Happy Independence Day!

We are interrupting your regularly scheduled programming for today's holiday post! If you're here to read the next installment of the Sharm El Sheikh adventure, please check back tomorrow!

image credit

This is one of my favorite holidays! I love everything about it! The food, the fireworks, the day off from work, the fun festivities with loved ones! But most of all, I love the reminder of the blessing it is to have been born an American!

And nothing embodies American pride as well as our national anthem, in my humble opinion! So in honor of the day I've listed the lyrics below. I'm sure that the first verse is familiar (it's the one that we sing at every sporting event, after all), but please take the time to read the other three, they're really good!

image credit

The Star Spangled Banner

Oh, say! can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming;
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there:
Oh, say! does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

image credit

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In fully glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

image credit

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution!
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

image credit

Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust":
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
lyrics source

image credit

So, in between your fireworks and BBQ's, take the time to remember all of the things that made this country great! And if you're so inclined, please join me in praying - today and every day - that our country would return to these values of faith and courage and honor!

Have a great 4th and a wonderful weekend!

His,

P.S. ~ Be sure to check back in tomorrow for the next installment in the Sharm El Sheikh story!

Don't worry . . . I'm still alive . . . I think . . .

Okay, so I know I have been M.I.A. for the past couple of weeks, and I am very sorry! I also know that I started this stellar idea of the 26 days of Thanksgiving, and only got about halfway through (if that), so I am sorry to those of you who were waiting with baited breath for "K" through "Z." I may finish those at some point, but with the crazy whirlwind of my life at this point, I'm not making any promises!

I have so much to tell you all, and so many incredible stories to share, so stay tuned, and I will post as much as I can as soon as possible. I also have the November newsletter up on the Burden Bearers International blog, so be sure to hop over and take a look at that!

I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving, and that you're enjoying a wonderful Christmas season!

:),

Thanksgiving Alphabetically :)

I've often thought that Thanksgiving doesn't get near enough press. Halloween ads and merchandise seem to show up earlier and earlier (like the middle of July, lol) and the Christmas hullabaloo gets revved up even before the Halloween stuff has been clearanced out! And stuck right there in the middle is poor, little Thanksgiving!

I LOVE Thanksgiving! I think it is one of the most wonderful holidays, not only because you get a couple days off work and get to spend time with your friends and family, but because it is such a wonderful reminder to slow down and thank the Lord for all of the wonderful blessings in our lives!

Hence, a fun new series is born:

One of my dear friends on Facebook (and also in real life), had a great idea about preparing our hearts for Thanksgiving! And I liked it so much that I asked her if I could borrow it for the blog, and she said yes! So here we go . . .

This year, Thanksgiving falls on the 26th of the month. Which is convenient because there are 26 letters in the alphabet! (Do you see where I'm going with this?)



Each day of the month, we will list the things that we are thankful for which correspond with that day's letter. Now, I know I'm a couple of days behind, so I'll get "A," "B," and "C" up shortly, then after today we'll have only one letter per day. If you'd like to play along, I'll include a MckLinky at the end of each post, so you can link to your days' lists!

I'm thankful for you :)

New Year's Eve Party!

Our friends Merle & Heidi hosted a New Year's Eve 50's Sock Hop in a big barn that they have outfitted to be a party building on their property!

It was a costume party, so of course we did it up right:

- gotta have the accessories! :)

They had propane heaters going, "drive in" movies playing,


tricycle drag races,

swing dance lessons on a big dance floor,

and a ton of food! More than a week after the fact, I'm finally getting these pics posted!

We had a blast!

:)

Amazing Christmasy Weekend :)

We had a fabulously fun winter/Christmas time this past weekend, so I thought I would give you the pictorial tour:

My very first official MHR shirt came in the mail! :)



Hootenanny Pancake for supper:

+ =


on our gorgeous Christmas dishes! :)

Then the lighted Christmas parade:

Santa herding Christmas geese


Toy Train float


Side View of the float entered by the company that I work for.


Our float driving away (rear view)


And of course, no Christmas parade would be complete without Santa! In ours he was hitching a ride on the local fire engine (the sleigh must be getting a tune up for the big day, lol)!

All of that happened on Friday night! Saturday we went shopping in Des Moines, not Christmas shopping, as we are nearly done with that (thanks to the wonders of modern Internet technology), but we did pick up some necessities that we needed for some house projects, and got some great deals at Harbor Freight (that store is better than Christmas morning for Austin, I think, he's like a little kid in a candy store, lol)! Before we came home we enjoyed lu-pper (that's a combination of lunch and supper) at CiCi's Pizza! Yummm! We had picked up Season 3 of the Prison Break DVD's at the library before we left town that morning, so we started watching those when we got home!

Sunday morning we went to church with Tyler and Emma, and Chris (both Tyler and Chris work with Austin), then we went home and finished watching Prison Break Season 3 on DVD (we are almost caught up, Ashley!)

This week we will hopefully finish decorating the house - this is the latest date ever in the history of my life that I have yet to get the tree up! We also need to get Christmas card pictures taken so we can get those printed and mailed out PRONTO!!! We are also hosting our first family holiday party at our house the weekend before Christmas, so I need to get our menu and shopping lists squared away - I am also planning on starting all of the baking this week! I know I sound harried, but I just love all of these tasks, so they are not really chores!

Pastor Jeff's sermon this week was a great reminder to slow down in the midst of all of the hustle and bustle and enjoy the season, but not only that, to be thankful for the true reason we celebrate! What are you doing to remember Jesus' birth this season? I am looking for a good Advent calendar/reading/schedule, so would welcome any suggestions! :)

Hope you are all enjoying this Christmas season as much as I am! :)

~ My Husband Rocks! ~ Thanksgiving Edition

Click here to read about why I started MHR Fridays!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For all my good intentions of starting the pre-MHR prompt/theme posts yesterday, with all of the holiday hullaballoo, it just did not happen. I apologize to anyone who stared at the web browser all day refreshing multiple times to see what our first theme day would be. :S Tune in next Thursday, for our actual, real, live very first pre-MHR prompt/theme post (we need to come up with a better name for that)!

We got some good prompt ideas last week, but they are always welcome! Also, if you come across any good articles, books, movies, etc. relating to marriage, please share those with us as well!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The holiday season got its official kick off in a big way for us this Thanksgiving. We always have a great time and we love spending time with family members who we do not see as often as we would like!

However, due to all of the crazy fun, and the insane late hours that we kept this weekend, all of my schedules are out of whack - including my blogging schedule! So, for the first time I am posting my My Husband Rocks on a Monday, instead of a Friday! Sorry about the slackerishness :) Hope everybody had a fantastically amazing Thanksgiving!

This week, I've got two reasons to share!

Last Saturday (the weekend before Thanksgiving), Austin decided that we should truly take a day off, so we did not work on the house, or go anywhere, we got the entire second season of Prison Break from the library and stapled our hind ends to the couch (not literally, that's bad for the upholstery), and watched all 22 episodes! He rocks because he came up with an amazingly relaxing and enjoyable weekend that the two of us could both enjoy equally and together without spending a dime!

Secondly, it will never cease to amaze me how easy it is for Austin to make everyone laugh. I have always wanted to have this ability, but I have neither the timing nor the quick wit to be able to get the good lines in the heat of the moment. Austin excels at this - even in tense situations, or conversations that are difficult. This can be slightly frustrating when in the midst of an argument, especially when I am angry, and he is able to make me laugh. Although, in all honesty, I would prefer laughing to being angry anyway :) - and he always knows how to make me laugh!

Austin, I am VERY thankful for you! Thank you for being a great husband and my best friend. I love that we are able hang out and enjoy each other no matter what we are doing! I love you hunnybear!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Be sure to check in with the other ladies who are bragging on their rocking hubbies today by clicking on the "My Husband Rocks Participants" button in the left sidebar.

(if you would like to add the MHR Fridays button to your sidebar, use this code ).

<a href="http://honestandlasting.blogspot.com/2008/06/my-husband-rocks-friday.html"><img src="http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn135/katylinvw/mosaicmhrf.jpg"/></a>

If you're not a blogger, but still want the world to know about your amazing husband (or wife, or husband to be, or wife to be, etc.) leave a shout-out in the form of a comment! If you're unable to comment, e-mail me at katylinvw [at] yahoo [dot] com and I'll add your shout out to this post!

As always, on Fridays From*me Tees will refund your shipping on any order of two or more items if you mention the great adventure and ~my husband rocks! Fridays~ in the "how did you hear about us?" section of your order form, so run on over there and check them out, too! Thank you From*me Tees!

Thanks for reading everybody! Have a fantastic weekend!

Randomness . . . Caution, may contain a rant.

source

Good morning and happy Monday, everybody! I hope you all had a fantabulous weekend.

We had a grand old time this weekend. We went to Des Moines on Friday night with our friend Michael and partook of free Chipotle. It was free because we dressed up like burritos (and by dressed up, I mean I had a headband made out of alluminum foil, while Austin fashioned his piece into horns that he stuck under his baseball cap to hold in place).

After that we headed to the Blue Moon Dueling Piano Bar, which was a blast! They have two grand pianos set up on the stage, and three guys who rotate throughout the evening, and it's an all request show. They're also big on audience participation, so everyone's clapping and dancing and singing along. From the piano bar we went to the Funny Bone comedy club and saw a couple of hillarious comedians. Eddie Gossling was the headliner. Great times! Then, since our cover was good for the whole night, we went back to the piano bar for a couple more hours, then went home.

Saturday Austin and I spent the majority of the day (after sleeping in, of course) installing a garage door. I would have taken pictures, but I'm a bad blogger and I forgot, so no pictures right now. I will take pics of the finished product, but at the moment we have only two of three doors in.

We have learned that with an old house, projects always take longer than you expect them to and this was no exception. The wood to which we needed to attach the tracks was so termite eaten that we had to completely remove it and put in new. Which is not necessarily a problem in and of itself, except that one new garage door track was already attached to it. So we had to remove the left track of the center door and kind of prop it up so the whole door wouldn't come crashing down. Then Austin cut the board so it would fit in the space, and nailed it in. We re-attached the existing door's track and went to work on the new door.

We were both pretty pleased with the way it turned out, and all in all it didn't take nearly as long as it could have had more things chosen to go wrong. :)

Sunday I decided that it would be a great idea to get my grocery shopping done. New month = new grocery budget, and we were VERY low on, well . . . everything! (This is where the rant comes in, don't say I didn't warn you!)

To start off, apparently everyone in town had the same idea that I did because the store was PACKED!!! On Sunday, how wierd is that? I'm the kind of person who likes to zoom in, get everything on my list in a particular order, go through the self checkout, and zoom out again - usually completing the entire process in about half an hour (fantastic for those lunch hour grocery trips). The sheer volume of people clogging every aisle on Sunday made this utterly impossible. Strike 1.

source

I have to preface this next part by saying: I love Christmas. I really do, I love everything about it, the food, the snow, the music, the presents, the family, the church pageants, everything! Honest! But really now people, it is only the. third. of. NOVEMBER!!!!! Is it really necessary to have a Christmas tree already set up? Or an entire aisle dedicated to the cheesy, cheap food gifts? Or to be blaring Christmas music in every corner of the store!!?!??!? What about Thanksgiving!??!!? Thanksgiving is a VERY, VERY, VERY important, wonderful, fun holiday, too!!! Why has everyone forgotten that Thanksgiving comes between Halloween and Christmas?

source

I'll tell you why - Thanksgiving is not a cash cow! You can only sell so many gourds and ears of indian corn and turkey window hangings. Christmas is what brings in the big bucks, so who really cares about Thanksgiving?

source

I DO!!!!!

I love Thanksgiving, probably as much as I love Christmas - we may move to the more side of that gauge because I am going to be so tired of hearing Christmas music and seeing the blasted decorations by the time December 25th rolls around!

source

Don't forget about Thanksgiving! It's a fabulous holiday, and the food is just as good as Christmas, maybe better!

Thank you for allowing me to vent :) Have a great day!