Ah, yes. Prayer. It’s THE good thing!
I Peter 1:2b
May grace and peace be yours (hers!) in fullest measure.

So that’s a nutshell of what we’ve been doing. But what I have really been enjoying is where we are parked. First of all we are parked right next to a lovely butterfly bush – and have been delighted with the variety (and abundance) of butterflies that have visited.

And between our rig and the butterfly bush we have hung our hummingbird feeder. And how we have enjoyed those antics! Lots of little hummingbird wars going on out there. And all of them moving too fast for this girl’s camera!

And on a totally un-related note, I thought I’d share this picture of our little blue-eyed Maddie. I’ve been having fun playing with my Photoshop Elements program - and came up with this today. I hope it brings you a smile. It brought one for me!

There was a geocache in the apple orchard –

But try as we might, it remained hidden. However, it did let me take some fun apple shots….

We drove back up to Fayetteville and enjoyed a drive around town (though the teaming rain hindered some real sight-seeing!), lunch at a place called Hog Haus and the relative quiet of a college campus the Friday before the students arrive back in town! A quick stop at Sam’s Club, a slightly longer stop at Wal-Mart for groceries and supplies and we were back home in plenty of time for a quick nap.
Yeah, ya gotta love those extra Saturdays!

On March 7 & 8, 1862, 26,000 soldiers fought here to decide the fate of Missouri. The 4,300-acre park honors those who fought for their way of life, North and South.

Before we move into the new weekend, I thought I’d share a little about our tourist day last Friday. We headed north and made a quick stop in Rogers, AR (home of the very first Wal-Mart, which we did not find, but also home to a very nice quilt shop which we did find! ), checked out Bentonville (home of the original Walton’s 5&10, plus world headquarters for Wal-Mart), and spent the better part of our day at Pea Ridge National Military Park. The battle fought here was the most decisive Civil War battle west of the Mississippi. It was a very interesting driving tour, and as usual, the introductory movie was excellent. The area is so lovely, it’s hard to imagine all of the tragic loss of life that took place here.

We did stop at the Original Waltons 5&10 in Bentonville. Bentonville has a lovely little town square, and this little store has been made into a Wal-Mart (and the Walton family) museum. It was interesting and free . I thought it a little funny that the gift shop in the front of the museum didn’t take credit cards. Go figure!

We have found that these Arkansas towns by and large have lovely town squares. Here is Rogers, Arkansas -

See what I mean?

Tomorrow we head south to Fayetteville. Who knows what adventures await us there!

PS - there are a couple more Pea Ridge photos here.

And Gary watching the live music (looking like not such a huge fan either! )….

But he was a good sport, and we stayed until the end –

The next day we headed north to Rogers (home of the first Wal-Mart), and Bentonville (home of the original Walton’s 5&10 and corporate home for Wal-Mart) and Pea Ridge National Historical Park. Details to follow…..

A Bump in the Road –

Don’t you just love understated road signs?

BUMP?

Have you ever seen this at a Post Office before? I wonder what the story here is?

And I wonder who took the hook!

A Heavy Thank-you
Over the last four years of doing SOWER projects we’ve gotten all kinds of “thank-yous” – mugs, flashlights, T-shirts (LOTS of T-shirts), even a plaque. But this is the first time we’ve gotten a rock!

Looks like an alligator, doesn’t it? Our very own pet rock!

Oh – one more thing!
These pictures are a little hard to post because
1. It’s almost 100 degrees outside and these pictures involve a SWEATER.
2. This cute baby boy is not my grandchild. (But he is my great nephew!)
But cute is cute – and I couldn’t resist posting these pictures of little Stephen Fitzpatrick posing in the sweater and hat that his second-cousin (?) Lara knit for him!


How cute is THAT!

Tomorrow (Monday) we start working at our August project – Ecclesia College in Springdale, Arkansas. I think I’ll be working in the office (yea!!! Air conditioning!), but the guys will be working on some dorm remodeling. We can only hope for A/C for him!

Hope you had a good weekend!

See how she’s grown?

For virtually every day since we have been on the road Gary has kept a journal. He records what he read for devotions, where we stayed, and what he did (or we did if we did something together.). Sometimes he notes where we ate, and he always notes where we stayed (0r at least where the RV was parked).
It looks like this -
God’s truths are eternal and unchanging
Devotions - Millers (the Sower couple that led our group devotions)
-closed up fence near barns
-worked on horse feed troughs
-covered A/C cond. fan
-checked on equipment shipments (A/C)
Played cards
Lunch & Dinner at TC
Sower (that’s where we were parked).

He has done this every day since we left on August 1, 2004. And since he has kept such good records, I can tell you that we have been parked at Sower projects for 984 nights, campgrounds -82, Flying J - 7, Wal-marts - 70, at friends and family - 191, Rest Areas - 16, Home - 36, miscellaneous - 26. When I’m trying to figure out just when we were at such and such a place, he says – “wait, let me look it up”. And he does. Amazing.
On the other hand, I have been the keeper of the spreadsheet. We have tried diligently to record all of our expenses, from the diet cokes we buy when we travel to the insurance we carry to the money we spend in tolls. It’s not nearly as interesting as what we did when, but we do try to be careful with what we spend - after all, we’re spending the kids’ inheritance!
And hasn’t it been fun!

More reflections later…….

The one we just got today – as a Thank-you from Woodland Acres Bible Camp

3:16 The Numbers of Hope
by Max Lucado
We have a shortened version of this book that I had read during my quiet time a couple of weeks ago, so I am really looking forward to diving into this one. Gary even said he was thinking about buying it – so maybe he’ll jump in before I get The Reason for God finished! The book includes a 40 day devotional – maybe I’ll get started there!

One more –
Year 4 - The Continuing Adventures of Gary and Stephanie Conrad – As we draw this fourth year on the road to a close, I put together a little picture book of this past year. If you’d like to take a look, you can check it out here!

Happy Page Turning!

It was neat to watch the clouds over the statue as the sun was setting. (But if they don’t keep those tree trimmed, He’ll be gone in a few years!)
We didn’t make many other stops while we were in Eureka Springs, but here is a photo taken at one of gardens surrounding one of the local springs.
Next to it is a photo that I took last time we were in town. I confess that it has always been one of my favorites!

New Endeavors
So, not only has our front TV bit the dust, but our old computer recently decided that we really didn’t need the display. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Gary was using that computer for his mapping programs (and solitaire when I was rudely hogging the new computer), we would have just trashed it. But, since it would occasionally work AND would work fine when we hooked it up to another monitor, Gary decided that he should take it apart to see if he could fix it.

Much to our amazement, after he had taken it all apart and then put it back together again (not really doing anything except cleaning out several large dust bunnies), it started working! Unfortunately, the mouse pad now wasn’t working. Now that he knew how to take it apart, he figured he’d take one more look and see if he couldn’t get that mouse pad to work (not that we don’t use a wireless mouse most of the time anyway….) You guessed it, he should have quit while he was ahead! Now we’re back to lovely colored lines on the monitor. Sigh. SO, his most recent endeavor is bidding on refurbished units on Ebay! (Maybe I should have been worried when he asked me what I wanted him to do with the extra screws!) Maybe we can sell this one for parts?

Camp Memories –Had I mentioned before what a good time I had working in the kitchen here at WABC? There was a great team – Bekah (who was about a week away from delivering her firstborn son!) and Nora were the adults in charge. But each week there was a crew of hardworking teenagers who manned the dish room and all aspects of “hospitality” – making sure everything was out and then after the meal making sure everything was cleaned up. It was a great group of girls – and by the end of the second week we were all having lots of fun together –

But my other task was being the Cabin Inspector. You know, checking for trash and neat beds and tidy bathrooms. The first week I was the mystery inspector – no one was supposed to know who I was or when I would show up to do the inspections. It was fun as I tried to come up with clever ways to present my findings! By the second week my cover was blown, so I decided to just go with the flow. I developed a thick French accent, and became Ze Inspectoor. By the end of the week I made a little “movie” of shots I had taken and had even figured out how to add music! Talk about taking on a life of it’s own! Here I am as Ze Inspectoor –

Ooh –la-la! Ze fun I had!

Wrapping things up –
Right now we’re busy battening down the hatches (which really just means I’ve finally cleared my sewing stuff from the kitchen table!). We head out on Friday. We’re not going far, just about 75 miles west to Springdale, AR and Ecclesia College for our August project. Not too much of a change of scenery, but at least it’s a little farther West! After Ecclesia we head to Colorado Springs, CO! We’ll be posting the support letter for that fill-up!

Oh – one more thing!
Almost a year ago an online travel book (www.schmaps.com) asked if they could use one of my pictures in their Nashville Travel Book. I said yes at the time (does that make me a published photographer?), but just a couple of weeks ago I got another email letting me know that this “book” was now available on iPhones. Here’s the link -
http://www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=nashville&sid=all_sights&p=68097&i=68097
of what it will look like on the phone.
And here’s the picture itself!

How cool is that!