Life's Changes-We Went From Being a Family of 7 to 18 in a Little over 5 Years! God is Sooooo Good!

I don't know if anyone even looks at this anymore, but I figured I'd post pictures so you all can see our changing family.

 We're all married now except Shay, but she's getting married in January; so I guess we basically are:)

 Engagement photo. She's actually marrying my husbands brother! It's kinda funny, but really cool.

 This was on our hike up Tumbledown Mt. a few weeks ago. We went the hard trail, and I about died (slight exaggeration).

This is right where Brandon purposed to Shay; after we left:)

 The three big protectors of their little sister that they're so proud of.

 Family vacation!

 At George Washington's home in VA.
The five of us went to The Worship of God conference in NC a couple of weeks ago. On the way down we stopped at Mt. Vernon.

Pilgrims Rest Part 2

Monday morning we skipped the meeting and many kind people helped unload the rest of our cabin from the roof or went in the cabin with waiters or mud boots. The water was 8" above the floor, it was kind of strange nearly swimming in the cabin we were just living in a day before.

We told people they could leave if they wanted to. But most of the people said they wouldn't leave if we wouldn't cancel the meetings, even if we couldn't do all the activities. Everyone was so wonderfully gracious, and the week turned out well after all. One of the ladies said to me, "What better way to start off a week than to have trials that bring unity and growth in all our lives, that's what we've been praying for".   

This is our tent monday morning. If you look closely, you can see an orange boat to the right of the tent, that is where they were loading our stuff from the roof.

Unloading. We ended up staying in a cabin a few hundred yards from here.

Relays.

 Father and Daughter.

 We were introduced to a new game called Spike Ball, it was a big hit with our family and may others.

Above is my Dad's brother playing for the first time. He came to camp for a day and spoke on Love & Respect. It was our first time having a live speaker, we really enjoyed it. Can't wait till next year when we'll have a live speaker the whole week!

 Brandon blow-drying the wet charcoal to his face.

This may look strange, but it's fun. We played Mission Imposible and put charcoal all over our faces.

 Brent, Daniel, Brandon, Stephen, and Shay.

The place of meeting.

Campfire.

We always have a time of singing and testimonies of how the Lord has worked in peoples lives through the week. It's a really nice time to hear about how the Lord has used camp to grow His people.



Pilgrims Rest-family camp 2012

Day 1

 It's always a blessing to start the week off with baptisms, this year there were 8.

 Many of our baptisms end up in the rain for some reason.

 Watching the baptisms.

 With all the rain there was a little river running through what was supposed to be a dry tent:) So we had the bright idea to fill the river with sand and redirect the water.

 There's always fun to be had rain or shine.

 And what now? Maybe the water will stop rising soon:)

We rescheduled all of the meetings to the building we hold our worship services at, it worked out pretty well, but I like being able to stay in one place for the whole week.

Some people had to be taken in by truck to their cabins or get soaked.

Just in case you've never been to family camp, I think you should know that flooding this time of year at this camp is extremely rare, and not likely to happen again for many years:)

After the evening meeting we came back to the campground and realized that the only way to get to our cabins, was by boat; thankfully we had plenty of them.
So all those on the water emptied their cabins by boat that night, it was quite the adventure; a memory that will last forever. It was so neat to see everyone working together and helping each other.
 We ended up staying at our house for the night and went back in the morning. Everyone else stayed in another cabin.

What we've been up to the past month

Seth got a turkey!

The men and friends played a baseball game against a gentleman's league.

Sunday fellowship.

                                                Shay had a piano recital and played Canon in D.

Us girls and the Barton ladies went to the ocean for Amanda's 20th birthday.

The cousins went to see my cousins' baby mini horse. Abbie got to ride on her.

Marshall's #3rd birthday was on the 13th but since it was mothers day we had it on the 12th.



After we were done eating, we played volleyball.

Kayla made him a wonderful boy cake.

Big n little brother.

Trip to Canada

 Saturday afternoon we played volleyball, of course:) It was great.

 Mom peaked in through the door and thought this was funny, so she snapped a pic.

We came back to my aunt and uncle's house just in time to eat and get ready for a concert.

 Seth thought the caption for this should be, "He kissed me!". They're so cute. Watch out for little Titus, he's a charmer.

 Abigail is such a doll:)

 Little Man.

In the middle of the concert he was playing up back with some cousins, but when his mom got up to do some songs he started slowly walking down the isle, waving and saying hi to everyone!



 The other little man, helping Uncle Lew with sound.

 Uncle Wayne came up with us, so we had the pleasure of him playing some with us.

 Mr. Studious.

He'll sit and play music for hours, literally. Finger-picking, bass-strumming and all. The other day he asked me to play a few instruments that I don't really know how to play, I said, "I can't play that song, I don't know how", and he said, "Yes you can". He apparently thinks everyone can play everything.

Mr. Emotional.

He can be laughing one minute and crying the next. He says, "just kidding" all the time, its so funny for a 20-month-old. Here he was laughing his head off at my Aunts' brother, Brent. He is so funny. Titus just loved him.