was raining and that made everyone feel even more gloomy. The older kids had discussed the possibility of pulling out a spark plug or something similar to that but we decided we would get in big trouble so we were good and didn't do anything. That's about it except for details and other things that make up our inside jokes. We finally arrived home early this morning. In other news Hailey's test results have come back and she tested negative for Leukemia and everything else they tested her for. Praise the Lord! She is still having all the symptoms that I mentioned before and has now been running a Temp. for almost a month. Please keep her in your prayers. The doctors have no idea what this is and it is stressful for Vanessa and Jacob. Pray for them also that the Lord would give them perfect peace and comfort in this trial.

Getting Ready to Leave....

2007-02-20T19:50:00.000-05:00

......Not this world though that's true too. We are getting ready to leave for the land of sunshine and warm weather- Florida. Yippee! We are all really excited including mom and dad. This isn't going to be very long I just wanted to let everyone know I am still on this planet. I don't think I'm really going to have a chance to blog while I'm gone so you guys will hear from me when I return home. I should have plenty of cute kid stories to share too. One thing If you guys would be in prayer for my little cousin Hailey I would appreciate it. Hailey has been running a slight temp. for a couple weeks and has been having more than the normal count of white blood cells. She is less than a year old and has never been in perfect health. She died before she was ever born and the whole family started praying and when my cousin Vanessa went to the Dr. for something else he asked her if she had a praying family she said yes and he told her "This baby was dead two days ago but it is alive now." Anyway, the Pediatrician told her he didn't know what was wrong with Hailey so he's sending her to a specialist. There is a possibility it could be Leukemia because she is showing all the symptems. So please pray for her and please pass this prayer request on.

Sing unto the Lord a new song...

2007-02-12T17:35:00.000-05:00

Happy Valentines Day to all of my friends and anyone else who may be reading this. (with a blog you never know.) Well, Micah is up and about. Not a lot has been happening lately other than school and piano and church. Have any of ya'll seen Facing The Giants? It is a good movie. It's made by a baptist church down in GA. Dawn and John have it and they brought it over to our house a few days ago and we all watched it. After seeing it Dad went and got it for us. Saturday, Zach and I went and took CPR and First Aid. Mrs. Bloss was the main instructor. There was 2 classes going on one for community and another for poeple who were going to be life guards or on the squad. Mr. Bloss taught the community one so he was our classroom instructor. I've been told we passed. We just have to wait for our certification cards to arrive and it will be official. Sunday after Church we had a dinner and singing. We took up an offering for the dinner and proceeds went to the VLB's we're still deciding what to do with it. We had a grand total of $152.50. Pretty good if I do say so myself. Anyway we had to sing during the singing. We sang "Jesus the Way Maker," "I'm not Looking for a City Going up but the one That's Coming Down," and "If you Believe." The first 2 were fairly new ones but I think we did pretty good. I also worked with the Gleaners on a new song. They learned "Behold What Manner" they also sang "Bright Arrows" which they already knew. They did a good job I was proud of them. We started out with 12 and ended up with 4 but they sang so loud they sounded like the whole 12 were there! The Sandy's were there and all 4 of them sang. T.J. sang a song that I really liked. I think it was called "He'll Take you Through the Fire Again" but I'm not sure. I had heard it before. The chorus starts out "He never promised that the cross would not get heavy or the hill would not be hard to climb, He never offered out victories without fighting but he said help would always come in time. So remember when you're standing in the valley of decision and......(I can't remember this part)..... He'll take you through the fire again." Sister Gayle sang "I know that He'll Deliver Me." I really enjoyed those 2 songs in particular. They reminded me of the VLB theme this year. Tim was there and I told him if he was coming he had to sing, so he sang "Keep the Flame Burning in my Heart" and another song which I can't remember at the moment. After the singing ended we went home and Dawn and John came over to visit. The Sandys had to leave the singing early because Bro. Tony and TJ had to dig a grave and Tonya had to work, but Bro. Tony and TJ came by our house for a while after they dug the grave. We had a good time. That's about it except in less than 2 weeks we are taking a vacation. (Kind of) Our vacations are always visiting family or friends. After Christmas this year when we didn't get to see the Cox's Bro. Jerry and Sis. Betsy kept after Mom and Dad to come for a visit them so we are going to go see them. Yeah!!!! We were only going to go for a weekend but Sis. Betsy has talked Mom into staying for a week. We are driving down on the 22nd. Yeehaw!!! We are going to have a lot of fun! The kids are counting down the days. We are all really excited. There are a few folks in this world who you can just let your hair down with and the Cox's are some of those poeple. Fortunately they feel the same way about us. ;-) We are going to have so much fun. (I already said that didn't I?) Anyway that's about it. I'll talk to everyone later. G'bye

Can you believe it I'm actually posting!

2007-02-03T14:54:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone. I'm back again to aimlessly bore you out of your minds with news such as, "No it's not broken only sprained" and other such trifles. I should probably back up to last Friday and catch everyone up on my nice, quiet, sane, (yeah right) peaceful, (if you don't count having trouble with the police every time I turn around) existence. Last Friday morning I was getting dressed and ready for the day when suddenly I couldn't see. (ok maybe I could see but everything was really blurry) I realized that one of my lenses must have popped out again so I calmly and rationally start looking for it. (maybe I should say feeling for it hmm...) I find it and somehow manage to grope my way down our very steep stairs and through the mine fields of the living room and dining room into the Kitchen where Mom is. I of course am unable to fix my glasses when I can't really see so I carefully hand my glasses over to Mom to work her magic on. Mom starts working with my glasses and suddenly a question is asked which fills me with utter terror, " Where is the screw?" "The screw?" I manage to squeak out. I had no idea where the screw was. I covered my path from my room all the way to the kitchen on my hands and knees desperately and blindly feeling about for the screw but to no avail. Needless to say my piano lesson was cancelled and Dad and I ran into Blackstone to see the eye doctor so he could fix my glasses. Those of you who wear glasses can empathize with me. The next day was our long awaited snow tubing trip. Our general plan was to leave by 4 a.m. Saturday morning. Tonya was going to come and meet us at our house by quarter to 4. However unexpected difficulties in the way of faulty alarm clocks, lack of fuel, and slow pesky deer prevented us from leaving until close to 5. When we finally hit the road we were exhausted and excited. When we got to Prospect we missed Amber's road and had to turn around and go back. Then we settled in for a long drive. We arrived a little late but we enjoyed our snow tubing experience immensely. Tonya and Amber got to know one another fairly well and had a grand time. There are many stories I could share but then I'd be here all day. However I think I will share one with everyone. The tubing lanes went down the hill in steps and then at the end of the lane it went up a hill to slow you down and stop you. After the lane ended there was a little slope down into a net like fence that kept you, if your tube went too far, from going over a big embankment into the road. Several of our group hit the fence and bounced off and it became a matter of pride if you could hit the fence. Well poor Tim tried all day to hit the fence and he just couldn't manage it. I mean he studied the slope of the hill and calculated the best way jump on his tube and how much of a running start he needed and he could never hit the fence. Well when we went up for our last ride this little fellow jumps on his tube and goes all the way to the fence and bounced back. So Tim thinks if he can do it so can I. So he jumps on his tube and goes down the hill and stops before he even gets halfway up the hill. You guys should have seen him he was clawing at the snow with his hands desperately trying to pull himself further up the lane. It was my turn next. I was going really fast and saw the end of the lane coming up fast and I had no desire to hit that flimsy little fence and maybe go sailing out into oblivion or worse yet land in the road and maybe get run over by a car so I drag my feet and throw myself half off the tube before finally coming to a stop on the top of the hill inches away from going down the little slope into the fence. Amber was next and she did exactly the same thing I did. Then Micah was up and he slammed into the fence and bounced off sure enough. Tim didn't think it was very fair that he had been trying to hit that fence all day and hadn't done it and that we had done our utmost to keep from hitting it. So snow tubing is over and it was fun but I have more adventures to relate to ya'll. After dropping Amber off we made it back home at about 9:15 and the Sandy's arrived to pick up Tonya at about 9:30. Tonya had just managed to put her stuff in the trunk and climb in the car and they were getting ready to pull away when to our surprise a police car pulled up with his lights flashing at 9:30 in the evening, to tell us that we were breaking the law by parking in the middle of the road! They hadn't been there for 2 minutes and all they did was put her stuff in the trunk and let her get in the car! On top of that there was no place within half a block for them to park! I would like to remind everyone that this was within a residential neighborhood in a small town of maybe 2,000 people and that this road is rarely used except by people who live on it! On top of that the cop was making a big disturbance and parked in the middle of the road himself. I'm telling you guys I really miss our old cops. I wish they would stop bringing in these big city cops into our little tiny town! Our neighbors couldn't believe that cop either in fact they made a complaint about him to the mayor, and the police chief, and the town council. I have a feeling that cop won't last long around here. Rumor has it that we aren't the only ones he's picked on lately! Ok I know everyone is dying to know what I meant by "it's not broken only sprained." Micah was playing two hand touch with Dad and the older boys and somehow ended up getting sideswiped by both Zach and Daniel and knocked onto the ground with his leb bent beneath him and Daniel on top of him. Mom and Dad took him yo the emergency room and everyone thought his leg was broken for sure. The doctor was surprised when he read the x-rays that Micah's leg was not roken only badly sprained with a contusion on his knee. He is not allowed to put any weight on it and is wearing a leg brace and using crutches. That was the big excitement this week. Other than that my weeks has been quiet and uninterupted by anything else except.... SNOW!!!!! We had snow.... kind of. We got less than a quarter of an inch and it was all gone by the next day but for that one day it was beautiful! I hope we get more but I seriously doubt it. Anyway that's about it. G'bye

Snowtubing Bound!

2007-01-25T18:16:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! In less than 48 hrs I will be happily whizzing down the the slopes on a tube. Yeehaw! I can't wait, neither can anyone else in our family! Maybe I should have said neither can anyone else I've talked to! We are leaving at 4 a.m. Saturday. Fun. I hope we survive the trip. On the way home people will probably be pretty cranky. But it will be worth it! The boys will be in a different vehicle so we won't have too many cranky folks in our van. (Teenagers don't get cranky when they get tired they get silly, and goofy and crazy.) We are going to have fun... just as soon as Tonya and Amber get used to each other. That shouldn't take too long hopefully. :-) After tubing the plan is to get lunch together. I don't know if we're going to find a restaurant that will have enough room for all of us. Sister Tonya said that 50 or 60 young people are going. You guys can all tell what is on my mind today. I'll write some more later after snow tubing.... :-)

Hello

2007-01-20T12:25:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Ok so my life in the past week. (Some people are just glutton for punishment!) LOL. Anyway, I enjoyed my quiet Saturday last week and am enjoying another fairly quiet Saturday this week. Sunday we had a good service at church. That evening the Sandy's were back again. Tonya and T.J. came and spent the night with us. We had a good time. The public school kids didn't have school Monday or Tuesday. Monday was Lee/Jackson/MLKJ Day and Tuesday was some sort of teacher work day. When we got home from church Sunday night we decided to pull out the glow in the dark football and walk the not quite a block to the Libray field and play a game of football. It was just after midnight but no one had school the next day and we were very quiet. We didn't talk except in our huddles and then we whispered. Anyway our team, Zach, T.J., and I, just got the kickoff and Zach ran it back for a touchdown. The other team wasn't happy with that so we were going to kick it off again when suddenly our eyes were blinded by a bright light. A policeman was standing there holding a light almost directly into our eyes so we couldn't see anything. He then said, "I was just checking to see if you had an adult with you. Because if you hadn't you would have been in big trouble with me!" We used to have nice policemen in Crewe that were actually from our area and could connect with the people. Now they have started importing foreigners that don't know anyone. When we had first started playing I had seen a car drive up and sit in the parking lot for about 5 min. before they drove off. Dad said they must have been the ones who called because none of the neighbors complained. We went home and played quieter indoor games untill we finally headed off to bed. The next day we had a good time playing cards and hanging out. Later that afternoon we went to the baseball field and hit and fielded the ball for a while. I'm usually not too good when it comes to baseball but I actually did really good that day. When Bro. Tony and Sis. Gayle picked the kids up they stayed for dinner. Then we played games and laughed and laughed together. We always laugh when we get together. Anyway Tuesday we had to go to Richmond for an Ortho appointment. We did some shopping and errands that needed to be done. Then Wednesday we had VLB service. I used the title " It's time to clean house!" It went pretty well over all. Then Thursday I had to work at Mammom's. We got cell phone upgrades in the mail that day as well. The new cell phone is really cool. It has a camera and bluetooth technology. It's pretty neat. I do like our old ringtone better though. Friday we had piano lessons and I did fairly well. Today I am having a quiet restful day. Tomorrow I have to teach Children's Church and then the young people are going out for pizza. We are going to have fun. One last thing... Only one week till Snowtubing!!! Yeah!

Too Busy to Blog

2007-01-12T16:29:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody! I know all of y'all are probably thinking ok what's her lame excuse for not blogging this time but, I actually do have a pretty good excuse for not blogging. I simply haven't really had time. Of course there is also the fact that Beth and Micah have discovered some kids site and are on as often as they can get permission. Then there is the fact that dad has been downloading something again and you really can't do anything when dad's downloading. It all adds up to a very poor excuse for just being too busy to blog. Someone not too long ago remarked to me, "Blogging is supposed to be about your daily life." Well my comeback is this, "I Charity Baldwin in my full senses and right state of mind, if any state of my mind could actually be right and some people could argue that I probably haven't be in my full senses for years, nonetheless, do hereby initiate a new state of blogging, WEEKLY BLOGGING, or more often if I have the time and actually want to use it blogging." How does that sound? O.K. so I might not post for 2 weeks or so every now and then but weekly is a whole lot easier than daily. You mean old person who insisted that blogging was supposed to be daily. You know who you are and you have no room to talk! Anyway with how busy I've been I don't really have much to say except that I've been bugging all of my VLB's about going tubing and guess what it's paid off! I sent in the form yesterday, and we had 10 names on the list. YEEHAW! Moreover they are excited about it! Of course you guys know that we make up 7 of the names but that is still 3 more than we usually get. Tonya and T.J. Sandy and Amber are coming! Yeah! Oh right, I also spent several hours being walked through uploading pics by a friend of mine and it was to no avail. At least now I know that it wasn't my fault. My computer is kinda messed up so I can't download pics until my friend figures out what could possibly be wrong with it. Thanks anyway, Josh. In other news I had piano lessons today and they went over pretty well. Oh yes, yesterday we had some Bible study during school and I am totally convinced as to the usefulness of my study Bible. It has a strongs numbers next to main words in each verse and in the back it has a strong's dictionary and a lexicon! Not to mention several other study helps! I love it! It has everything together and makes studying more convenient. Anyway studying the words in the original languages really makes the meanings clearer. For instance We were studying Matt. 5:1b-2 and I decided to look up what I thought was a fairly small word because it happened to be underlined in my Bible. The word was came. Pretty straightforward right? Wrong. In the Greek language the word meant and implied, "to come to worship in one mind and accord with the one you are coming to and the other worshippers." It implied several other things as well that simply amazed me but I can't remember everything now. I was certainly glad I didn't pass that word by because it was small. It opened up a whole new understanding to the meaning of the verse and made it a lot clearer. I would encourage every one to get a Strongs Concordance and a Hebrew Greek Lexicon if you don't already have one. They are very valuable to anyone who enjoys studying the Word. I guess I started teaching there. Well anyway I need to go. I was going to go with Daniel to hand out tracts. G'bye.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-05T16:37:00.000-05:00

Ok so it's kinda late to be saying Happy New Year, I mean it's the 5th already, but I'll say it anyway! Happy New Year! Ok so this might be another late past-due post that I frantically write away at hoping somehow to redeem myself from my positively hopeless state of non-blogging. But if it's anything I hope it's interesting if not somehow somewhat entertaining. :-) Please forgive all use of improper punctuation and spelling. Grammar is definitely not my strong point! Though I have to say that I'm getting a kick out of this new spellcheck system the new blogger has. It's a lot more convenient than it used to be. Anyway to stop this aimless rambling and terrible waste of time, how did your New Year's go? Ours went well. We had a Watch Night Service at Church. It went really well. We had 3 sermons, a lot of singing, several testimonies, and even a couple of auxillary boosts! Grandpa called Sunday afternoon and told Mom and I both to get a boost together for WMB and VLB. Not fun. I must have looked pretty funny up there behind the pulpit, my hands gripping the edges of my new study Bible so hard my knuckles were turning white, stumbling over my words, while my knees knocked fiercely together. Yep a pretty entertaining sight! Though I have to admit that I must have done a pretty good job of hiding my nervousness as no one seemed to notice. Amy, I did get pictures of our service but as usual this terribly dense, when it comes to computers, girl once again could not get her pictures up. I followed the directions exactly crossed all my t's and dotted all my i's but still it doesn't want to cooperate! I think that computer geek that Becki Horne is always talking about is up to his old tricks again. Or it could be that I am even dumber than I myself comprehend. Somebody please help me! I really really want to post a picture but this computer won't let me! Someone should give me simple step-by-step directions that anyone can understand so I can at least figure out if it's me or my computer! Ok I'll calm down now. Anyway back to New Year's. After the service we had snacks and fellowship. The Sandy's were there. We had a great time. Tonya came home with us and spent the night. The next day New Year's we had a big supper. The rest of the Sandy's came and Pappaw came. Mammaw wasn't feeling to well so Pappaw carried a plate home to her. We had a great time with the Sandy's we hadn't had them over in a long time and we used to get together all the time so we really enjoyed our visit. (Wow, talk about a really long run on sentence. What can I say I have a gift for it!) Anyway they didn't leave till fairly late. Wednesday was VLB service but our pastor decided to send everyone up to Lynchburg instead. Brother Carter was there for a 2 night revival before Men's Retreat. I have to confess that since I was appointed as the local VLB leader I've only conducted one VLB service. That sounds terrible but it can't be helped. We didn't have service the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, then in December we had play practice one night and I was sick the next, then this Wednesday we went to the revival. Everyone was very happy to resign my teaching for Brother Carter's annointed preaching including myself! Brother Tony and T.J. drove up with Pappaw to the revival. They seemed to enjoy it. T.J. of course sat with us kids. He seemed to enjoy the service. Now I found that I'm repeating myself. Anyway I had a not too bad but I've done better day at piano lessons. This afternoon after I finished School and before I left for piano I mixed up a batch of cookies for Dad and Zach and Daniel to take with them to Men's Retreat. I should have had just over 4 dozen but when we packed them up to send I found there were only 31 cookies. I'll I have to think a while to figure out how that happened. hmmmm :-) I didn't have time to make more so the boys only had 31 cookies to take with them. Oh well, they'll have plenty without the cookies. Micah is excited because he is the "man of the house" and gets to take care of us girls. It's pretty funny. You think he would feel left out but he couldn't wait for them to get out of the house. Anyway this weekend it's just Mom, Beth, Micah and I. It seems really quiet without Zach continually blowing his trumpet or his harmonica. Or Dad and Daniel coming up behind some unsuspecting victim and tickling them and poking them. I kind of like the relative silence although the I would miss them if they were gone any longer. I remember what Daniel said before I left for Ladies Retreat when Mom and Dad were gone. He said, I'm going to miss you Charity." I asked him why and he replied,"because Bethany can't cook very good yet." Today he says, "I'm glad we get to get away from all these women." I think he would miss us if we weren't around. Anyway, I probably need to let everyone get back to there normal every day lives now. Oh yes, curiosity compels me to ask who all is coming on the youth snowtubing trip the 27th? We are all planning to go. I hope it works out. It's going to be a lot of fun!

Quiet Christmas

2006-12-29T11:35:00.000-05:00

Well Christmas is over and it was different this year. It really didn't feel like Christmas this year. I can't explain it but it never felt like Christmas. It was kind of weird. All of Dad's family came on Christmas day this year. We had our get-together at the church. There are to many of us to fit into Pappaw and Mammaw's house so we have to go to the church. All 6 of the children and all 14 of the garandkids were there as well as one boyfriend, one mother-in-law, and two dogs! Don't forget that all 6 of those "children" are married and their spouses were there as well. All-in-all we had around 35 people. This year everyone left as soon as the schedule was finished. Usually everyone goes back to Mammaw and Pappaw's house to play Rook and eat snacks and visit till really late. This year only Aunt Debbie, Aunt Darlene, and our family went back. Then they had to leave fairly early because some scroogish boss had people working the next day! Bah Humbug! It was nice to see all the cousins again. Some of them we hadn't seen for several years. So it didn't last very long and all the cousins are older. I'm the only one who is anywhere near their ages. It wasn't much fun for Beth and Micah. We have spent most of our time this year at home. It has been fairly quiet. We've even managed to get mom to sit down and watch a few Christmas movies with us. We were hoping to meet the Cox's while they were up this year but it didn't work out. Oh well, such is life. Ah yes, I suppose everyone is wondering what we got this year. I got a new study Bible, a missionary's biography, and the new Dee Henderson book. It was interesting. The only thing I'm going to say is that she leaves you hanging. We kids bought Daddy a popcorn popper. He loves popcorn and he loves his gift. Zach got the first 2 seasons of the Waltons and a book. Daniel got a new Bible, a Bible cover, and a book. Micah got soldiers, a glow in the dark football, and a book. Beth got some more dollhouse furniture, a movie, and a book. As a family gift mom ordered the financial freedom seminar from the Institute. As you can tell our whole family loves to read. In fact we've got more books than we have room to put them! Books teach you alot. Mom says that books are an investment in the future. Every time Mom and Dad give us a new book they feel like they are investing in our future. I have no problem with that. I love to read! We are having a watch night service on Sunday night it starts at 8 pm. You can't put an ending time on a watch night service because you never know what time they will end only that it will be after midnight! I'm sorry if this is rather boring and uninteresting but everything has been pretty quiet this week. Everyone have a safe and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

2006-12-24T21:09:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas!!!! Everyone travel safely and have a wonderful time with your family and friends.

Another Past-Due Post

2006-12-18T12:10:00.000-05:00

Once again I find myself sitting in front of the computer aimlessly punching away at the keyboard. And once again I am way late! You really must excuse me. I have been very busy. Last Sunday wehad our banquet. We had a great time! Tim was there as our guest and Chelsey came with him to keep him awake. I was of course more than pleased with that arrangement. Then Amber came in. She had a guitar recital and wasn't sure if she was going to be able to come. I was happy she was there too. Amber and Chelsey know each other so that was no problem. We sang songs and read some scripture then we had dinner. The Sandys came in during dinner. I was glad they came but Tonya was really acting strange around Chelsey and Amber. She wouldn't talk or be herself. She was driving me insane! Why do some girls act that way? I guess she was nervous or something but I didn't know what to do with her. Anyway, Amber and I had to work on some songs for the play so we went in the sanctuary and I got on the piano and she pulled out her guitar. Then T.J. comes in and I sent him to get his mandolin. Then he started playing with us. Then Bro. Gene pulled out his guitar. Then Tonya comes in and starts singing with us. Then Tim comes in and chases me off the piano and takes my spot then he let me back on and chased Amber off her guitar and played for a while then he let her have it back. He kept saying,"I wish I'd brought my bass." We wished he had too. Anyway we had fun but I think Chelsey kinda felt left out. She doesn't play an instrument. I hate making people feel left out. I sat with Chelsey the rest of the time. We played games and Tim spoke a very few minutes. All in all we had a good time and I think all 3 of my friends felt included over all. Why do some girls act weird when they meet new girls? I really don't understand. This past week we have been pretty busy. We went shopping Tuesday and we've been cleaning and baking every other day besides that I was getting all the last minute things done for the play. We had practice Wednesday night, and I had my last piano lesson for this year on Friday! Yeah! This Sunday evening we had the play it turned out fairly well except one of my angels sat down in the middle of the play and Jenny had to tell her to stand up. Not a problem except for the fact that her mike was still on and we could hear her whispering,"stand up" over the speakers. Siane still wouldn't stand up. It was rather funny. Anyway that was pretty much the only mishap this year. Last year we had a real baby play Jesus and he pulled himself up and looked at the audience and waved at everyone! That was funny! Anyway I must say that I'm relieved that the play is over and there were no major mistakes. Today Dad, Pappaw, and Mom are going to Richmond for Dad's Cardiologist appointment. This Doctor is really frustrating because every time Dad goes to see this guy he's feeling fine. So the Doctor won't give dad his full disability because he doesn't think Dad's really sick anymore. Our family doctor sees dad all the time and knows that he is still sick. Anyway this doctor is really intimidating so pray for my Dad today. I probably need to go. I've got a huge mess to clean up in the kitchen from all the baking we've been doing. I've also got to study for VLB sevrice Wednseday night and do some other things too. Oh yeah we gave Mom her present early and she loves it! We got her a KitchenAid mixer. Our last mixer got broken. Beth was making cookies and dropped her spoon in the bowl so she reached her hands in there to get the spoon without turning the mixer off. To make a long story short, her fingers were badly bruised and the mixer was wrecked. She's learned a lot about mixers since then and she's getting better at making cookies. Anyway I need to go. G'bye

Hello Again

2006-12-09T18:46:00.000-05:00

Someone informed me that it was time for a new post. As if anything I write could actually be interesting! I think I've had a pretty good excuse for not blogging but some people just don't see it that way! Ok, I've been on my back with my foot up in the air since Wednesday. Is that a good excuse or what? Why have I been laid up? Well it all started at lunch time Wednesday. Beth rushed past and knocked me over. I fell into a trash bag that was sitting on the floor. One of the boys had put the top of a can into the trash and it sliced into the top of my toe. Then I tripped and hit my toe against the wall. Ouch! The toe was badly hurt and the top of my foot was swollen up. I spent the rest of the week forced to inaction. I thought I was going to go insane! I remember telling one of my brothers,"this enforced inaction is driving me insane!" Anyway, we had one of our church ladies over for dinner last night. We had a good time. I taught Mama how to play Dutch Blitz and she loves it! You should have seen her go! We are getting ready for our church banquet. It is this Sunday night. In years past we have had Brother Smith and Brother Jerry Anders as our guests. This year that was impossible. Our new Regional and District overseers, Brother Jared and Brother Horton, both were to busy to come this year. So anyway Pappaw said, "why don't we invite that Cox guy you know that youth guy to come be our guest this year." So Pappaw called Tim up and he's coming. Pappaw never can remember Tim's name it's usually pretty funny. Last Sunday I came out of SS class to find some good friends of ours had come in! The Sandys have been good friends of ours for years. We all used to go to Kenbridge church before all the mess that happened over there. After that big split most of us came over and joined Farmville. Tha cogop overseer gave Bro. Sandy a church to pastor so he went to the coast. After what happened in the cogop assembly they resigned their church. Now they're "looking." I hope they come on over! They have two kids Tonya and T.J. Tonya is two weeks younger than me and T.J. is between Daniel and Micah in age. I think they might be coming to the banquet tomorrow. I hope they do! Next Sunday we are going to have our program and open gifts. The kids have been working really hard. They look so cute in their costumes! I can't wait till it's over though! Too much pressure! Anyway I heard from Pappaw who heard from Brother Jared that we might be using the cogop campground for camp this year! It would be really great if we could! The cogop camp has an indoor gym! Basketball here I come! Not for a while yet. :-) My EMT neighbor has strictly prohibited me from overdoing it! Oh well. :-( I'll be completely better soon! Then watch out guys your competition is back! I've actually not been playing very well lately but I'm going to practice as soon as I can. Oh wow can you believe it I'm rambling again. I guess that's the sign I need to stop! Wait a second there was something I threatened to post. Nahhhhh I'm not going to. (Scared you didn't I!) G'bye!

Nee How Ma!!!!

2006-12-02T18:20:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody I'm on my blog on our computer! We are still having a little trouble with it but at least I can get caught up with everyone. Ok It's been quite a while so I guess this should be a long post. (You got it I am going into talk mode and if you know me you know that means I can talk for hours and hours to anyone including people I hardly know just as long as I feel like they really want to hear what I have to say but in writing I can talk for hours and hours whether anyone really wants to hear what I have to say or not!!!!) (How's that for a super long run-on sentence?) Ha! So anyway just to let you know "Nee How Ma" is mandarin Chinese for "Hello How are You." Ok first subject. Thanksgiving! Pull out the turkey and dressing don't forget the cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie; it's Thanksgiving!!! Or rather it's over a week past Thanksgiving. :-) We went to Aunt Darlene and Uncle Ted's house house for Thanksgiving this year. All of my Aunts on my Dad's side of the family were there. My Mammom and Pappaw decided not to come this year because it was really rainy and it's a two-and-a-half hour drive from here to there. I think they would have enjoyed it. Eleven of the fourteen grandkids were there. After dinner,you know the drill, we pulled out the Rook cards. Baldwin rule #1. Always, always, play Rook whenever the family gets together. It's not really a rule, it's actually more of a tradition. We played several hands of Rook, I was always on the losing team. I havn't figured out why yet. Hmmmmmmmm. Oh well, we all had a lot of fun. After we got tired of Rook we decided to play spoons. It was fun. We never actually finished that game because a couple of Brent's friends came over to meet his family. :-) They were nice kids. It was getting later by that time so we decided to head home. That weekend Micah's friend Arthur came over to visit. He likes coming to our church. I had to teach children's church that morning. I was also asked, at the last minute, to be in charge of the Christmas play this year. So we spent part of CC going over songs and assigning parts. We are just doing a little nativity this year. Next year maybe something bigger. Monday and Tuesday we did our regular school. Then Wednesday we did something different. The boys had been raking an older lady's yard for her and then Wednesday they did Mammom and Pappaw's yard. So Mom, Beth, and I went into house cleaning mode. Why not? The house really needed it. Then Thursday we tackled our yard and did more work on the house. I cleaned all the cupboards. (Why do they make cupboards with all those little creases and things? They make them really hard to clean!) Friday I went to Mammom's and helped her clean the house. Pappaw was trying to glue the head back on this little duck and he kept asking, "Why isn't this glue sticking?" So someone looks over and says, " No wonder it isn't sticking that's neosporine Brother Baldwin!" It was pretty funny Mammom and I just laughed and laughed. At about 2:15 or thereabouts Momma picked me up and took me to piano lessons. I got stars on every piece! Yeah! Then when Beth finished her lesson she picked us up and dropped me off at Mammom's before going home. When I got back it was time to help her decorate her yard. It was really warm and I couldn't help but think that last year we had been all bundled up and still were cold. This year I was wearing short sleeves and sweating! Weird wheather. It's usually pretty chilly by this time. It's so warm outside that I'm having a hard time realizing that it's already December! Anyway we finished most of the outside and started on the inside before I left to come home. Then I went back over this morning and couldn't believe my eyes. The carpets were a mess! Mammom had decided to make a new wreath and dropped things all over the floor. I had to do a lot of my "first works over again." Today I got upstairs and started cleaning up there. There really wasn't much I could do upstairs untill we finish decorating and put the boxes away but I did what I could. We also switched all of her rugs today. And started a little of the inside decorating. We quit early because Mammom and Pappaw had to go somewhere tonight. Anyway I'm pretty much caught up now and tired of typing! ( talking is much easier than typing!) Someday I think I'll have a VLB service relating cleaning house to the Christian life. Anyway that's it I'm done! Good night!

Hello

2006-11-21T16:01:00.000-05:00

Ok I know I haven't posted in a while but as I said before our computers are not cooperating. Well I guess the first topic should be VLB service last Wednesday. I was told it went well. I was really nervous at first but started feeling more comfortable after I got started. I spoke a little on Deliverance since that is the VLB theme this year. I took it from a little differant perspective. I focused on how to avoid coming under bondage in the first place. I used the "taking thoughts captive" concept from the Basic Seminar and the "mailbox" visual aid from the Children's Institute. I related all this to deliverance by showing that when we accept one of the lies (bad thoughts) of the enemy we are actually choosing to believe that lie. When we choose to believe the lie of the enemy we open ourselves up to more lies. The more lies we believe the greater the "stronghold" the enemy has in our life and the more we find ourselves bound. I tied Zach up with a rope to show how we are bound. We are saved so much trouble and heartache if we only choose to believe the Truth of God's Word in the first place. To avoid being bound we must fill our hearts and minds with God's Word. God's Word is also a big part of our deliverance. I ended the service with a challenge for our young people to memorize at least 2 scripture verses a week. If we fill our minds with good things we will automatically reject the bad. That is just a quick overview of my first VLB service. Friday night we squashed 7 people into little car and drove up to the Cooper's house for Lynchburg's fall festival. We had a lot of fun. Mom and Dad got home early Sunday morning. They couldn't stop talking about how much they enjoyed their trip. Most of what they talked about was the the fun they had with the Cox's. They said we would really have enjoyed it. We all wished we could go but that would defeat the purpose of their getting away from us kids wouldn't it? Maybe another time. We had a guest speaker at Farmville Sunday morning and evening. Brother Taylor came over and spoke. Sunday morning we just started our first song when a lady runs to the altar from the 2nd or 3rd pew from the back. She just wept and wept and when she got up she had been gloriously saved! Praise theLord! It was a a wonderful thing to see. Yesterday night Mama, Pappaw, and I drove up to Roanoke for their revival. It was worth the drive. Brother "Arkansas" Smith was the evangelist. There was a sweet spirit there. I really enjoyed it. Oh yes one more thing. I have a serious conundrum! Thanksgiving is on Fast Day! What do we do? I have a feeling we are just going to fast another day instead. We are supposed to be going to VA Beach to my Aunt Darlene's for Thanksgiving. They really wanted us to come up this year so that's what our plans are. Well I have got to go. I'll catch up with the rest of blogland later when I get a chance!

Details

2006-11-14T14:38:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody! I was recently asked why my last post was only four sentances long. My reply was as follows, "Both of the computers are not working right." One of them will go on the internet but then turn off right in the middle of what you are attempting to do. GRRR Right now I am sitting at the library using one of the library computers. The library is a full block from my house. :-p I'm grateful that it's no farther. But anyway, about that retreat. Ladies Retreat was wonderful! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Dawn got to go. She really got her victory on Friday night I hadn't seen her face so radiant in a long time! I roomed with Chelsey and Katlin. We had a great time. Katlin didn't really know me that well before the retreat. Now she knows me all too well and thinks I'm crazy! I have news for her, I think the same thing about her! Well Saturday we had classes and TAP groups. That's Ladies Retreat lingo for Talk And Pray groups. I really enjoyed my hideaway time on Saturday afternoon. I went out in the middle of a bunch of trees and found my own little spot to sit and pray. Then it started to rain and I had to run for cover. That night we had a great move of the Spirit. I think all of us ladies had gotten prayed up so we were ready for God to move. There was a wonderful prescence of the lord there. You could feel it even before service started. I had been feeling burdened down over differant things that are happening in the Church and some family situations. Most of you know that besides my immediate family and my grandparents none of my family is in the Church. I've really been feeling a burden for them. Well Praise the Lord I got the Victory! God is gonna move in His Time and there is absolutely nothing that any man, woman, or child can do to stop Him! A lot of people got really good blessings on Saturday night. We were in service for over three hours! Isn't God good? Not only did we have a great time spiritually we also had a lot of fun. We had so much chocolate at retreat that Chelsey, who is a chocolate lover and has frequently told me that there is no such thing as too much chocolate, told Katlin and I that she'd had too much chocolate! I can't tell you all about a lot of the stuff that happened. Hey I have to protect the innocent! But I will say that Sister Bishop is a riot! She is very funny and also a lot of fun. But she can preach! Well I'm back home now and back at my school. Mom and Dad are in the Bahamas. They went on a cruise for dad's 50th. Aunt Debbie is staying with us youngins. We are having a good time. Pray for me on Wednesday. It's my first VLB service and I'm super nervous. I'm working on the service and I think I'm doing ok so far don't know quite how I'll do in front of an audience though. Lord Help Me!!!!!!!! I'll let ya'll know all about it after it's over an done with. Oh yeah I read what I had written the other day about being the new VLB leader and thought I had better make it more clear. Dawn and John did a wonderful job. The only reason they aren't doing it anymore is there work schedules are really hectic and thay can't get to Wednesday night service. Well that's about it except next Friday night is Lynchburg's fall festival and we get to go! Aunt Debbie is going to take us. Mom and Dad will be in Florida at the Cox's that night. They're not coming home till the next day or perhaps I should say really really late the next night maybe even so late as early Sunday morning. :-) Well I need to get out of here Beth is waiting for me.

I'm Back!!!!!

2006-11-12T22:14:00.000-05:00

I don't have alot of time so I'm just letting everyone know I'm back. I'll let you know all about Ladies Retreat as soon as possible. Sorry this is short but I'm tired. And with good reason too!

Picking up from where I left off...

2006-11-06T18:31:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday night we were supposed to have VLB service but our VLB leaders weren't able to be there. They haven't been able to be there that often on Wednesdays since they moved. So our pastor just spoke for a while. He's good at coming up with a message on short notice. Or maybe I should say God's good at giving him a message on short notice. :-) Well anyway Pappaw said he's going to appoint new VLB leaders. He wants Zach and I to take over. I hate speaking in front of people. I would rather just write everything down on paper. It's so much easier. But unfortunately I have a pastor who has a firm belief that I can handle any responsibility he wants to give me. I guess "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." I've been praying about it and I've got an idea for next Wednesday. This Wednesday is WMB service. Mom wants me to come up with a skit for her service. I've been kinda thinking of several differant ideas I'm not sure how it's going to end up. You know how I thought I was going to have this weekend free? Well I was wrong. I had to work Saturday. Then this coming weekend is Ladies Retreat. So I still haven't had a free weekend since September. Oh well. :-) It's not to terribly bad. I don't mind being busy. It's part of growing up. I do mind growing up. :-( I wanted to a stay a kid forever. The scary thing is that I'll be an adult next year. I know growing up is one of the 10 unchangeable things that God designed but I can't believe that I'm already 17. Well today is Monday. I had school and piano and chores to do. As you can tell I'm done. When I finish this I'm going to go clean up the supper dishes and work on that skit. :-) Maybe I'll have some hot tea while I work on the skit. That sounds good. Sorry for rambling so much but I haven't had alot to write about. Besides I'm not in joking mood tonight. And it is my blog isn't it? Shouldn't I be allowed to ramble on my blog?

Conquerors of Countries, Damsels in Distress, and Goober Peas.

2006-11-01T17:03:00.000-05:00

As you guys can see I have three topics today. I can have some fun with this! Conquerors of Countries? "What's that about?" you ask. Simply this Dad and the boys pulled out our Risk game. Risk is actually pretty interesting. My brothers, and perhaps I should say, the majority of guys I know have minds that delight in Strategy. Don't ask me why. (I don't really know.) Perhaps it dates back to the times when they had to fight for their countries as knights and crusaders and generals. Who knows. All I know is that alot of guys like strategy. Although I have to admit that some prefer using brute force. Well anyway I don't like strategy I'm no good at it. Maybe that's why I always lose at Risk. Except once. One time I actually won and beat 3 guys to boot! That must have been a freak accident. You have all heard of Damsels in Distress and Knights in Shining Armor well Bethany has met her knight. She was in the kitchen getting some milk out for breakfst when the rest of us heard a loud, piercing, terrified, scream. Needless to say she was the damsel in distress. Enter, Knight. Micah bravely rushed to her rescue. When he got to the kitchen he saw a humongous spider heading directly towards Beth. He quickly grabbed a fly swatter, chased the spider down, and smacked it until it died. When the spider was dead they took a closer look at it. It was a poisonous Black Widow. We were all a little shook up. It's not fun to have a Black Widow in your house. Now for the goober peas. I trust all of you know what goober peas are. But just in case their are Yankee lurkers around I will explain. Goober peas are peanuts. Our neighbor brought us some fresh peanuts still in their shells. We enjoyed them immensely. :-) There's just something about Virginia goober peas that can't be beat. I have really been enjoying the beautiful fall weather. Fall is my favorite time of year. There are dozens of reasons why. My favorite is the colors and the nippy but not cold weather. More news later, when I have something interesting to say!

My Day

2006-10-29T17:38:00.000-05:00

Ok so my day didn't go exactly as planned but it was fine. First of all, something came up and Brother Taylor wasn't able to come. Secondly, our pastor was feeling under the weather and didn't think he could preach. Please pray for him he's 78 now and for the past 2 or 3 winters he's been coming down with something that lays him up for at least a week. Thirdly, Dad preached. Well anyway we had our Spaghetti dinner today. Mom went into the kitchen to re-warm the sauce and came back in during song service. I was up front helping lead song service and I noticed mom start laughing and then Zach started too. I didn't know why they were laughing. When I got back to my seat I found out why. Mom realized that there were no noodles. The lady who was in charge of getting things together had forgot to assign someone to bring noodles. So mom realized this in the middle of song service and couldn't help but think how funny it was. To top it off she told Zach and he started singing "If they only knew we had no noodles..." to the tune of the song we were singing. That's when they really started cracking up. Anyway Mom ran to the store and got noodles so we had our spaghetti after all. After the dinner we ladies helped clean up and dad took the boys to Micah's baseball game. They won! 8-3 It was pretty good they are getting better. Now I am sitting at the computer writing yet another post on my blog. We don't have service tonight. We didn't get away from the church untill pretty late and pappaw's not feeling good at all so he cancelled service tonight. Oh yeah Dawn isn't sure if she is going to get to go to Ladies Retreat now. So I might just be without a ride! Mom and Dad are going to be out of town that weekend. Do any of you guys know who all is going from Lynchburg? If Dawn really doesn't get to go I may have to talk to someone from up that way about meeting in Lynchburg and catching a ride. I hope Dawn gets to go she has really been looking forward to it. Well anyway that's about it for today. So Long.

Spaghetti Dinners and other things

2006-10-28T14:45:00.000-04:00

I have been thinking it over and I haven't had a free weekend for a while now. It all started with Youth Retreat. Then came Apple Butter. And then there was Minister's Convention. This weekend isn't really free either because tomorrow we are having a Spaghetti Dinner. Mom is making the sauce, and a chocolate desert that's really good. We call it "Death by Chocolate" and most people seem to think that's a good way to die. I'm not too much for chocolate but this stuff is pretty good. Mom is also making some pecan pies.
We are going to have a guest speaker at church tomorrow. His name is Phillip Taylor and has known my grandparents for years. He got saved underPappaw's ministry and also recieved his call to preach while he was under my grandpa. He is still in the COGOP but he's looking. He's one of the ministers that were denied a church to pastor because they wouldn't take people in who were in double-marriage. He's a good preacher. He preaches sound doctrine. Oh, yes the winning poem. You guys can all figure that one out it's a no-brainer. Larry, Larry... where art thou? My super hero veggie pal. Oh no! I see thee and thy fate Sliced and diced upon my plate! Good job Sister Tammy! Your creativity is a wonder to us all. To all others who submitted an entry you did a great job at keeping me entertained! My poem sounded like something out of a kindergarten reader! Oh well. To any who express an interest in musical persuits. Yesterdays lesson was much better than last weeks. Of course I think anything would be better than last weeks! I guess that's pretty much it. Except for the fact that I got my final Math curriculum for High School in the mail this week. Yeah! It looks tough. I don't know if I'm ready but I'm starting week after next. Ooooooh I hope I do ok. Anyway I think that's it. Except Ladies Retreat is coming up and Sister Smith is going to be there! Yeah! Well that is it so goodbye.

2006-10-26T16:51:00.000-04:00

As you can probably tell by my title I have been writing poetry. It wasn't by choice. It was an unavoidable assignment that my grammar/English course tortured me with! I don't really hate poetry. I can write poetry....Sometimes. I have to have inspiration. I'm not one of those lucky creative people who can sit down anytime they want and write out a flowery sonnet. So anyway today I had to write two poems with two verses in each poem. Each poem had to have a different rhyme scheme. I thought I was never going to finish. Last night, we ate dinner at the church. We met two of our church ladies and had dinner together before church started. We had tacos mmmmmmmm. It was fun. I've also been diligently slaving away over a church report to send in to Sister Melanie. I never know what to write in a church report. As you can tell I've had a pretty normal day and don't really have a lot to say. So I'm going to give you something to do. Everybody out there, prepare your minds to write a poem on my comments! I'll read them all and pick my favorite to post on my next attempt at blogging. Do you accept the challenge? I dare you to try!

Goodbye Veggie Tales!

2006-10-24T19:37:00.000-04:00

A special news report from the Baldwin home. Veggie Tales characters are being eaten right and left. Ok I know veggie tales is pretty popular but it's taking it kinda far when we can't even eat anything that remotely resembles a veggie tales character without Bethany trying to rescue it! The story is as follows. Mom bought two big butternut squash from the store. She brings them home. Beth and Micah see them and immediately notice a remarkable resemblance to two of the veggie tales characters. You guys know Jimmy and Jerry Gourd right? So immediately they dub these squash Jimmy and Jerry. Tonight Mom thought it would be nice to have some squash with supper. She started to cut Jimmy up and pandemonium broke loose. Needless to say mom had her squash and the kids learned the important lesson of not playing with or NAMING their food. That is the end of this special report. Tune in next time for more from the Baldwin family. Over and Out.

Howdy

2006-10-23T16:01:00.001-04:00

Hello once again to all of you busy bloggers. I had a wonderful weekend and am starting into another week of school. I had piano lessons Friday and they were not so wonderful. :-( I played everything just fine untill piano lessons started. I couldn't help but think that Handel and Mozart would be rolling over in their graves if they could but hear how I murdered their beautiful pieces! I kept messing up for no apparent reason and couldn't play a single measure without botching it! Even my Hymn ,which I had been playing very well, was not up to par. My piano teacher has been teaching me for 11 or 12 years and was very understanding. She said that even the best pianists have off days. I'm far, far, far, far, far from the best so I guess I can have a few off days as well! After piano Micah had a few friends over for cake and ice cream. After everyone left it was clean up time. Then we practiced our song for minister's convention one last time. Saturday morning came early and we had to get on the road because convention started at 9:30. We were getting ready to pull away from the house when John and Dawn pulled up behind us. We had a convoy. Mammaw and Pappaw pulled into the parking lot at Lynchburg just a few minutes after we did and we all went into the church together. It wasn't planned. It just happened that way. Minister's Convention was such a blessing. The Convention Quartet, minus Sister Smith, sang after lunch and they did a wonderful job. Brother Jared said that we ought to cancel the rest of the program and just have a singing. :-) He is funny! You all should hear him talk about how much he loves his wife! However funny he may be, he is still a wonderful preacher. It was also nice to fellowship with some friends during lunch break. There is a wonderful spirit of love and fellowship in The Church of God that you can't find anywhere else. After convention ended we stood around and talked for a long time. The next day, Sunday, we had Brother Jared preach the morning service. He once again preached a wonderful message and we enjoyed it very much. Now for the big surprise. We had a"graduation program" for Micah that night at Church. The VLB's were in charge of the service and Tim came down to preach for us. Then we had snacks and fellowship afterwards. He had Chelsey and Kaitlin ride down with him to keep him awake and we had a good time visiting. It was a lot of fun. That morning Pappaw had announced that, Brother umm, Brother umm, well that regional youth leader guy" was coming for service that night. Then that evening Dawn forgot his name and thought for a moment before coming forth triumphantly with "our evangelist." It was pretty funny. John and I were just cracking up both times. Well that's pretty much it. Oh, wait a second, I want to know who anonymous is! They are not who I thought they are and it has me stumped. I give up! Please show a little kindness and satisfy my curiosity! Otherwise I might have to put it where nobody can post anonymously!

Forget the Pics!!!!!!!

2006-10-19T14:52:00.001-04:00

Ok lets try those pics again! It's not working. I'm sure I followed the directions. Why won't it work? Oh dear, I'm afraid I'll never figure it out. Ok next subject. My little brother is forever leaving the ranks of the gleaners and, as of tomorrow, joining the VLB band! Yeah! We will have one more VLB than we have now! Isn't that awesome. On the other hand my "baby" is growing up. Maybe I should boo instead of cheer. Well anyway we all grow up someday and he's so excited about being a VLB. I know another reason why he should be excited but that's a secret surprise. I have another reason to be happy. I finally finished that ten page biographical essay I had to write. Did it have to be ten pages? Well, not really, I'm just longwinded. I'm also happy because I finally got my hat, the one I wear all the time, back from mom. I gave it to her a week before youth convention to wash and she kept forgetting about it and I didn't get it back untill yesterday. Maybe she has a secret vendetta against hats and mine just happened to be the one she picked on. Or maybe she just forgot. I'll never know for sure. But anyway my trademark is firmly back on my head. I was worried people wouldn't recognize me without my hat. I was seriously considering wearing it to minister's convention but I have a sneaking suspicion it wouldn't be appropriate. I probably need to get off of this computer. I have to work today as soon as Mammom picks me up. My aunt and uncle are driving through and she wants me to clean her house. It's not a "real" job but it gives me a fairly regular source of spending money. Hey she won't let me do it fo free. I already tried. She sent money home with one of my younger siblings. Oh well, I guess she knows every kid likes some spending money. :-)

A normal day

2006-10-17T19:05:00.000-04:00

A nice quiet day of School and piano and music and housework and.... Well you get the picture just a nice normal day. Sunday evening we had communion and feetwashing at Church. Pappaw spoke on communion, and Dad spoke on feetwashing. Pappaw gave everyone communion and was dismissing us to go have feetwashing when he was reminded that he himself had not taken communion. That was pretty comical. Yesterday we finally decided which song to sing at Minister's Convention. Dad took the boys to the baseball field to work on Micah's hitting and fielding. He's playing baseball this year. Today we did school, school, and more school. Oh, here are some pictures that we took earlier this year. One of all of us kids and one of Mom and Dad. Well I guess that's it. TahTah for now. Oh well, blogger won't let me upload pics right now I'll put them on some other time.

Apple Butter!

2006-10-15T15:13:00.000-04:00

Hey, hello, hi. Apple Butter was yesterday and as usual it was alot of fun. We left for Catawba Church around 9:00 and got there about noon. Our local VLB leaders got the day off from work and followed us up there. Dawn and John had to leave early so there were really only 7 more helpers. They were really short-handed this year so they were happy to see us. They put the apple butter on at about 3 in the morning and it cooks all day. There has to be some one stirring it constantly. So we took turns stirring, visiting, playing football, taking naps (if we could sneak away), playing four square, and stirring some more. The apple butter didn't come off untill around 8 or 9 that evening. When you are tired you get crazy. So we had alot of fun when we got toward the end. We were so happy when it was ready to come off! Then we had to wait for the other pot to come off. After everything was done and put away we drove back home. We got back home just after 1 am. Then we got up by 8:3o this morning to get ready for church. Now Mom is taking a nap and Dad is studying for tonight. The boys are watching a football game and Beth is watching a movie and I am typing away. I know this is pretty short but nobody reads my blog anyway so who cares? Of course I wouldn't mind if someone were to prove me wrong!

Hello

2006-10-12T18:33:00.000-04:00

Good Evening, I've never had a blog before so this is a first time effort of a completely computer illiterate gal! Okay about me, myself, and I. I'm a Christian. That is first and foremost in my life. Secondly, I have four younger siblings. Alot of people think that is strange. Not in the least. It makes life interesting. God is completely trustworthy in every area. He does a great job of choosing your family size. Thirdly, I'm homeschooled. Doesn't that fit? Fourthly, I am a little crazy. Just enough to be interesting. And last but not least, I'm a covenant member of The Church of God. So now that that's off my chest it's down to business. My life in the last week has been pretty nice. Last Friday and Saturday I got to go to Youth Retreat. It was great. The theme was a continuation of our camp theme here in the Virginia's, "Keep the Flame Burning." Our camp theme was, "Acquire the Fire." The retreat started off with the regional VLB director, Brother Tim, introducing all the pastors that came out and our new regional Overseer and his wife and giving them a chance to say something for the Lord. Then we had our evening service. Tim played the piano, and Amy led the singing. Next, Brother Jared preached the message and had an alter call. I was really happy to see Eric Hogan get sanctified. He had gotten saved at camp. After service we had pizza and cookies. When I came out from changing I was surprised by Tim announcing that it was my birthday. Everyone sang happy birthday. Then we went out to the gym and played basketball and volleyball. While we were shooting around I played a game of one-on-one with Steele Williams. He is so tall it is impossible to win. So we play awhile and he gets me in a corner. Well I try a little trick, I try to flip it over his head and spin around him and grab the ball again. One problem; I forget he is so tall. I hit him right in the face. Ouch. After we play a real game of basketball we give volleyball a try. It was alot of fun. The next day we had cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Then we had a class. Sister Ginger was the teacher. Then we had a service. Brother Tim preached this time. All too soon youth retreat was over. Oh well, on to the next adventure, Apple Butter! That's this weekend . Then next weekend there's Minister's Convention. Our family has to sing at that. We are as usual far from ready! Wednesday we had VLB service at church. Our local VLB leader, Sister Dawn, did a pretty good job. Wait, Wednesday was yesterday. Every day this week I've been working on my school. Well I've only got one year left after this year and I'll be finished. Yee Haw! Well anyway if you're in the Church and you stumble across my little blog please leave a comment. Well, if you're homeschooled that's okay too. :-)