Vacation Photo's

Our vacation was a lot of fun. The kids favorite part was floating down the river in these inner tubes. The first day was cool and I did not go in, and the plot was that they must convince mom to do this fun event. The water was extremely cold! By the last day they got so brave that they just floated with the current with their life vests on.

Here we all are getting ready to finish our hike up the mountain. We had already hiked about 3 miles, and then we had to do about a 1/2 mile up to the top. We saw moose tracks, deer tracks and bear scat. The whole hike was 6 1/2 miles. I'm hoping it can be counted for something for scouts for my son.

The two boys off to fish. My son caught a rainbow trout. I didn't get a photo of that. Too far away when it happened. That is the nice thing of having older children, when you are camping they can go off and do things without you and then come back and share the adventure. You get time to relax, and they feel like they have had this freedom from you.

Here is my daughter in front of her tent. I bought the tent at Wal-mart for my son to take on scout trips. It says you can fit two people in it. I'm not so sure about that. My daughter thought it was even too small for her to sleep in so she slept in the Pop-up camper with us. She kept her stuff in the tent and would have quiet time in it.

So we are entering our first whole week of being unemployed. My husband had some interviews today, unfortunately they did not go as well as I hoped. My husband is a "Master" Auto Mechanic. But for the last 14 years he has worked for a small business that imported and exported specialty metals. With the bad economy the business has been failing, and so as a result his boss can no longer pay him. The really unfortunate thing is that the computer side of the auto industry has changed, and so you can be an excellent mechanic, but if you don't have the computer skills you are at the bottom. My husband is at the bottom for the computer skills. One place said in a year they would have a position. Another place said they would call when they have their oil change center up and running. But to me the oil change thing is such an insult. My husband has been fixing cars these last 14 years. He is always helping fix peoples cars, and if he isn't fixing them he is at least giving advice about what is wrong and the best place to go to have the car fixed. We have never had our cars in a garage to be fixed. When we drive down a road he points out all the problems that cars have. To be told you are only good for oil changing had to have hurt. It hurts me just thinking about it. I have to remember that this is only day one. Something will come up.

Blessings... In my church we are taught to pay tithing. 10% of what you earn. There is a scripture that if you faithfully pay then the windows of heaven will be opened up unto you and God will pour you out a blessing that you will not have room to hold. I have in the last few weeks and months seen those blessings flowing into us. We needed a newer car. My husband likes old cars but his car was just eating gas. He talked to a friend who had a car that we liked, hoping to buy it from him. The friend gave it to us. The next day another friend gave us a second car for free. Now with free there are always little things that need fixing, but one of the cars is running and saving us on gas bills. We right now have 5 cars, with no car payments. We will hope to sell two of them soon. In fact on the free car thing, the car I have had for the last few years was also a free car. You just can't get better than free if you get 4 or 5 years out of them its a huge amount of money not spent. We have not had a car payment since being married.

Our next blessing, seems silly. I help with my daughters 4-H club, and often teach about cat issues. I kept saying that I would love to have a projector and a laptop computer to do power point presentations. I think they are just so cool. I was talking to a friend about this dream and they said " I have a project that I don't use, I'll give it to you. And then just yesterday we got two free used laptops. Are they top of the line? No. Do they have some issues? probably, but hey they work, and will be good enough for the simple things that I and my kids want to do.

I see the blessings all around me. One more, we lost our health insurance in November, my husbands boss wanted us to get a new policy and promised to pay 1/2 of the payments. I did not trust this and so I signed the kids up for the states children's health care program. Today I had to take my daughter to the doctors, we had health insurance for her, and her prescription was free. If I had not thought ahead we could have had big bills to pay for her appointment and prescription. These are all recent blessings. But as I think on my life I see so many blessings, that I know despite the the trial, despite the struggle we are in, we will be blessed. I work hard to keep faithful and diligent so that I can receive the blessings.