A day late... Welcome to Friday! - its a long story

I will sing of the Lord's great love forever;
    with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known
    through all generations.

~ Psalm 89:1 [NIV]

Welcome to Friday!

"I will sing of the Lord's great love forever."  I hope that you are doing well and that you had a fantastic Friday and an absolutely wonderful week!  How are you doing and how is everything going with you?  I hope that you were able to enjoy the celebration of the great and awesome love that endured the betrayal, took the beating, handled the ridicule, managed the agony of the cross, took the despair of the grave and then rose with all triumphant power on Easter morning.  I hope that the great love of Easter is still holding, strengthening, and blessing your life and spirits. 

Well, this is actually take two.  I was getting ready to hit send yesterday when Microsoft so kindly informed me that they had "lost connection" and if I would be kind to "wait a moment..." while they were trying to "reconnect to Windows live."  I was assured that I would be able to continue on to "Windows live..." and finish my email.  They said they would be ready in "a moment," but what they didn't say was that I would lose my entire email draft.  As it turns out, when their big moment ended, and the reconnect was complete the only thing that was left of my email was the blank screen with the "Subject" placeholder.  I was devastated.  I hit back, back again, back again, redo, refresh, and redo again with no luck.  I searched the drafts folder, the inbox, the sent folder, and even all other open folders in my email client, but it was gone.  In desperation I looked at the Microsoft site for lost drafts and none of the tricks, tips and workarounds they suggested worked for my predicament.  Worst of all, the last comment on the site from the Microsoft engineer said in the future, make a copy as you go.  I thought, wow what great advice.  You mean to tell me that the auto save feature of our product may not work, the "Save draft" feature on email may not work, so periodically save a copy of the email yourself.  Thanks a lot technology!  I guess that was my taste of what other folks run into when they call our company support line.  Hopefully I will be more sympathetic in the future.  .... please wait ... I'm saving this draft!  Gabbi informed me that I can't get it back, so move on.  You can only get that magic once!"

Anyway, we had a great week. We had a lot of fun.  We had an amazing time celebrating Easter at church.  The older three girls participated in a skit on Sunday morning, a retelling of the Easter story.  Liz worked really well in pulling it all together with youth, young adults and adults.  I know that they had fun.  I had fun watching.  Afterwards, Ava and Emma engaged in a very spirited Easter egg hunt.  Ava and Emma found their fair share of eggs, plus some.  Emma received help from several kids and actually had more than Ava.  But, that is probably because Ava was also stopping to eat some of hers in the middle of the finding process.  Luckily Trish and I managed to get to the both of them before they completed mauled the entire bag of chocolates and skittles.  We also enjoyed a great service of worship and energy.  After service we had a good trip to Georgetown to have dinner with Ms. Cooper, my sister-in-law and her boys.  Cassarra, Gabbi, Sydney, Paige and there dad put a hurting on the macaroni.  And I'll have to take the fifth on the persons involved in the brutal assault on the "Chocolate Delight" dessert.  I also got a chance to see my brother on our way back to Columbia.  It is always a highlight, no matter how short the time, to visit with any of my brothers.

The rest of the week was a lot of joy, family time and fun.  The girls gave me a great surprise on Monday during lunch.  They delivered a hand made lunch to the office in the middle of the staff meeting.  It was so cool to see all six of the girls strolling across the parking lot and into the building.  After the sandwich and salad delivery they raided my candy bin, my candy jar, and the candy stash in the hallway.  It was the highlight of the day!  Wednesday through Friday we had a blast of dinner dates, indoor camp outs, family dinner, breakfast dates, and a lot of laughter.  We had our first ever Un-Birthday Party complete with cake, ice cream, and a goodie bag.  Gabbi did a ton of the planning, and we all kind of pulled together to pull it all off.  The girls made dinner on Thursday, teaming together to make an appetizer and entrée course.  We had fun eating, laughing, and trying to figure out who ate all the nacho chips. 

Trish is doing well.  She captured some beautiful shots of the family playing and spending time together.  She also managed to capture and absolutely stunning sunset and post it on her blog.  She has also helped the girls with another fun set of projects and documented so many moments that we will all remember and cherish.  She is so gifted with photography, wisdom and writing.  Hopefully we all appreciate what she does, who she is, and how awesome she is to our whole family

Well, I hope you had a wonderful week and that your weekend is going very well.  Next Friday I hope to actually send you a message on Friday.  Have a great rest of the weekend and a wonderful next week.  Blessings and as always...

Welcome to Friday!

• I am thankful for:
• Easter
• The power and joy of Easter
• The hope and promises of the resurrection
• The Easter Service
• Youth skit
• Praise song
• Praise dance
• Sermon
• Family time
• Trish and the girls
• safe travel to and from Georgetown
• Time with family and family dinner
• The indoor camp out/camp in
• An Un-birthday party blast
• Playing checkers
• Date night
• Coffee
• Breakfast with the girls
• Emma's laughter
• Cleaning up some of the yard
• Getting time to get the garden ready (even if I might not plant anything)
• Trish's pictures of the girls and family

May the Lord God, good merciful and mighty, bless us with times of stretching and refreshing,

times of comfort and courage, times of passion and power.  May the Mighty, the Almighty God,

do more and more for His glory and His power working in us and through us.