Family Alive

Brian raced the 100-mile Rouge Roubaix in Louisiana today. This epic race models itself after the famous Paris-Roubaix spring classic race in France with mile after mile of cobblestones, and the local version includes 20 miles of gravel. No, I’m not sure why anyone would want to race on roads like that, but that’s another post for another time.

Anyway, I just got a brief text/phone update from him, so I don’t have all the details. But it appears he finished pretty well, maybe 12th. His teammate, Mike, was in the first group just ahead of Brian, and finished in the top 6. Yeah, Tria Cycling!

Almost even more exciting for Brian, this 3ft printed version of his beautiful colored TopoCreator map of the race course was on display at the race! He’s been working on TopoCreator.com for a long, long time, and the website is so close to going live. I’m really excited to see such a great response to all his super hard work.

Analise’s good friend, Ansley, spent the night with us last night. We enjoyed some outside time yesterday afternoon, and Ansley taught Analise some cheers so they could cheer of Josiah’s scootering.

This morning (after excitedly waking up at the crack of dawn), the girls and I went to the International Tea with their Daisy Scout troop. We had a great time, and Analise even bravely went up front to present their troops charity donation, and shared in the microphone how much they’d given. Their troop was definitely the youngest group there, and I was so very proud of her!

I’ve wanted to blog so many times, yet I just haven’t gotten to it.  No excuse… just busy with life, kids, the usual sicknesses of winter, and just plain laziness.  If I am to get caught up, it will seem too overwhelming, so I’ll just start right here, right now.

It’s March already!  How did that happen?!?  Here’s a couple random glimpses that our camera captured recently…

My sweet girl, all dressed in pink and brown, in my favorite hairstyle... braids. She is just so cute.

While Analise and I had a Daisy Scout meeting, Brian and Josiah went to his preschool art show. Here's my crazy sweet boy with his table of artwork.

At a Sunday afternoon bike race (which Brian has placed 3rd and 2nd in!), we found this little possum clinging to a tree that seemed too small for him. So cute!

Wow – we had some more snow Sunday night. I had meant to post these earlier – but it’s fun to look back at those pics now…

From my littlest Valentines…

You definitely know it’s a special rare Alabama snowstorm when the snow is still around the next day! Check out these pictures and video from the fun yesterday and today.

We woke up to temps in the mid 30s and dry as can be instead of a nice layer of school canceling snow. But a few hours later, during the middle of teaching my class, I looked out the window and it was snowing very heavily. I let the students out a few minutes early, kitted up, and headed home for a fun bike ride through the snow. Then shortly after I got home, Kristine, Josiah, and I headed out through the woods to pick up Analise and walk her home. Josiah’s friend Jonathan was outside playing in the snow so he stayed with them while Kristine and I went to pick up Analise. Here’s all the pics…

It’s looking like it might actually snow tomorrow! Winter storm warning with 2-4″ predicted. The heaviest snow is going to be just north of Mobile, AL on the gulf coast with up to 8″ of snow!

Brian and I have found a fun Scrabble game to play ony iPhone, called Words with Friends (and it’s free!). One fun advantage is that you can essentially place “try” various combinations of letters, click ‘submit’, and you might find yourself lucky enough to have created an actual word that you’ve never heard of. For example, “readorns”, “baud” and “beefy”. Can you believe “beefy” is actually a word?!?

Brian tweeted this photo of Josiah, saying he was teaching him to play Words with Friends. Just what we need… a 3-year old learning real-but-not-normal words. Before I know it, he’ll be beating me at Scrabble!

Thanks to procrastinating, today I’ve got a whole list of things that I really don’t want to do.  My house needs some serious cleaning, and we’ve got our Life Group coming over tonight.  Before I dove into the tasks, I sat down with my tea and the Word, and a prayer that God would guide my every moment, task and thought today. (Have to admit that the Word sometimes doesn’t come first, and if it doesn’t, I’m lucky to get back to it during the day.  But today, of course, I welcomed something better to do!)

I’m reading through Luke right now, and the end of Luke 10 (today’s chapter), happened to be a very timely message.  I love God’s perfect timing with His Word!

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!””Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

I’m definitely a Martha.  I desperately want a Mary heart.  I read an excerpt from a book called “Having a Mary Spirit” by Joanna Weaver (sort of a sequel to “Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World“).

Jesus didn’t want Martha to be so caught up on kitchen service for Him that she missed out on the joy of living room intimacy with Him… His disciples were a good example of this.  As they received Jesus’ teaching, they learned the balance between a soul at rest and a body in motion, between working hard for Christ and sitting at His feet.

Ahhh… I’m pretty much speechless as to how well this applies to me.  Off to my tasks, with my heart’s prayer that I would choose what is better and keep Him at the forefront of my service.