A Family Visit - Part I

We made a brief trip to Tennessee - Clarksville near Nashville to visit Mickey's brother, brother-in-law, 3 nephews and their kids and then to Memphis to visit a sister-in-law.

Here are the three - Brother Jerry - Brother-in-Law Ronnie and Mickey.

Mickey's younger brother, Jerry, had moved to Tennessee from Nevada a couple of years ago after his wife passed away and we hadn't been back to see his place. He had build a barn, garage & an apartments which has all turned out lovely. It is on 5 acres with one nephew, Joe, & the brother-in-law, Ronnie, owning the other 75 acres of 80 acre. Beautiful property.

Various shots of Jerry's lovely place.

A spot down by the creek where they are going to make a picnic area.


Some of the herd of long horn cattle they are raising.
Firecracker, the bull. Get a look at those horns!!

These two magnificent, huge horses are some Ronnie has owned for a number of years. These are Percheron horses and they were the kind used during the Renaissance era.. The Percheron is a breed of powerful rugged draft horses that originated in the Perche valley in northern France.

To be continued

MEETING A NEW BLOG FRIEND

I was blessed recently to win Tammy's (of County Girl at Home) drawing which she had to celebrate her 200th post here. The three items I won were wonderful ... but the winning didn't end there.

When the package came I, of course, noticed the return address. I had absolutely no idea where Tammy and her family lived. Imagine my surprise when I saw that she was in a state that we were going to be traveling in our upcoming trip that we were making to visit Mickey's family. I asked Mickey if I could locate it on the map and if it wasn't too much out of the way, if I could contact Tammy about meeting. My sweet, dear husband, said, "Of course". Thus I was privileged to meet my EIGHTH blogging friend since beginning this exciting adventure of blogging 2 years and 4 1/2 months ago.

Here are Tammy, Joy & Jason at the restaurant where we met for lunch. Tammy is undoing the knot on the gift bag she gave me. Sweet Joy taught Mr. Mickey to pick-up french fries with the chop sticks. What a bright, sparking young 10 year old Joy is. Jason is looking on.
Look at the lovely "Blessing" stitchery piece. Frame in a rustic gray and the stitching is pink letters to go into our guest room. Thanks Tammy!!!

Here are the 5 of us as we were leaving the restaurant. We asked the cashier to take a picture of the 5 of us so you could see us all together.

What a blessing and nice time and wonderful visit we had meeting and sharing a little with this delightful young family. Just sorry we didn't get to meet their 20 year old son, Colt, who was busy doing the Lords work leading afternoon worship at the Church he attends.

I know that God ALWAYS has plans and purposes, way beyond what we can imagine,
for those whom He places in our lives. The minute that winning package arrived, because Joy had picked my name out of many others, I just knew it was because it was in God's wonderful purposes that we were to meet. What an awesome, wonderful God we have. He blesses us in so many ways. He blessed us big time in making this connection. I was the first blogger Tammy has met so that made it even more special. Tammy is my 8th blogger to meet and "eight is new beginnings".

Thanks again, Tammy, Jason & Joy, for working with us to have this great time and joy of gettting acquainted in "real" life.

Old Testament Bible Names of God

I am participating in Spiritual Sundays hosted by Charlotte & Ginger today. Go here to find Mr. Linky and participate or read the other posts for today.

I just love the Hebrew name of our wonderful God and wanted to share them today with you.

Elohim - The Creator

El Elyon - The God Most High

El Roi - The God Who Sees

El Shaddai - The All-Sufficient One

Adonai - The Lord

Jehovah - The Self-Existent One

Jehovah-jireh - The Lord Will Provide

Jehovah-rapha - The Lord Who Heals

Jehovah-nissi - The Lord My Banner

Jehovah-Mekoddishkem - The Lord Who Sanctifies You

Jehovah-shalom - The Lord Is Peace

Jehovah-sabaoth - The Lord of Hosts

Jehovah-raah - The Lord My Shepherd

Jehovah-tsidkenu - The Lord Our Righteouness

Jehovah-shammah - The Lord Is There

JESUS - The name at which every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is

Adoni - LORD

What a wonderful name - What a wonderful Savior.

*We are going to be "out of pocket" for a few days.

A Quote - A Granddaughter - An Award - A Lunch with my bloger friend

"To be nobody

but yourself

in a world

which is doing its best,

night & day,

to make you everybody else

means to fight

the hardest battle

which any human being can fight;

& never stop fighting......"

e.e.cummings

All, and any of us, who have learned to be "who God intended us to be" knows the truth of this quote.

Our lovely 14 year old grand daughter, Oksana, sitting at her grandfathers computer.

This child HATES for me to take her picture, so this side view is the best I could get!!

Thursday we took Aric home after spending his usual Wednesday and Wednesday night with us, and picked up Oksana to spend some one-on-one time with us.

A rare and very pleasant treat.

The first thing we did was go to the new antimated movie, UP. It was really cute and had a good message. Grandma (that's me) even shed a tear or two!!!

I could have done with a little less of the vicious dog scenes, but I thought the rest of the movie was good and enjoyable.

Mickey & I never go to movies but this is what Oksana wanted to do and this was her day.

Next she picked Ched*dar's for dinner. It was very good and we didn't even have to wait to be seated. Oksana had Chicken Wraps, Grandpa had 1/2 a rack of baby-back ribs, and Grandma had the appitizer of Baken Potato Skins.

All were delicious. We ended up taking 1/2 of Oksana's home in a carry out box.

Gramps and I enjoyed it yesterday for lunch!!!! Oksana didn't take it home with her because she said she probably wouldn't eat it.

Then we came home and watched a little TV together.

Friday morning, after lounging around and her being on the computer some,

we went to Cow*eta's Sticky Buns (of Aric fame!)

where Oksana had biscuit & gravy and grandpa and I shared a pecan roll.

It was a nice, fun time for the 3 of us. We took her home around noon.

I was just awarded this lovely award by Barbara of Ramblings from an English Garden. This award means a lot to me because it came from Barbara and because I truly endeavor to exalt Christ in all I do and say on this blog and in my daily walk with HIM.

I wish to pass this award on to 2 lovely bloggers who I have recently "met". Debra of And It Came To Pass and Sharon of Blogs of Blessings. Both of these gals Exalt Christ on their blogs. I invite you to visit them if they are "new" to you.

Last, but not least, I was privileged to have lunch Tuesday with Sohailah. She is a blogger who lives in this area and we meet via the blog 2 years ago. She is "out of town" a great deal. Working in Hawaii, being a tour guide to Washington, D.C. and recently returned from some Mission work in Africa and will be going back for 3 more months in September. We had shared lunch twice before 2 years ago and it was such a joy and treat to reconnect with her again. As usual we had a lovely lunch at Pan*era Br*ead and our usual 2 hour conversation. I didn't take any pictures.....can you believe it?!!!! but visit her blog and get to know Sohailah.

SOOO another busy, blessed enjoyable week.

Tweety Advice

Happy Friday & Happy week-end to all of you.

Posting on the Frugal Blog

To my readers today ...... I have posted on Hands & Hearts.....for HIM! today. I invite you to go here and read.

Have a wonderful and blessed day.

A happy, smiling face.... & this and that

That's what I have after my trip to the dentist last Wednesday morning to not only get my teeth cleaned but to get a good report. When you've spent as much money on your mouth over the years, as I've spent on mine.....believe me I get a happy, smiling face!!!

Then it was to town to get Aric, out for hamburgers and then some shopping and back home. I'm still recovering from my sunburn and peeling like crazy. Looks terrible!!! Oh well.......at 70+ that's no big issue. Aric spent Wednesday, Thursday & Friday with us and Grandpa took him home Friday night. He is such a joy for us to have and I think he likes being with Grandma & Grandpa, too! :o)

Saturday we went to a store near us that was closing out their bedding plants at 1/2 price. We needed a few more items. We ended up getting 16 geraniums and 16 lavendar mums. All the geraniumns and 4 of the mums went in the front beds but 12 of the mums ended up in the back yard along the fence line.

Here is one of the latest "crop" from Mickey's garden. Delicious Swiss Chard. I have fixed delicious salads with swiss chard, spinach, leaf lettuce, radishes and green onions all home grown by my hubby and delicious.

Our Pastor and his wife are home from their 2 week vacation and it sure is good to have them back. We are blessed with such good teaching and preaching on a consistent basis.

Remember Mickey's blue birds that he was feeding millworms to in a bowl? Now he has moved the bowl up to the bird feeder he built for them and teaching them to look for their meal there.

The nesting pair layed and fledged 4 baby blue birds. Mickey has cleaned out the blue bird house and hopes they may build another nest this season. Aren't they a beautiful bird?