Adult Children

 The job of every parent is to raise their children to be God fearing, independent, hard working, law abiding people.  It is so rewarding to watch them through their adult life as they begin raising their family in the same way.

I remember the times I didn't like one thing or another that mom and dad enforced on us.....having to be home at 11:00 on a date night, for instance!  I used to say, "I'm going to raise my kids differently than the way I'm being raised!"  We think we are smarter than our parents.  But when we finally become adults with children of our own, we discover that mom and dad were a lot smarter than we thought!  And I have to say that I didn't raise my kids much differently than I was raised.

Everyone makes mistakes when they are raising their children.  But with lots of prayer, I believe the LORD can right the wrongs!  I know He has done that for me because I know I made LOTS of mistakes and bad decisions as a young mother.  Thank You, LORD, for Your mercy and grace!

This is my oldest adult grandchild with his mother, my oldest child.  He will be 20 in a little less than 6 months.  When I look at him and think about how old he is, it baffles me when I try to figure out how the time disappeared so quickly!  He visited his mom today and this is what Jessica said, "My adult boy came to visit and eat dinner with us tonight.  Proud of him for doing his own thing but miss him too!  Love you, son!"  And I love you, grandson, and pray only for the LORD's best for you and pray you let Him guide you every step of the way!

And, I, too, miss my children!  I don't see them often enough!  We communicate back and forth by texting or talking on the phone once in a while, but it isn't the same as having them here physically!  I would love for that aspect of life to be like it used to be where the children all stayed around and raised their families near mom and dad and where grandma and grandpa were a part of their everyday life, too.

I did a couple more digital scrapbooking layouts today.

This first one is photo-edited for a challenge at OScraps.  You turn your picture into a stamp (the black and white one) and then you "color" it with the original picture (basically).  The final result is the bigger picture on the left.  I like how it turned out!

Mark took these pictures on Friday evening when he was working down in the woods.

This was to be a busy weekend, but last week (on Tuesday) we found out that our grandson, Ryan, had been exposed to someone with the corona virus.  And since we were with him on the 10th, we decided we needed to cancel the activities we had planned for this weekend.  Friday we were going to have Mark's aunts over for dinner.  They both have health issues so we knew for sure we needed to postpone that get together.  Saturday Liz and family were going to come over and we were going to cook at the pits in the woods.  But rather than possibly expose Mark and I to corona virus (even though Ryan has shown no symptoms) we decided to call it off.  But Mark and I did eat at the pit on Friday and Saturday.

Friday, I fixed chicken stew for a late lunch.  Kenneth, who's family used to own the woods we bought, often comes to take walks through the woods.  He happened to be here when I took the chicken stew to the woods to eat with Mark, so we shared with him.

After I went back to the house, Kenneth left and Mark continued working on things at the pit.  He is working on a better roof for the shelter we ate lunch at.  After he gets more poles up and more cross bars on the roof, he will put tin on it.

Saturday, Mark went to the woods early.  He fixed scrambled eggs.  And I brought down some blue berry sweet rolls that I cut in half and cooked in butter.

Piper likes laying next to this fire pit because it generates a lot of heat out the sides.

The netting that is around this pit was given to us from Brad and Liz.  It works great and holds the heat in quite well, believe it or not!

If Piper is not laying near a heat source, she is laying in the sun to keep warm.

Mark stayed in the woods and I went back to the house after breakfast.

I also fixed supper at the pit.

Mark working on his chainsaw mill while I cook the chicken and veggies.

Waiting for the coals so I can start cooking.

YUM!  I had a hard time stirring the veggies without stirring them out of the skillet, but I only dropped one pepper strip into the fire!

We had a beautiful weekend.  The weather was cool, but beautiful!  Thank You, LORD!  

And, praise to the LORD that Ryan is still well!

Monday through Wednesday Mark and I are going to attend the Shepherd's 360 Bible Conference in Cary, NC.  Tim and I went a couple of years and really enjoyed it!  I hope the ringing in Mark's ears doesn't hinder him from enjoying it!

Praying you all have a wonderful week!