So often the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection is blurred with colored eggs and bunnies. Praying those distractions never diminish the glorious truth we celebrate this day – The tomb is empty – He has risen!! He has risen indeed!!
Spotless Lamb, mighty Savior Who lived, who died, who rose victorious
LYRICS:
Vs 1
O Most High, King of the ages
Great I AM, God of wonders
By the blood You have redeemed us
Led us through mighty waters
Our strength, our song, our sure salvation
Chorus 1
Now to the Lamb upon the throne
Be blessing, honor, glory, power
For the battle You have won
Hallelujah! Amen
Vs 2
O Most High, dwelling among us
Son of man sent for sinners
By Your blood You have redeemed us
Spotless Lamb, mighty Savior
Who lived, who died, who rose victorious
Chorus 2, 3
Now to the Lamb upon the throne
Be blessing, honor, glory, power
For the battle You have won
Hallelujah! Amen
With every tribe and every tongue
We join the anthem of the angels
In the triumph of the Son
Hallelujah! Amen
Last Chorus Tag
Sing the victory of the Lamb
Hallelujah! Amen
Vs 3
O Most High, King of the nations
Robed in praise, crowned with splendor
On that day who will not tremble?
When You stand Christ the Victor
Who was, and is, and is forever
And just like that – we’re looking at April!! Phew – it’s been quite the March around here! Here’s a quick summary of some of the beautiful madness that colored our March!
It started with a drive to Ohio.
Thankfully, we were fully stocked with coffee and mini-donuts, our favorite morning road food!
Since it’s a solid two-day drive, we’re always delighted when we can stop and see good friends just outside of Nashville.
It’s always great to spend time with John and Rosie – and by taking this route, we get to see them twice! Sweet!
The primary purpose of this trip was to watch two of our grands performing in a show choir competition. What’s Show Choir, you say? It’s a group of 30-40 incredibly talented high schoolers performing themed Broadway-quality musical numbers. We’d watched a couple of performance videos and were excited to see them in person! Since it was a competition, is was a long day, but incredibly fun to watch each school perform. Of course, the most fun was watching OUR kiddos! .
Our Maddie is a senior, so this was one of her last performances – so glad we were there!
Here’s a link to the performance. The whole video is over 4 hours, so I’ve set it to start at hour 3, which is when their group performs. The other groups were also fabulous, but I’m happy to report that our team won the grand championship! Yay!!
Since that Saturday was jam-packed, our other two days together were more low-key! It was so special to see almost ALL of the Ohio clan (Hayley was in Cincinnati and couldn’t make the trip) right smack dab in the middle of winter!
Not the whole M-ville clan in our group selfie- it’s really hard to keep everyone home!
But we did snag a quick shot of the Gahanna gang before we set off for home.
Four Days of driving.
Three days with family.
Totally worth it!!
We had only been back in Texas for a day when we got a call that Lara (back in Ohio) had taken a bad fall and torn up her knee. She’s a single mom, works full-time, and does a great job managing her busy life. But this brought just about everything to a screeching halt. And so I took a good look at my schedule and started looking for flights to Columbus. Yep, one week after I returned from our Ohio Road Trip, I turned around and flew back!! By the time I arrived, she was doing much better, and a doctor visit while I was there confirmed the good news that surgery wasn’t needed. Phew. She can work from home, is managing quite well, and can even handle driving as long as it isn’t a great distance. I was able to help with a couple of house projects she was working on, tried to stay on top of the kitchen stuff, and managed to keep the laundry under control. Definitely support staff! We all got to spend an afternoon with the M-ville crew, and even got a good visit in with Hayley (the one who couldn’t make it the weekend before!) But the best part was being able to spend some good quiet time with Lara. It was a week well spent! (And I may have to work that into an annual trip to see all the Columbus Conrads (all 11 of them!). But let’s skip the messed-up knee next time, OK?)
I arrived back in Texas just in time to celebrate Josiah’s birthday this past Sunday. They came from Waco for the day, and we fed them waffles, experienced the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler,
and then enjoyed burgers on the deck, along with a couple of good games with the kids. Oh, and the boys loved exploring the neighborhood in the golf cart! What a special day! (But sadly, not very many pictures! I’m really slipping these days!)
Our March Madness was all Very Good Madness, indeed! Any month that I can hug ALL of my children, their loved ones, and all twelve of the grands – well, that’s the kind of madness I’m really good with!
And so we turn the calendar page over. April will bring its own brand of busyness as we prepare to head north at the end of the month for the summer! The plan is starting to take shape – and I’ll share more of that in the days to come!
Thanks for stopping by – hoping your March was filled with as much joy as ours was!
…was Great!!!
It started on Sunday, the 15th, when we connected with our Waco kids and grands at our favorite midway point – Corsicana. We celebrated Taran’s 11th birthday
and enjoyed some lovely visit time with the whole family! me
Certainly, a great way to start the week!
Shortly after we returned from that deliciousness, our friends Don and Jenny arrived from South Dakota!! They were on their way to Galveston and hung around in the SOWER RV lot until Friday. Jenny and I took long walks, made a trip to Tyler to connect with some mutual friends,
had a pedicure date
and generally just enjoyed being neighbors! The guys did a bit of RV service work
and took naps as needed!
Somehow I failed to get a good picture of the four of us, but as they were heading out, I was able to snag this one of Jenny and me!
When some of your dearest friends live in South Dakota, you relish any chance to connect with them! We were so thankful they stopped and spent those days with us!
They left on Friday, just as we were driving to Tyler for Gary’s cardio tests, prompted by his little (non)episode earlier this month. The tests (nuclear stress test and echocardiogram) went well, and now we wait for the next doctor’s visit to have the results explained to us! We have copies of the results, and while they used a lot of words beyond our understanding, there were no trigger words like Blockage or Abnormal or Get-thee-to-the-ER, so we feel confident that all is well. And we thank God for that!
It was a beautiful week of family and friends and life! Thank you for stopping by and sharing it with me!
PS – I also got our taxes done (which included a nice refund), so that was a great box to check off too!
One of the delights of living in Texas is that we are in ‘helping’ distance with our son and family in Waco. It’s about 2 1/2 hours, so not exactly drop-in close, but still close enough. (And way closer than our kids that live in Ohio!)
So, when I got a call that they needed someone to take care of the two littles (ages 6 & 8) for a day while Mom was away, I made a couple of adjustments in my schedule and signed up for Grams Duty!
It was a pretty fun gig!! And mostly involved games! Which of course, we counted as school!
Skyjo (a fancy version of the card game Golf)
*Strategy and math. Lots of addition and the introduction of negative numbers. Not bad for a first grader!
Rummicub – more math and critical thinking. Also, thinking outside the box.
Also finding different ways to arrange the tiles in your tray. Creative thinking?
Some alphabet animal game where we had to name an animal starting with each letter, and then every six letters or so we had to answer animal questions.
Hard questions that we had to look up.
*Research practice, recalling animal names – Natural science.
There were a couple of trips outdoors to burn off some energy, and we even managed to get some clean clothes put away.
But not without a bit of fun too!
It was fun to be in charge of only the two “littles”. (Not that I don’t adore the older two boys. This was just a different dynamic.)
I was there less than 24 hours – but so very glad that I was able to sign up for the ‘gig’!
When we first moved here, I was struck by how many folks planned their days around their doctor appointments. Our previous doctoring experiences were a check-up once a year, and an occasional Urgent Care visit when needed. Plus, being new to the area, we didn’t even have a doctor, let alone appointments! (Please know that we are both so very thankful for our limited need for doctoring! We do not take that blessing lightly!)
But last week, as Gary was getting out of his Oh-So-Comfy recliner to head to bed, he experienced some sharp pain in his left arm and then some tightness in his chest. Yep – Off to meet the good folks at the local Emergency Room. Honestly, by the time we got there, the pain was gone, and he was feeling just fine. But – better safe than sorry, we said, so we got him checked in. An EKG, bloodwork, and chest x-ray later – everything looked fine. They sent us home (after waiting 3 hours for a second round of bloodwork just to be sure) with the promise of a call from a cardiologist for follow-up the next day.
And so it begins…
Cardiologist today (everything looked fine, but let’s run some tests to be sure…)
Primary Care tomorrow
Stress Test and Echocardiogram – in two weeks.
Follow-up on tests- two weeks after that.
And just so I don’t feel left out –
Dermatologist removed a small bump on my leg following a ‘let’s get acquainted’ visit
Yep – Squamous cell carcinoma
Returned so she could burn and scrape it out (nothing big – a regular band aid covers it!)
Follow-up in three months
The calendar is beginning to fill up…
It’s a slippery slope indeed! But thankfully, these are small things. Done in the interest of not having Big Things happen. We have been very blessed with good health during our years of travel, and we are so very thankful for that! To God be the Glory!
Keeping warm here in Texas (and finding our way around the local health community), praying you are also! (staying warm, not the health care stuff!) =)
Follow
me
