Thanks 2017

The year 2017 has been good to us.  I always love to spend the afternoon of New Years Eve looking back over the year thanking God for how good He has been to us and remembering all the fun times we have had as a family.

Dave was blessed with the opportunity to be apart of the NCAA ring ceremony at Virginia Tech back in October. We were so touched that Coach Buzz asked Dave to be apart of the ceremony and that Dave was the one to give Coach Buzz his ring!!  What a special night.

Another special night this fall was attending the ceremony where Pops received the VHSL merit award for 50 years of clock keeping for RHS football.

In 2017 this dude was labeled a cancer survivor when his five year scan came back clean!!!!!!!!!!!!!  To God be the glory for all that He has done in Dave's life.  We love our UVA team and count them as one of our biggest blessings.

Our summer mission trip to Charleston with our youth group was a huge blessing to all of us!!  All five Robinsons went on this adventure that strengthened our faith, ,made us appreciate the lower humidity of living in the mountains, and blessed us all.  We made some great memories.

Basketball has been a huge part of our life in 2017.  Between Kyle's school ball, Kyle's travel team, Hope's AAU team, Dave's AAU team, and Dave being manager for his school team, our family has spent many many many hours in a gym.  We love every moment of it! This picture was taken of Kyle with his Xplosion team after they won the Myrtle Beach tournament in July.

We loaded up our youth on the buses from Charleston and sent them back to Virginia as we headed to Myrtle Beach for basketball and for vacation. Pops and GG met us there and lots of sweet memories were made at the beach this past summer.  We realized Pops is a whiz at the grocery store self-checkout!  Ha!

One of the biggest blessings this past summer was our first ever garden.  If you follow me on any social media you may have seen a picture or two of our garden-we were SO excited and proud of our first ever organic garden.  We were in the homegrown program through Sprouting Hope our local community garden.  We were given tools, materials, knowledge and support to get us through our first garden.  We also went a little crazy and learned how to can and we have enough salsa, pizza sauce, and spaghetti sauce to feed a third world country.  It is so satisfying to feed your family organic veggies that you grew (and photographed incessantly!!) Ha!

Do you see the ongoing basketball theme of 2017?  Kyle went to Virginia Tech basketball camp because he adores Coach Buzz and he also went to Point Guard College to learn leadership and basketball IQ.  We missed him but we knew he was doing what he loves!

Many hikes were accomplished in 2017!!  This picture is a sunset hike to Molly's Knob we did with our youth.  In 2017 Mike and I both worked hard to get in shape and I even lost about 24 pounds this past fall.  I have some great workout buddies who even encouraged me to do a 5K back at Thanksgiving and Mike plays tennis and racquetball often to stay in shape.

More basketball..... Kyle's school coach kept the players very busy over the summer with multiple team camps and a summer league.  It was a great experience for Kyle to play varsity this past summer to get ready for this season.  Good thing all five of us love being in a gym because we are there a lot!

With Kyle's travel team, we traveled a lot to tournaments.  Here are Kyle and Hope downtown Charlotte.  We also went to Richmond, Greensboro, Knoxville, Boone, Myrtle Beach, and Chicago with this team. This team was a God thing for Kyle as it literally fell in his lap.  We had a blast traveling and seeing the sights as a family.

Kyle had a great freshmen season playing #2 for the school tennis team.  We had fun cheering him on quietly:)

Have we mentioned how much we loved our garden?? We joked that Kyle doesn't like manual labor or veggies so the garden was a stretch for him but he did help!

More basketball.....Kyle has been blessed with many good quality coaches and men in his life to teach him about life and basketball.  We are so fortunate for all of them.  Speaking of coaches, Mike is the coach of Hope's AAU team and that is hilarious to watch!  Mike is loving coaching AAU again but he has had to learn in 2017 that sometimes fixing hair  and wiping tears is part of the coach's job on the sideline with his cute little girl team.

It is only fitting that a picture of me doing basketball laundry in some random hotel sink would sum up our 2017.

2017 was a wonderful year for us because of our good health and blessings.  We got to attend Resurrection, Spring youth retreat weekend and a mission trip as a family to strengthen our faith.  We look ahead to 2018 knowing that God will be there and has a plan for all of us!  May we stay faithful to him in 2018 and enjoy the blessings of every day!

christian heritage

First off, let me apologize for being a blog slacker.  Sweet friend at the gym at 5:30 please keep encouraging me to write.  I appreciate your encouragement as you blow past me on the track:)  Maybe in 2026 I can keep up with you.

I feel the need to blog after something I heard on Christmas Eve in Radford.  My cousin was reading the Christmas story from the bible as we always do and he led us in a family prayer.  My extended family has been doing this long before my 42 years on this planet.  I might not agree with who they vote for, but Jesus is the backbone of this family.  (No family gathering is complete with a little political trash talking which makes family gatherings even more fun:)

So in this prayer my cousin thanked God for our collective Christian heritage and it stopped me dead in my tracks.  As a Mom and a youth leader this golden nugget smacked me in the head.  He was right, I may not always agree with how my Dad votes or his driving, and my mother may have even referenced my large bones on Christmas Eve but through both sides of my extended family I was blessed with a christian heritage. 

As a Mom and youth leader who has spent the last year of my life praying, teaching, leading, and trying everything I know to point my own kids to Christ as I try to do the same with our youth, this phrase of christian heritage really challenged and blessed me.  I have lamednted, whined, cried, and been extremely dramatic with one of my dear friends in 2017 as we have tried to parent our teenage boys.  (Sam and Kyle we know we have good boys and we are thankful but the devil is slick and sneaky and yall can be a wee bit surly).

So all the whining and praying I have done over parenting this precious, know-it-all, and surly teenager in my life has been for nothing.  Just like me, my kids are being blessed with a christian heritage and I have given them the BEST tool I can for their happiness and peace-Jesus.  He is simply enough.  I shared with Kyle last night on our movie date how God has shown up in the darkest times of us because he needs to know the power and mercy of God. 

As parents we make sure our kids have the right school supplies, the right shoes, the right athletic training, the proper piano lessons, and the list goes on and on and on and hits our wallets so very hard.  My goal in 2018 is going to be to focus more intensely on the christian heritage I am providing for my own kids under my roof and for the youth kids that walk into FUMC doors each week.  We need to let these kids know that Jesus is the backbone of our church family and our families.  He is all we need. 

So weary parents who are worried we aren't doing enough or doing it right...... take a deep breath.  If you are woried you are a good parent you probably are a great one.  The best thing we can do for our kids is to provide a heritage for them that involes lots and lots and lots of Jesus.  That also includes firmly embracing our church families and making the events of the church priority.  That also includes loving our neighbor, serving the least and lost, and making sure our kids see us putting Christ on the top of our totem poles.

Thank you cousin Abie for your golden nugget on Christmas Eve.  I am thankful for our Christian heritage and feel challenged to continue this for the blesssings under my roof.