the annual Virgnia Tech and UVA football game! It was cold, and dramatic and some of us left the game smiling when VT pulled it out in Overtime!! It was such a fun time with extended family:)
Thanksgiving Day was spent in Radford with this strong-willed, hilarious woman and my parents! She is doing well despite her cancer diagnosis. She is sweet as pie but can give the nursing home folks a run for their money. :) She is something else!
It is officially basketball season here in our home!! Kyle is on varsity and Dave is the middle school team manager. Hope is also on her Daddy's AAU team and they play in tournaments on Saturday. This is the time of year when life gets busy but we love every moment of it. Hope is also swimming one day a week, taking piano one day a week and is learning the basics of volleyball. I keep reminding myself that one day we will have no one to take to practice anymore and we will miss this.
Hope recently had her piano recital and did amazing!!! Piano has taught her so much confidence and we love it.
Recently we had a stock holders dinner at youth where our youth served a dinner for those who have supported their faith development and they spoke about their experiences in youth. It overwhelmed me to hear in their own words how God has been working in their lives. My hearts was so proud and happy that I could have wept tears in gratitude. GG and Pops came down for the dinner and here are our kiddos with them. Youth ministry is a family affair in this house and we love every moment of it.
Speaking of youth, we have launched our big Christmas project through Santa's Elves. We have adopted 40 kids to shop for for Christmas. The youth LOVE doing this and it blesses my heart to see how much love and care they put into shopping for our kids. We will be hosting a party for the kids on pickup day before Christmas. We are all pretty excited about this.
This month I have been doing a daily bible journaling on gratitude. Between the bible journaling and spending a weekend at Hearts on Fire with some awesome senior high girls from church it has been a wonderful month. I have slowly realized that happiness and joy are two different things. Happiness is dependent upon circumstances and joy is feeling content despite your circumstances. I am focusing on joy for the rest of 2018:) Joy is time with family on a break, watching my youth serve so well, watching my kids play a sport they love, and spending time worshipping God.
