Wow, are we blessed or what?!

Over Spring Break we took up dear friends on an amazing offer...a humongous gift for our tenth anniversary...our first family vacation EVER! We were able to stay in their parents' lake house all to ourselves. We did everything...from looking for rocks on the shore, playing mini golf, looking for rocks, going in to town to walk the block of the main street, washing off rocks that were collected, making smores, collecting rocks, playing in the sandy beach, chosing a favorite rock, painting Easter eggs, begging for permission to take rocks home, family devotions every night with the daddy present - wow!, putting rocks in baggies, playing games as a family and having a movie night with popcorn, and to wrap it all up, packing bags of rocks as we got ready to leave. Can you guess the girls' favorite activity?! We had such a lovely week. I can't remember any other moment of time that was so lovely. I'm sure there have been, but I can't remember them at the moment. Here are a couple of pictures from our trip:

Today, thanks to the amazing stay at home moms whose blogs I read (see the buttons on the right), I made a great Safeway trip and a pretty good Walgreen's trip, also taking advantage of one of today's many freebies - free Starbucks coffee when you bring in your own travel mug. I felt so blessed as I sipped the coffee, pushing the cart and getting the bargains. It is one of my heart's desires to be very good stewards of the humble income we live on...doing the best I can to make it stretch. Therefore I am always so thankful when the coupon deals work (if I were smarter, they'd always work, but as I am not, they do not).

By God's grace and a friend's upbeat motivation, last Sunday I participated in my first race - a lil' 5K. I say "lil'" because I keep thinking of the "real" runners that were there for their half marathon, all decked out in fancy expensive running clothes and gear, toned muscles and fake tanned skin...and there I was, in an ancient and faded pair of pretend workout pants and holey sneakers, hoping I could just finish the 5K alive. :) Actually my goal was to run the whole thing, even if my run was as fast as someone else's walk! I do mean to continue running, though my battles are not only against the buldge but also with that intangeable, ever fading motivation.

Notice the big smiles. This was BEFORE the race began. Also in case you were wondering, it's a small purse, not a homing device, that I'm wearing under my layers of shirts (it was cold!) in order to carry my phone and mp3 player. :)