My Grandma.....and My Pap

My heart hurts.

There is a void, a hole that can never be filled again. In my short 20 years, I have never lost someone as close to me as Grandma Rosina.

How does one recover from something like this? I watch my Pap coming and going on his own...arriving at his house to find him eating lunch alone with grandma's home-made CD playing in the background.

I watch him standing by her casket, tears streaming down his face; I can't recall a time that I have ever seen him cry.

I know grandma is in a place that she never wants to leave again, she is happy. She can hear out of both ears.....she never has to worry about being cold, taking an extra pair of gloves along.

But what about Pap? His constant friend, companion, lover, soul mate........is no longer at his side.

Is there anything to say to him?

"It will be ok Pap. We're here for you"

Nothing we can say to him will ever heal the hurt in his heart.

Grandma is dancing on streets of Gold, while my Pap is hurting.

I love you Pap!

My Grandparents on their 25th Wedding Anniversary

October 1986

A Westinghouse

Maybe this is on the slightly silly side, but I thought I would share this joke with you anyway! Enjoy :-)





A lady opened her refrigerator and saw a rabbit sitting on one of the shelves.

"What are you doing in there?" She asked

The rabbit replied: "This is a Westinghouse, isn't it?",

To which the lady replied "Yes."

"Well," the rabbit said, "I'm westing."

The Last Supper

During the meal, Jesus took and blessed the bread,

broke it, and gave it to his disciples:

"Take, eat.This is my body."
Taking the cup and thanking

God, he gave it to them:

"Drink this, all of you.
This is my blood,God's new covenant poured

out for many people for the forgiveness of sins.
I'll not be drinking wine from this cup

again until that new day when I'll drink

with you in the kingdom of my Father.”

This is Next

I just discovered that Joshua Harris will be having a Next conference in Baltimore, MD later next month (May 23rd-26th.) This is similar to the New Attitude conferences he did several years ago, for anyone who is familiar with those. I've ordered some info packets, which I expect in the mail sometime next week. I'll hopefully be planning to get a group together, but I'll post more about that when I have more details. The conference is geared towards college students and young married couples, ages 18-29, but anyone is welcome to come. All the registration and cost info is on the website thisisnext.org Check it out and be thinking about it. Baltimore really isn't that far, and it sounds like its going to be an amazing 4 days!

Thankful Thoughts #4 --- Spare Keys and A Big Brother

I was running some errands for work and talking to Wray on my phone while I was driving. Just as I was pulling in my parking spot at work our conversation ended with him telling me he was getting ready to leave the house. ( Mom and Dad were both gone for the day )

I hung up the phone, turned off the car, and got out with my phone and keys in hand.

"This is goofy", I thought, "I don't need to carry in my phone and keys, I'm just dropping stuff off and coming right back out."

Now, I normally lock my doors when I go into work, just out of good habit. So I threw my phone and keys on my front seat, and (out of habit) locked my door. As if in slow motion, I slammed the car door shut just as I was thinking " Oh darn, I'm locking my keys in my car!"

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it was too late. The deed had already been done, and there was no way of reversing the fact that I was locked out of my car standing in the parking lot at work.

"Easy enough to fix," I thought. "I'll just call Wray real quick before he leaves and ask him to bring me my spare key." So I reached into my pocket to retrieve my phone....."oh yeah, I locked my phone in there too!" Figuring that Wray was probably walking out the door at that very second, I ran across the parking lot, flew through the door, across the room, and slid over to the phone. ( Getting some very strange looks from my co-workers, might I add) I dialed the house phone, but nobody picked up. "Darn, he already left!"

So I went to dial Wrays number...and my mind went blank! "Ah noodles! What is Wrays number?" I usually just use the phone book on my cell phone, so I hadn't actually dialed it for a while. After a few failed attempts, I finally remembered all the numbers in the correct order :-)

Thankfully, Wray was only at the end of our drive way, so he went back inside and got my key for me. When he pulled into the parking lot he just rolled down his window, held out the key, and rolled his eyes as if to say, "What a weirdo".

Family Vacation --- The Last Days :-(

Please forgive me for not blogging the last few days of vacation but, as I'm sure you all know, One can become very distracted on vacation!

We had a very relaxing last few days in the beach house. Lots of family game time, eating out, movie theater (more on the movie later), and just hanging out.

The drive home wasn't so great; we were stuck in traffic for several hours, and didn't make it home until 9:30 last night....about 4 hours behind our original ETA. Over all it was a nice and relaxing time, although it is also nice to get home to my own bed :-)

Since I didn't post any pictures from the last few days, here are some of the kids with their hats and sunglasses I brought back from the OBX.

Family Vacation --- Day #4

Today has been the warmest day yet so me, Wray, and Sarah did a little souvenir shopping this morning and then spent a few hours down at the beach this afternoon. Therefore, not a lot of pictures were taken, but I did take a picture of the house yesterday so I thought I would share that with you.

Ta-Da!

Ha! Just kidding ;-) Here is a picture of the house we're really staying in. (sorry about the dead bush that is blocking part of the house, but I guess it kinda makes this post a little funnier :-) )

Well, I'll try to take some more pictures tomorrow! Its not supposed to be quite as warm so I shouldn't be spending as much time at the beach and will be able to take more pics.........