The Best Birthday Cake Ever!
Well, today I am 34 years old.
I know. sigh.
However, despite the fact that I really don’t want to get older, this is sooo the best time of my life!
Today, my two youngest children, Hannah and Laura, surprised me! They got out their Easy Bake Oven and made me chocolate covered apples and chocolate cake! I forgot to take a photo of the apples, but they were really delicious! And the cake was really good – for real!
Our White Squirrel
In Search of a Horse
My four daughters and I have been anxiously searching for a horse for a long time. Earlier in the year we had looked quite a bit and even made a few calls on horses we were interested in, but then the year became so busy and full that it was pushed aside.
About two weeks ago I was in Dollar General with my little girl, Laura. She was wearing a shirt with a horse print on it. The cashier commented on the shirt, and said, “I just love horses!”
I responded by saying, “Oh we love horses, too. In fact, we are looking to buy one soon.”
Then, she said, “Oh, I know a lady who has a horse for sale.” She gave me her name. The woman also worked at Dollar General. So, a few days later I went in the store to see if this lady was working and she was. I asked her about her horse, and she informed me that she had already sold it, but she knew of another woman who was selling a horse. I went home with her phone number.
I finally got ahold of this lady on Sunday afternoon. We made arrangements for me to come out to her house on Monday evening. By the time we got out to her house, it was pretty much dark outside, but the horse was there close to the house. I ,er, the girls are so excited! Nothing is for sure yet, but I think it will all work out. It seems almost too good to be true!
First of all, the mare is a Tennessee Walking Horse, which I never thought I’d be able to afford. Secondly, not only is she a Tennessee Walking Horse, she is a Racking Horse, so she has a smooth gait – in other words, you don’t bounce as much in the saddle. And thirdly, she is a black and white paint horse which happens to be my favorite – exactly what I was hoping to find! Oh, and the lady is only asking $700.00 for her which I think is a steal! (She had originally paid $1500.00 for the horse.)
Oh, and not only that but the horse currently lives just a few doors down from where we plan to keep the horse which means we won’t have to worry about finding a horse trailer to borrow – we can just walk her down to her new home!
But wait, there’s more! She also has a miniature pony which comes with a saddle and is the perfect size for my littlest girl, Laura, to ride and is something she had been asking for, but I had thought we would not end up getting! So, this coming Sunday, we will head out to visit the horse and pony again to give them a good once over, to watch them interact with their current owners, and see the owner ride before we make our final decision. I have a good feeling about it. I think we are the new proud owners of a horse and pony!
Here is a picture of the horse: (It was dark outside so I will have to share better pics on Sunday)
And a picture of the miniature pony:
Summer Adventures: Part 4
Nathan Greene
One night during the Camporee, a famous artist, Nathan Greene came out on stage. I caught my breath because I just love his work! He was wearing his Pathfinder uniform (lots of patches!). I wispered to Laura, “That is the man who painted the picture of Jesus that is in your bedroom!”
I had framed a postcard of one of his painting and placed one in each of the girls bedrooms. Laura loves art and paints and creates daily. She was so excited to see him on the stage and we learned that he was teaching a painting and drawing class in one of the hangars! Laura begged to go meet him the following day.
So, bright and early, after breakfast, we headed across the air field to the hangar where he was located. By the time we got there, his class was booked for the entire week. I was disappointed! But I was able to introduce him to Laura and told him how much she loved art. I told him how she had a framed picture of Jesus that he had painted in her bedroom and that when she found out who he was she was sooo excited and hadn’t been able to stop talking about it!
He told her that as a young child he was very shy. He said that when he was 4 or 5 years old he started painting. Laura got her picture taken with him. He was very nice!
I was so thankful for Laura. She was so happy! If you are not familiar with his work, you should be! He has the most beautiful painting of Jesus I have ever seen! You can read more about Nathan Greene here and view his painting here.
Tiny Tots
Not only did Laura get to meet Nathan Greene, but she got to to be on TV, too!
About two weeks before the Camporee, Laura wrote a letter to “Auntie Linda” from Tiny Tots – one of her favorite television shows. She asked Linda if she could be on Tiny Tots. I was so afraid that her heart was going to be broken if it didn’t work out!
Two days before the Camporee we were watching Tiny Tots and as usual, at the end of the program, Auntie Linda pulled two letters out of her basket to read. Well, she only read one of them! Laura looked at me, crushed and said, “That other letter might have been mine!” I said, “Oh, no, honey. I am sure Auntie Linda hasn’t gotten your letter yet.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that particular show had been taped a long time ago! But I knew she was really wanting to go to Tiny Tots!!
Well, at the Camporee, it just so happened that Kids Time and Tiny Tots had a booth in one of the hangars. We went over to check out the free coloring books, and while Laura was busy, I said to the man behind the table, “I know this is going to sound like a really silly question, but my precious little girl here REALLY wants to be on Tiny Tots. Is there any way?”
And he said, “Why don’t you ask Linda yourself.” She had walked up behind me and was talking to another lady!
So, I waited patiently (and anxiously). When I got my chance, I said, “Linda, I don’t know if you remember me – we came last year and volunteered for Kids Time. My husband, Mykal Ringstaff…”
Anyway, to make a long story short, she did remember me. I explained to her the situation. And she said, “Well, as a matter of fact, I had a little girl cancel on me for Monday. Can you be there?”
SO, when the camporee ended late Saturday night, we tore down our tents, packed our trailer, and pulled out of there at 12:30 am. to head to Louisville, KY to drop off Julina and the babies (her husband met us there). Talk about a long miserable fight to stay awake! Then, we headed back up to Thompsonville, IL to the 3AN television studios. We arrived around 6:00 pm on Sunday night.
Laura got to be in 6 or 7 different episodes in the Nature Walk segment. So, if you are able to watch tiny tots in the next few months, you’ll have to look for her!
It was so cute because after we had intially talked to Linda Johnson, Laura looks at me, shrugs her shoulders and says, “How did that happen. Here we were standing there looking at the coloring books and she just appears!”
I told her that Jesus had answered our prayers. When we got back to the tent, she said to her daddy (who had tried to explain to her that just because she wrote the letter didn’t mean she would be on Tiny Tots just days before…), “I told you I’d be on Tiny Tots!”
You can watch Tiny Tots on 3ABN (channel 9710 on Dish Network) or on the SonBeam Channel. You can watch 3ABN online here – Tiny Tots comes on during the week at 4:00 pm.
There are more adventures for the month of August I want to share… so stay tuned for Part 5!
Summer Adventures: Part 3
What can I say about the 2009 Pathfinder Camporee other than WOW? I knew that we were traveling 13 hours to Osh Kosh, WI to campout with 36,000 other Pathfinders. I knew that that was a lot of people. But I had no idea what to expect! This was my first Pathfinder Camporee and that of my children as well.
We left around midnight on Sunday night. The Camporee was scheduled to begin on Tuesday, but we had decided to get there a day earlier to set up camp. There were ten in our group: My husband and I, James, Sarah, Emily, Hannah, Laura, and then Julina (my husband’s daughter) and her two children Jacob and Jenna. It was a long night.
We arrived in Osh Kosh around lunch time on Monday. We stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up a few camping supplies before actually driving into the air field. Who knew that out of 36,000 Pathfinders half of them had the same idea???
Every where you looked you saw cars and vans and buses with words like, “Osh Kosh or Bust!”
As we pulled into the gate of the air field, we were suddenly surrounded by thousands of people. It was so exciting to see! Kids were pitching tents and setting up camp every where you looked. We didn’t know that most of the conferences built fantastic displays to signify their region.
We got our tents pitched, and then I organized the food bins. It rained briefly (poured for several minutes) and then that was the last of the rain for the whole week.
Tuesday was a flurry of activity. We knew before we went that bathrooms and showers would be an issue. Imagine 36,000 people and only 500 showers and only porta potties available for use? And to get water for cooking and washing you had to walk quite a ways, stand in line, and carry back buckets of water.
The beating of drums was heard “througout the land” and all week long! I am a “new” Pathfinder and I never knew that Pathfinders played drums! It was a wonderful sound. I love, love, love the sound of drilling and drums!
Like I said, I had not really known what to expect. I understood there would be honor classes to work on during the week, but it was not until after we arrived that I really understood what that meant. The campus (air field) was so large that it took me 30 minutes (one way) to walk over the the hangars where the honors and other activities took place. I am soooo glad that we weren’t even further away as many were! I guess we walked about 10 miles a day. (Talk about exhausting!)
There were so many activities and classes and fun things to do – it was not possible to do them all! From BMX Bike shows to Motorcycle shows, to the 24′ rock climbing wall to dozens of honor classes to art classes to the bushcraft village to the prayer tent and the Messiah’s Mansion (life size tabernacle/ sanctuary) to the exotic animal shows to the very cool obstacle course to the community service opportunities to the puppet shows to the Native American display to the off site trips to Six Flags, Noah’s Ark Waterpark, water skiing, and so much more. They even had a booth where kids could just come and make crafts for fun! (see below)
There were booths where ministries displayed their free goodies and Advent Source had set up a store (very exciting to me!!)
There were food vendors – every kind of vegetarian item you could think of was available! I didn’t even realized there would be food vendors – I would have skipped cooking a few meals. It was like a Seventh-day Adventist wonder land. Sooo much fun!
And then there was the Trading Pins. Who knew that you needed to bring a collection of trading pins to join in the fun tradition? (see the photo of Hannah in the pink hat up above.)You’d think since I am married to a pastor who has been to Camporees before that he would have clued me in! But as the week progressed we had a nice collection of pins and in 5 years at the next camporee (if the Lord hasn’t retured by then) we will be ready!
And in the evenings there was the Worship Service. Oh my. It was fabulous! The theme of the camporee was Courage to Stand based on the life of Esther. Worship began with a puppet show and song service and talent show and more. But the highlight of each night was the play.
Oh, but I didn’t tell you about the stage! It was a fantasical stage built to look like Ester’s Palace – beautiful! And there were three huge screens so that everyone who was not close to the stage – which would be most of the 36,000 people – could get a good view.
Oh, and as you entered seating area, you had to walk through gates with guards and torches – very cool.
And then there was the exciting music that played while you sat and waited (and waited) for the program to begin. It was like a combination of Egyptian music and Adventure music – wonderful!
Going into the camporee I was thinking that it would be a cheesy church play – you know the kind. Well meaning church members act out a story to the best of their ability and everyone looks past their lack of talent out of love? That was not the case. The actors and actresses performed beautifully. It was so well done and professional. I was so proud! And the musical score for the play (which was really a musical) was very, very well done. I bought the CD and the kids just love the music!
On Sabbath (the last day of the camporee) over 550 young people were baptized – Praise God!
On the last night, after the program ended, we had a special surprise! All of a sudden, just as eveyone was standing to leave, fireworks began. It was a true delight and when they began I thought there would be just a few. They played some of my favorite songs as the fireworks exploded in the sky. But then they kept coming and coming – for at least 30 minutes ending with an amazing display for the “grand finale”! It was so special and as we left the service, my youngest daughter Laura says to me, “I am going to be sad to go home!” That pretty much summed it all up for the rest of us.
August was such an exciting time for us – I will share more of our adventures during the month in Part 4!
Summer Adventures: Part 2
August was such a fun month! It started off with a few days at Indian Creek Camp for the yearly minister’s meeting there. The speakers were fantastic. It was wonderful to get to chat with friends I only see a few times a year. There are several pastor’s wives in our conference that are dear to me. The kids got to spend time with some of their best friends. I am always grateful for that.
And the horses… My girls and I love horses and riding the horses at ICC is one of the highlights of our year!
Hannah – thrilled to be at the corral!
Laura riding the new horse – Pilgrim. Here, Jamie is leading her. Laura can hardly wait until next year! She’ll be 7 years old and allowed to lead her own horse and ride on the trail with the rest of us!
This is Hannah riding really well all by herself!
I have more photos of my other girls on the horses, but they were taken on my husband’s camera and I have not downloaded them yet! I’ll have to share those later.
This is a picture of Hannah and Laura with their good friends exploring nature – bugs!
For our Shepherdess Meeting (pastor’s wives meeting) we learned a bit about Photography. I love my camera and can’t wait to be able to afford a super nice (read expensive) camera. I take my camera everywhere and take hundreds of photos every month! For practice we went outside and took some nature shots. Here are some of mine:
Pretty flowers outside of the chapel.
I liked the way the light shone in through the tree leaves.
This is poison ivy. I thought it was a pretty good shot. 
And last but not least, our pet Fowler’s Toad – aptly named Prince Charming. We let him go a couple of weeks ago. I am glad I got this nice shot of him.
When we got home from ICC, I had two days to prepare for the International Pathfinder Camporee in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin. Actually tho, I took Thursday to “recuperate” so that left me with Friday – which meant I had to take Sunday and finish packing – which meant we didn’t leave for Wisconsin until 12 midnight…. to be continued in Part 3!
Summer Adventures: Part 1
Wow, today was our first day of homeschool- more about that later! I am so glad to be back into a “normal” routine! But this summer was wonderful and filled with lots and lots of fun and adventures. I have been gone out of town for most of the month so I have lots to share with you over the next few days.
For now, however, I want to share some of our nature “finds” over the last three weeks.
This is a sweet little green caterpillar. I am not sure yet which kind it is. It is a type of silk worm, though.
Here is another sweet little caterpillar. Soft and fuzzy white – so pretty!
This is one of the biggest Praying Mantis’ we have ever found! It was at least 6 inches long. It is now happily living in our garden! My daughter, Hannah, who has eye as keen as a Hawk’s, saw this way up high on a Wal-Mart window as we were driving past! We had to stop, and climb to get it!
This is one of the most amazing bird nests we have ever come across. It is suspended between two branches and is like a little sack!
Here is another fun bug – the Walking Stick Bug!
A nice big grasshopper!
Some very interesting mushrooms. I need to get a mushroom field guide soon!
A toad hiding in an old cistern.
And finally, a bat just inches from our heads! So sweet and so tiny! Much smaller than the bats we found in our house. The bat, the toad, the nest, and the mushrooms were all spied at the Morengo Cave we visited last week in Indiana!
I can’t wait to share more with you!
My Kitchen Window in the Summer
Home from Campmeeting
(To see a larger version of the photos above, just click on the slideshow and you’ll be taken to the Picasa Web Album!)
The end of Campmeeting each year is bittersweet. Oh, how I wish it didn’t have to end! But it is nice to be home again after two weeks of very busy, very fun, and very rewarding days.
We had sooo much fun in the Primary Department! I wish I could share the fun with all of you – there is so much I will always treasure in my heart. Our theme was Adventures in God’s World – An Adventurer Campout. The decorating turned out exactly how I had envisioned it and it was so much fun putting it all together. We even had a “fish pond” with real live gold fish swimming about! And the Campfire pit looked soooo real! Our name badges were our “Nature Adventure Bags.” Some of the young ladies who helped me set up stenciled bugs in different colors on 122 bags before campmeeting began. As the children came each night and registered, they received their own “Nature Adventure Bag” with their name written with a black Sharpie. When we went on our nature walk, they used these to put special finds inside. These worked out wonderfully. I loved this idea!
I can’t thank my young helpers enough – I had a group of young ladies including my own four children who helped me put it all together. And of course, Melissa Bradshaw and her husband, Pastor John Bradshaw whose time and dedication were invaluable.
The children were precious and I love each and everyone of them. We averaged any where from 75 – 90 children during the week and 96 – 112 on the weekends. We learned a lot about nature and I encouraged the children to explore nature and bring “show and tell” to each class. They loved it! There were some classes where nearly have the class would get up to show what they had found. Some of the things that were brought to class:
2 toads
3 frogs
4 froglets
15 bullfrog tadpoles
6 mosquito larve
crickets
spiders
1 black widow spider (yikes!)
6 snakes
3 lizards
several fossils
severa l geodes
earthworms
minnows
crawdads
1 turtle
lady bugs
2 luna moths
moths
butterflies
4 mice
I wish I could remember every single thing that was brought in! We also did nature journaling and took a nature walk down to the creek where I encouraged them to sit and observe what they saw and then write or draw about it in their journals. The children really enjoyed that. I wish we had had time to do it more than once. I also taught them how to draw a luna moth, a swan, and a duck in their nature journals. On the last Sabbath we had a lady who brought us two baby oppossums that she is raising.
We had a continuing story each class – we read Nyla and the White Crocidile. The kids loved the book! Pastor John Bradshaw read it with his wonderfully deep voice and New Zealand accent. I can’t wait for next year’s story!
Every class was fun and exciting. I had so much more I wanted to teach the children about God’s love and the world around us, but unfortunately we ran out of time. Now it’s time to start planning for next year. My theme is going to be: The Parables of Jesus. I just know it will be wonderful!
But for now, I am recuperating – I slept almost all day on Monday and Tuesday. Well, I did get up for a little while. Today, I am feeling much better and ready to tackle the house – we unloaded the 5 x 8 trailer that we had taken to campmeeting (which was packed floor to ceiling) into my dining room. And in ten days we are having a district church meeting here in Harlan and everyone is invited to my house after church – so, I have to get busy!! Not too mention the yard grew three feet while we were gone!!
It’s Campmeeting Time Again
May is one of the busiest months of my entire year. In fact over the next two week all I will be focusing on is the preparation of my program for the Primaries at Campmeeting. On May 17th or 18th I will be heading over to Portland Tennessee for two weeks to set up and then teach our 21 classes to 90 – 120 children.
Last year was soooo much fun. Mykal and I had a blast. The program I wrote was called Out of Egypt and we had an absolute blast. My husband grew out his beard and was Moses. (He still has the beard and it is much longer now…. which has to do with the Kid’s Time television program that he was invited to do a part on the Bible Story segment. The kids and I were “extras” in the background. It was a lot of fun! Anyway, we are going again, hence why he is still growing out the beard and looks like he has been in the mountains of Southeast Kentucky a little too long, hee hee.)
Here are a few highlights from last year:
That is my husband above as Moses.
In front of this backdrop we took pictures of each child standing like an Egyptian and had them printed out and given to the children before they went home from campmeeting. The well you see there was built by a wonderfully handy man for me and painted by some talented young ladies. It is cut out on top and I used one of those big blue tubs you can get at Wal-Mart and filled it with water.
The “sand” on the back drops was sponge painted. And I used the acrylic paints to paint the pyramids and camel as well other things which are not pictured here.
You can see Pastor John here – he was a Hebrew slave as was I. The tent was purchased at Wal-Mart and then, I used the donated sheets to make the walls of the tent and secured them with lots of safety pins. To dye the white sheets, I took brown paint, watered it down and dunked the sheets one by one then laid them out in the grass and sunshine to dry. The “sky” on the backdrops was a brilliant idea from my campmeeting coordiantor – we used blue construction chalk and a paint brush. Just sprinkle it on and brush! Perfect and super easy!!
Here you see Pastor Brian as the evil Pharoah (he is a really tall man)! The kids loved it! You can sorta see inside the tent – I got a bunch of kinda ugly knits donated from a kind lady at the Woodbury, TN church. We used these by cutting them into lengths to look like blankets and covered the floor of the tent. We also made a cool looking fire (which I will be reusing this year) out of big rocks and some sticks that I had pastor’s kids gather during Camp Pitch and a spot light with a red bulb. It really looked all lit up!
This was the school principal’s son – he really got into the program! Sooo cute!
So, for this year I wrote a program called Adventures with Jesus. Our theme is around the Adventurer Club. We will be decorating the room like a forest/ campout. Last year, I made my own palm trees – 14 of them and designed my own fronds out of felt – my daughters and I sewed like 123 of them. The trunks of the palm trees were donated old carboard carpet rolls which we covered in burlap and the stands were made from scrap lumber. One of the pastors cut little blocks for the tops of the carpet rolls, nailed them in and drilled holes for each palm frond. The palm fronds had a little pocket sewn into each one where I put 12 gauge wire lengths that another pastor’s wife cut out for me. This meant we could bend and shape them. Perfect! The trees were wonderful and I am still using them to this day in my own churches here in Southeast Kentucky. This year, we purchased 16 Christmas trees after Christmas from Wal-mart. Just like last year, I have asked for donations of old bed sheets from hotels, which I will be sewing together to create our back drop for the room which has 12 ft. high ceilings and is 35′ x 47′. You can see the backdrops I created last year in the picture above. Actually, I was saved by another pastor’s wife – I am forever indebted to her because when I got there last year the room was bigger than I had envisioned and I had not originally planned on sewing them together. Thankfully, I had brought my sewing machine! She came over and asked if I needed help – she saved me from utter humiliation!! She sewed them all together and made it look seamless – beautiful!!
So, I am hoping to get these sheets sewn up just as beautifully. I will be doing the construction chalk sky again. Also, painting green grass and great big pine trees on the backdrops. We will have a camping tent, a picnic table, camping accessories, a little creek with river rocks, pine needles all over the floor, and more. I can hardly wait to see it all come to life!
I will definitely be sharing more about this in the weeks to come! If you live in the Nashville, TN/ Portland, TN area, you should come see me at campmeeting!
