The Journey has begun!

Hey everyone, just a quick update today.

We arrived safely in New Jersey at 6:15 last night. Scott just updated on his blog, so go check it out here : Book Tour Begins.

I'll update with my own post soon! :)

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Blog-readers! Yes, I know I'm a day early, but I won't get on tomorrow. My week is flying by, but I've gotten everything done so far that I need to get done. Tomorrow morning we'll finish up our packing and get the trailer all set up to go, so we can hook it up when we get home from my parents tomorrow night.

In all the bustle of cooking and visiting this weekend, remember to give thanks to God for the little things too. I challenge you to think of something you can be thankful for about every person you come in contact with tomorrow. God placed that person in your life, and although we are thankful for the people in our life, I know that I don't often take a moment to thank God for something specific about that person. So there is my challenge!

Many blessings to you all this holiday weekend, and just think, Christmas is in 1 month! :) I love the Holiday season!

Stay tuned for a post about our departure on our 5-month journey!

Once again I must apologize for letting so much time pass without a post. This past week has been crazy. However, this next week looks even crazier. Let me give you an idea:

Monday: Get up, throw my favorite Sweet Potato Stew recipe in the Crock-Pot,

Then off to a book signing at the East Hartford Library for several hours,

Get home in time to make Biscuits to go with Dinner as we have a get-together with some friends (last one before we leave).

Tuesday: Last cleaning job in the morning,

Have lunch with a friend (last time to see her),

Then on to visiting my Sister-in-Law (when you keep mentioning "we should get together sometime" and then 5 months go by and one of you is going to be out of state for 5 months, then you know you need to stop "putting off till tomorrow, what you can do today."),

Then a quick visit at other friends' house before heading home.

Wednesday: Packing,

Organizing,

Packing the Trailer,

Helping with Thanksgiving preparations,

Then dinner with both of our families

Thursday: Thanksgiving Day, Dinner at Scott's Parents with good friends, then Dessert and the evening at my Parents', before we say all of our "Goodbyes" :(

Friday: Up and at the Crystal Mall for a book signing at the CRAZY hour of 6am

After BS, onto New Jersey for 5 book signings from Saturday to Monday (heading to PA for a night on Wednesday, and then to IN on Thursday).

So there is a picture of the next week. If you could see our calender for the next 3 weeks, you be shocked! It is SO full! The amount of signings we have within short periods of time, I am certain will make us very thankful for a rest come Christmas day! :)

It has been a comfortable temperature here in CT during the day, the past several days, and we are very thankful for this beautiful weather! :) Of course, I know that if I were still 11, I'd be praying night and day for snow, but it is quite a different story now. :) I do like snow, it is very pretty, and it makes for some picturesque scenery. However, I personally prefer warmer weather. :)

Here is one of my favorite hymns:
I Need Thee Every Hour by Annie Hawks

I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord; No tender voice like Thine can peace afford.

I need Thee, O I need Thee;Every hour I need Thee; O bless me now, my Savior,I come to Thee.

I need Thee every hour, stay Thou nearby; Temptations lose their power when Thou art nigh.

I need Thee every hour, in joy or pain; Come quickly and abide, or life is in vain.

I need Thee every hour; teach me Thy will; And Thy rich promises in me fulfill.

I need Thee every hour, most Holy One; O make me Thine indeed, Thou blessèd Son.

(The above picture is from our trip to Niagara Falls in October)

Attitude and Challenges

I apologize to all my blog readers that it has been so long since I last posted. The past week and a half have been quite full and I have not spent a lot of time on the computer (which, contrary to what some believe, is not necessarily a bad thing).

Last Friday (November 6th) I took my sister Ice Skating to celebrate her 13th birthday (which isn't until December, but since I won't be here, we had to celebrate it early). We had a blast! There were a couple people on the rink when we got there, but they left while we were putting our skates on, and we had the whole rink to ourselves, the entire time we were there! We had such a great time!

Yesterday Scott spoke to over a hundred students (4-8th grade) at a school. As always, I was amazed at how good my husband is with kids and how well he spoke. I wasn't surprised, but once again, I thanked the Lord for giving me such a good man, for my Husband. I am truly blessed.

If anyone is interested in a 30-day challenge, I encourage you to go to the Revive Our Hearts website and consider taking 1, or maybe even 2 of the challenges there. I have taken the Husband Encouragement Challenge, and the Choosing Gratitude Challenge. Every day I get an email from both challenges with encouragement and goals/challenges for the day.

The Lord has been working in my heart on having an "Attitude of Gratitude." I have no idea how this all started, or even when. All I know is that the Lord has slowly been laying on my heart different things to think about or to work on, and it's brought me to where my goal is to have a thankful heart.

Here are a couple of questions that you can ask yourself to see where your attitude is at:

When something unexpected (or unplanned) happens, how do I respond? Am I able to switch gears, be flexible, and eagerly "go with the flow"? Or do I feel resentment or bitterness that my plans now have to be changed?

When a child breaks something (just by accident), that perhaps was even very dear to you, do you scold them and send them to their room after insisting they clean it up by themselves? Or do you bend over to help them, letting them know that it's okay, you understand it was just an accident, and it's not that important?

Our heart attitude effects how we respond. Look at how you respond to "big" things, and then you'll know how you're responding to little things. I've written more on attitudes here. I have found that it is very easy to let little things bother me, or to let my attitude be effected by the attitudes around me. So I have worked very hard on not being bothered by little things and not letting others determine what my attitude is going to be.

Therefore, one of the things the Lord has been teaching me, is that keeping my focus on Him and on being thankful, taking every situation (even the smallest ones) and finding something I can be thankful for, keeps my attitude, and my heart where it needs to be, with God on the throne!

Blog Giveaway

There is a great giveaway going on over at Never A Dull Moment. Not only is it a great giveaway, but she has a great challenge also. I encourage you to go check it out! I know I'm going to accept her challenge.

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/neveradullmoment/

Niagara Falls, NY

Finally, here is the long-awaited post...

Niagara Falls was BEAUTIFUL! We drove up to New York on Friday. The scenery on our way there was beautiful as well, even though it started raining at some point and rained the rest of the day. What a perfect time for travelling, this last month has been. As we've been travelling through Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York (which included parts of Pennsylvania as we crossed the border for awhile) we've travelled over many mountains and the trees are changing their colors. The bright Red, Yellow, Gold, Orange, Brick red/brown, and still Green leaves have made for very pleasant travelling. It is impossible to describe the beauty in all the scenery we've seen. We serve an AWESOME Creator!

(Notice the Falls directly to the left of the Rainbow, in the background)

Our original plan was to visit the Falls Friday evening when we got up there, but we got a later start in the morning than we had planned, and by the time we got to the area, it was almost dark and it was pouring. We spent the night in an "interesting" motel. :) It was pretty dingy but it was cheap, we were tired and we figured we'd stay at a nice hotel on Saturday night (which we did, and it had a heated pool and jacuzzi! :) ). So we decided that we'd go to bed early and get up to go to the falls for 8am. We didn't have to be at the book signing in Buffalo (20 minutes away) until Noon, so we had 4 hours!

On our way to the Falls we ate the rest of the fruit I had brought from the day before, and we figured we'd stop for breakfast after we had gotten our fill of the Falls. :) I brought my little "Point & Shoot" and Scott brought his nice Camera with all his nice lenses! Scott took a couple hundred pictures and they all are beautiful, but I haven't put any of those on my computer yet, so you'll have to be satisfied with the ones from my camera for now. Scott did post a few pic's on his blog though.

There was a constant rainbow the entire time we were there. And, you could see both ends of the Rainbow! It was breathtaking! :)

When we woke up in the morning, it was cloudy out and looked like it might start raining any minute, but nothing was going to stop us from going, so we headed out. As we started driving, the sun started breaking through the clouds, and by the time we parked our car, the sun was shining brightly and the clouds we starting to completely disappear. By the time we left it was cloudy again, but we felt so blessed that the Lord gave us bright blue skies, and let us see the Falls in all its splendor!

In this picture (below) you can see the mist rising up from the Falls behind me. When you walked down the "steps" in the second picture below, it was as if you were walking into the rain (but there were ZERO clouds in the sky), because of the mist.

We had to do a lot of walking to get to the "observation walks" (below) but I LOVED it! Because it had rained during the night, the Sun was shining through the trees, and you could smell the freshly fallen, damp leaves. I love that smell! Fall is my favorite season, and walking through the park that morning, I was reminded of all the reasons why I love it! :) We know our God is an awesome God and His creation is incredible, but we couldn't stop talking about it as we were walking to the Falls and then again on our way back to the car.

This was another "Fall" (or whatever you would call it) that you can see from where all the above pictures were taken.


Here's my handsome Husband doing one of his favorite things.... taking good pictures! (He's really good at doing it too! :) )

As for other news, we are completely out of the apartment. We gave the keys back yesterday. Our storage unit that seemed so big when we got it, is now completely stuffed! I still have some stuff to organize, here at my parents. Some of the things that I brought over here are stuff that I didn't have time to organize and consolodate before we left the apartment, so I will be working on that this week, as well as going through the stuff of mine that is still here from when I got married. It's great to be spending more time with my Family right now. I'm really going to miss them while we're gone, but I know it will go by quickly. :)

We are enjoying a quiet weekend, the only weekend for some time that we have had no book signings. We left it open because of the moving, and we're so glad we did! Not having the apartment now, is a relief because we're another big step closer to leaving for the tour. We're so excited! We can't wait! We leave in less than 4 weeks now.

I hope you all had a great weekend too!

Now here's a question for all my blog readers: What is the most beautiful place you've been to, or the most beautiful day you remember?

Leave a comment with your answer! :)