A Biltmore Birthday

Once upon a time there was a girl...
Alas, this girl was turning 30, and at the request of her knight of what she desired for her celebration, she responded, "a day with my ladies-in-waiting at a place fit for a princess." And so, her knight took up the charge and sent her with her ladies to the Biltmore Estates.


What beauty awaited as they stepped from their coach. It was more beautiful than they imagined.

The gardens bedazzled with flowers galore, were but a mere shadow of the beauty surrounding them in the mountains they were hidden within.

There was no lack of fun or food or enjoyment, the princess and her ladies celebrated a birthday not to be forgotten. For this princess now joined her wise and good friends in the decade they call the 30s. Happy Birthday my dear, sweet Lindsay!!

Simhat Torah Party

To complete the Sukkoth, the children have a Simhat Torah Party. This commemorates when the Jews would take the Torah out of the ark during the Festival of Booths and parade it around for all to see, celebrating God's word. In current times, the children invite all the neighbors/friends to make banners celebrating God and His Word to parade around the neighborhood with treats to share for all

Christopher and Samuel made their banners, then went through the neighborhood inviting all the kids to come make a banner and have a parade with them.

So they lead all the kids in a grand parade up and down the street with their banners. Afterward, they had candy to share and played games in the front yard. It seems so simple and yet we never stop to do these things. God set these times aside for his people for the purpose of remembering and glorifying Him, and in the glorifying of Him, His people are brought closer together and filled with joy. I think even as christians, though we are no longer required to live by the law, we should take the time to be purposeful to remember God and His provision, simply to glorify God.

Sukkoth

As we continue our studies of the old testament and jewish tradition, we took time to celebrate Sukkoth, the Festival of Booths. This is where the people would build a small booth and share a meal in it as a reminder of how temporal material things are and celebrate God's provision for them during the flight out of Egypt, as well as today.

So the boys built the frame with dad's help and carried it to the spot they felt best.

Then you decorate it with greenery and fall decorations in preparation for your meal together. Different parts of the meal symbolize how God provides for his people. I have to say, besides just being fun family time, it is also humbling to take time just to celebrate God and to dwell on his provision for our every need.

Boy Scout Campout #1

Sunday morning the sun greets the campers as they tumble from their tents to meet together to worship God together, at least the ones who are not frozen in their sleeping bags. I think this must have been record lows this weekend. It did not get above 35* during the day and it was around 28* that night. Saturday afternoon, the boys were working on badges and that night they did a campfire with skits, marshmallows, and also a ceremony to retire some American flags. It was very fun. Samuel, our cub scout, had a great time. At around 9:00, when everyone was turning in, I turned toward home. Yes, I admit, I could not take it, so my dear husband sent me home with the blessings of both sons. So I came back in the morning to help wrap up and pack up. The boys had a great time. They are looking forward to the next one in the spring. Hopefully the weather will be a little more cooperative.

Jewish Tradition

This year, we have been studying the Old Testament, and along with that Jewish customs and traditions. We started by celebrating the Sabbath as they do on a Friday night and finishing on Saturday. There is a lot of ceremony that accompanies this dinner. It is a celebration to honor the Lord and the day of rest. Ours had a focus on Jesus, as christians, that the Jews do not have. We were all struck with how much it affected us to be solely focused on honoring the Lord throughout this meal.

We also had the opportunity to tour a true to life replica of the temple that traveled with the Isrealites during their years of wandering. At each place within the temple, the group who does it, presents the information about what you are seeing. For instance, below is the alter and the water basin. This is where the sacrifices for the people were made. It is humbling to see how the Jewish people had to live by the law of sacrifice to be presentable before God, knowing that we are not bound by that because of Jesus's sacrifice on the cross. Amazing!

In the end, the group presenting shared the gospel, which I thought very appropriate and bringing it full circle to why we as gentiles can be called children of God. We have an amazing God who created us and redeemed us all according to His plan.

September Beach Trip

The beach is always great. It was beautiful and we had a blast. Matt even bought a boat for the girls to use so we could float and sun. However, it turned out to be a bust, due to the waves that kept trying to flip us. Yes, we did take a dive once into the very cold water. My dear husband, who was supposed to be helping us get out past the breakers, helped us into the wave and the water and then pulled us out of the water spluttering, soaked and cold. Bad Matt! All in all it was a blast.

The Maize Maze

This is our fearless group, Daniel R., Daniel H., and Christopher and Sam, and their fearless leaders, my friend Tara and myself. We started with much confidence in the ability of our team. All the teams were named after Greek and Roman gods, and we were the warrior gods, Mars and ?. (Yah, just drew a blank...Hmmmm) Anyway, the goal was to get through the maze in good time while collecting map pieces and answering questions you find along the way.

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(whose kids are those anyway....)

So, off we go with our flag and our arrow of leadership. The arrow was to determine whose turn it was to decide which direction to go,and the flag was so that we were never entirely lost to the world. It worked out great. The boys worked so well together, no fighting or bickering about directions. They were so compliant, no one questioned any direction, even when we went in the same circle 2 times in a row. Even still, Tara and I had decided this was the boys' thing and we would just follow. So follow we did, for almost 2 hours. At about the 1 hour 45 minute mark, Tara and I both decided Starbucks was calling and we stepped in to ask for help.

The boys were getting a bit weary of not finding the end, but they still didn't want to ask for help. That's a group of boys for you. We were in there so long, even the maze masters were mocking us from their towers, very sad. However, we did ask for help to find our way out to find that we were the 4th out of 5 teams to finish. The first team finished in about 50 minutes (very impressive!), and the last team stayed past the point of getting out so they could find all the map pieces. They knew how to get out, but didn't so they could go back and find ALL the pieces. Alas, that really made us the truly last place team. (We didn't even have half our pieces AND it took us forever to get out.) When all the points and times were considered and honors handed out, we earned, the worked together best honor. Very nice, but I don't think I would have minded the quickest out award. :)