Georgia Aquarium
By Doug | August 5, 2008
Our last event before school begins was a trip to the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. We listened to Patch the Pirate adventures on the way down—reminded us of our first trip out west many years ago. After spending the night about 15 miles north of the downtown area, we arrived at the aquarium at about 10 am and stayed until 3:30 pm. It was great! I particularly liked the clear acrylic viewing tunnel under the largest tank. Watching the biologists feed the whale sharks was fascinating. They are huge (25 feet long) but only have a throat with a very small diameter. So, they seemingly inhale shrimp and krill given to them from a bucket on the surface.
The aquarium designers did a fine job of laying out the exhibutes to accomodate lots of people. On the other hand, only God could have made such an abundant variety of diverse sea life. The aquarium was simply a picture frame for God’s handiwork. I highly recommend the experience!
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Summer Happenings
By Doug | August 2, 2008
We are in the hottest and driest part of the summer. School is just around the corner. I am thankful for an opportunity to rest and not to have as much on the schedule. Serveral things have happened in the past week. The birds in the crepe myrtle tree are getting bigger. Mother bird does not like me anywhere near the nest… Another larger bird (Auria) returned from two nights at Grandma Q’s house. It sounds like they had a great time shopping and eating. And we had a good rain late this afternoon! The ground soaked up just about all of it. I suspect that the grass and garden will produce a growth spurt this week.
Anthony just made his weekly call from the Wilds. The Lord is blessing his summer. He got to clean some ailing air conditioning units this week and caught a 5-7 pound largemouth bass at the camp lake. No pictures of the fish–he just took his pole. He has two more weeks of camp before coming home for a couple of week and then off to school.
I need to download and install a gallery plugin for the pictures. Any suggestions?
-
- Growing Robins
-
- Auria has returned!
Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
The Fowls of the Air (To Be)
By Doug | July 28, 2008
This has been a hot and dry summer in Greenville, and yet we have been blessed with four different bird nests in our front yard’s flora. Two sets of wrens have built their homes in the ferns from Abby and Lincoln’s wedding. Three small black eyes are visible in the wren picture. All three birds have left this nest in the last few days. In our crape myrtle tree, a family of robins build their nest and it is still very active. Mother robin did not appreciate me taking pictures of the children! The dry weather forces the adult birds to work hard and long to feed their young. I am reminded of Matthew 6:26.
Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
God provides the food. The birds work to find it. I am grateful that God provides our physical food and more importantly the spiritual food of His Word. What conclusion are we to make based upon God feeding the birds? There appears to be much good theology from observing the fowls of the air!
Look for the three little wren eyes!
Robins sleeping and eating....
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Summer Teaching Opportunities
By Doug | July 26, 2008
This past week I was reminded of both the joys reaped and energy required for teaching. New Beginnings, BJU’s conference for teachers, gave me four opportunities to encourage folks in K-12 education. There were four other occasions already scheduled making a total of eight. I want to try out the numbered list in Word Press, so the following were my “instructional opportunities” for the week.
- Men’s Sunday School Class: Isaiah 30
- Bible Quiz: Mark 3
- Teaching Faithful Men Radio: Mark 1:40-45
- Teaching Faithful Men Radio: Mark 2:14-17
- New Beginnings: Textbooks-Tools or Tyrants
- New Beginnings: Let’s Teach for Understanding
- New Beginnings: Let’s Teach Critical Thinking Skills
- New Beginnings: Biblical Principles for Staff Development
Auria told us rececntly that we (Doug and Joyce) talk about education all day long at work and then come home and talk about education. She is right! We seem to be a family of educators!
Topics: Doug | 1 Comment »
Happy Birthday Grandma Q!
By Doug | July 23, 2008
Tuesday was Grandma Q’s birthday. Yeah! Yippeeeee!
By the way, she made both Joyce’s wedding dress 29 years ago and Abby’s dress this year. She does great work!
Grandma Q with Lincoln & Abby
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Wilds 2
By Auria | July 22, 2008
All right, as promised, about camp. I had a great time at the Wilds, meeting a lot of new people. My counselor, Megan, was awesome, although she had a cold all week and could barely talk. 
We had 10 girls, including Megan, in our cabin, which was called Mysteryland. I went with my friend Tori, who was in my cabin, and our cabin was on the White team, or the Bull Moose Party. The theme for this summer was Campaign Trails 2008, basically an election theme. There was 3 teams, Red, White, and Blue (of course!) or as the real names, the Red Tape Party, the Bull Moose Party, and the Lame Duck Party. (guess where they came up with those names!) The cabin names were states, only twisted a little. Mysteryland-Maryland. All week Bull Moose were winning, but unfortunately, on the last game we lost the entire week. 
If we had won one more game… Oh well, there’s always next year, and it was a lot of fun anyways. The speakers for the services were Matt and Mark Herbster, and they were awesome! I learned a lot of things about God and myself last week. The topic for the chapel sessions in the morning were on Joseph, and the overall theme, I think, was how you could end up still being close to God and a great Christian even when you grew up in a difficult family situation. That really made me thankful for being in a great Christian home where I don’t have to worry about my parents or siblings tempting me to do wrong. In the evenings, we had another service, with different topics each night, including foolishness, how we can know God is for real, and how to be a sucessful teenager. All of these were challenging, and I loved the messages and the speakers. I’ll post more later about the games and activities.
Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
29th Anniversary
By Doug | July 21, 2008
On July 21, 1979, Joyce and I were married at Evangel Baptist Church in Dale City, Virginia by Pastor Richard Gelina. God has richly blessed us over the years! Yes, we have gained a few pounds and some gray hair along the way too. It may have been the four kids that did it to us….. (No doubt, this remark will generate some comments–snicker, snicker.)
A Happy Couple
Topics: Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
A Quick Trip
By Doug | July 16, 2008
Auria needed to be at the Wilds on Monday. Joyce and I needed to get out of town for a while. Sounded like a perfect “excuse” for a quick trip! We took the opportunity!
We took Auria and two of her friends to the Wilds Christian Camp in Rosman, NC. The three girls talked the whole way from Greenville to camp. No doubt you will hear about and see more of their adventures next week when Auria returns. I fully expect that she will need to sleep for a day or two in order to recover before she announces her desire to post some of the happenings.
We also got to spend some time with Anthony. He is on the operational staff of the Wilds for the summer and is enjoying his work and ministry. His cabin is about 50 yards from the camp’s lake which is stocked with fish. He is getting to know the fish quite well!
Joyce and I spent the night in Cherokee, NC before heading into the Great Smokey Mountains National Park on Tuesday. The weather was perfect and we enjoyed seeing the mountains, streams, flowers, and critters.
Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
WILDS
By Auria | July 13, 2008
This week I’m going to the WILDS, a Christian camp in North Carolina, about an hour and a half away. I’m really looking forward to it, and when I get back, I write another post about it, and hopefully get Dad to show me how to post pics. I also get to see Anthony who is on staff at the Wilds this summer. Some of the main features at the Wilds are the giant swing (which is exactly what it sounds like, and I’m NOT going on it!) and the blob, a pillow looking thing in the water where a person jumps on one end of it from a tower, moving the air in it to the other side, and bouncing the person who is sitting at the other end off into the water. I’ll make sure I take a picture of that so it will make more sense. My favorite thing is the land trolley, a contraption where they hook you on to a cable, and you swing down from a tower onto flat ground. That is really fun, and I did it over and over last time I was there. I’m leaving tomorrow and will get back on Saturday morning.
Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Joyce
By Doug | July 10, 2008
Many of you know that Joyce has had a reoccurance of cancer after being cancer free for ten years. At her yearly physical just after Abby’s wedding, the doctor wanted her to have a chest x-ray due to a cough that had persisted for a few weeks. One test led to another and eventually to the diagnosis. She is currently being treated with a hormone therapy and has no significant side effects. We will know in a few weeks about the effectiveness of the treatment. Any cancer is very serious and this is no exception. We are thankful for excellent medical care, but we are trusting the God of all grace and look forward to His care in the days to come.
Topics: Joyce | 2 Comments »
« Previous Entries Next Entries »