Family...

                                                                          Family...

               As I put on that heavy backpack (for a first time backpacker), I felt like I might not be able to carry that "much" for what it seemed, then to be a long time ahead...

Walking in the sand was very differnt from Missouri's grassy hills, with tons of rocks in and out of the soil. After a few minutes I was  getting cold, with the wind blowing drafts of cold air in it was hard to see, with the sand blowing in my eyes (thankfully I had glasses with me though.) There in the desert it looked like it was nothing, nothing at all that was beautiful no grass or trees, just sand and more sand. I thought, I'd rather be back home in the lush, green grassy fields of Missouri, with the sweet smelling flowers, listening to the sweet pretty little birds singing, and with my dog and little kittys. 
Why were we here anyway? 
We were there because we are a family, we were there to time to spend together.

My little cousin, Shane

Beautiful Cacti flowers 

A dove

A Mothers day rose for my Mother

In the foot hills of CA

Joshua Tree National Park

Salted dirt... Yum? I would say not. :)

Zion, at last! :) Utah

Camp fire

Beautiful Waterfall 

As a family

On top of the Waterfall

Tarantula Spider

Mule deer

The "Checker Board" 

Glen Canyon, Utah

Snow ,in CO

Butterfly in WI

My Great-Grandpa (my dad's side)

(Left.) My Great-Aunt Karen, Jeremiah, Daddy, Mommy, Great Grandpa. (Middle.) Me

At the Zoo. (WI)

Very, pretty peacock.

Uhoh, you're chewing with your mouth open! 

With my Grandpa.

My dad and Aunt.

That reminds me of the man in pilgrims progress, that was just looking down at the dirty things saying, "Theres nothing pretty just twigs and dirt and muck." But there was a voice pleading and calling to him saying,  "Look up and see the flowers and the meadows." 


Yes indeed it was beautiful there in the desert. All the beautiful, big joshua trees and the pretty little cactus, and the small to big flowers. It was beautiful. I learned on that backpacking trip to "look up" and see the positive things in life. I'm still working on looking at things positively but I know that Jesus can help me, just like He can help you.


So "look up" and see the flowers in life my friend.  








When we stopped in California to visit my Aunt and Uncle and cousins, on Sabbath we went to a old friend of ours church. The speaker there happened to preach on just what I needed. It was on, how to witness to people, with "Glow" (for those of you that are not familiar with glow tracts they are almost exactly like, Signs of the time pocket tracts, here is the link to the sermon.) http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10680101
 So after the sermon I headed to the literature booth and grabbed a bunch of the tracts. After a few days of visiting with my Aunt and Uncle, we went to Zion National Park, Utah to go camping and hiking. There was these little posts with a clip on the camp ground that you put a number on to show that the spot is occupied. So I got the bright idea to clip the glow tracts to the posts, on the empty camp spots that were around us. Unfortunately I didn't think about the camp ranger. So when I was done putting the tracts on, here comes the camp ranger in his little golf cart strolling around. I thought, uhoh, what is he going to do now? I held my breath as he rounded the corner and then stopped, he turned to his wife and probably said, whats this? He yanked it of and then went back to where the other tracts were. I watched stunned, was this really happening?  He angrily went and yanked of all of the tracts I had put there. Why did this just happen? Why did I put those tracks there? Then a thought trickled into my brain, if God wills that man will read those tracks, it's in God's hands not mine. I pray still that,that very man will  read those if he hasn't already.




So it was indeed a very fun and exciting  family trip.