Back from the Beach

Wow! What an awesome vacation we had at Myrtle Beach, SC! Such a relaxing time to say the least! We have officially been labeled Beach Bums! Our friends Randy and Diana Riffle were vacationing at the same resort with us. They were shocked at the amount of time that we spend ON the beach. Pretty much most of the daylight hours!

The boys LOVE to dig holes in the sand. Brooke and her best friend Jennifer spent their time in the ocean or at one of the 6 pools at the resort...the loved having some freedom! Chad mostly hung out with the boys either in the ocean or digging holes..he did get a a little reading in as well. I am a sun soaker! I wade into the ocean just enough to get cooled down and then I relax in my beach chair with a good book!

I read two and a half books while at the beach! I am reading the Red River Valley Series of Lauraine Snelling books. EXCELLENT author...I have loved every series I have read of hers so far! So I read the first two books in the series while on the beach and I did stay up a couple late nights to finish them as well! They are just so good I can't put them down! As soon as I am done with this post I am going to go relax in my recliner and read some more of the third book!:)

I am uploading pictures right now as I type. I took LOTS of course! I had planned to get some photos with all of us in white shirts and jeans on the beach but that didn't work out so well. I got pretty upset by the lack of cooperation from my family so the day that we were leaving the beach I was pleasantly surprised that Chad wanted to have more family photos taken. So we weren't in our white shirts and jeans...but the pictures turned out great!

I will be posting pictures throughout the week! I am really hoping to have a couple of great quality ones that I can have larger sizes printed for frames in my living room! Keeping my fingers crossed! They are taking forever to upload!!

Worship - Much Of You Jesus

Wow! God is so awesome!

We had an amazing pool party to get the kids excited about VBS coming up! We expected maybe 100 and had WAY MORE than 100! We never really did get a count with so many running all over the place and going under water etc! Now just praying that all of these kids will be at VBS and many of them will come to know Jesus as their personal savior! Such an EXCITING night!

On the way home I heard this song by STevin Curits Chapman...then I got on FaithSisters.com and my dear sister Kay had posted the lyrics and youtube video of this song! Reading those lyrics and singing that song just sets my soul to worshipping and I was sitting here in front of my computer just singing and praising the Lord.

As I spend tomorrow prepping some more for VBS I just want to keep on praising Him. I want all of us to be making MUCH of Him at VBS!!

I hope this song will lift your spirits and set your soul to worshipping too!:)

Steven Curtis Chapman - Much Of You
From the album All Things New


How could I stand here and watch the sun rise
Follow the mountains where they touch the sky
Ponder the vastness and the depths of the sea
And think for a moment.
The point of it all was to make
Much of me
Cause I'm just a whisper
And You are the thunder and …

I want to make much of You, Jesus
I want to make much of Your
I want to live today and give You the praise
That You alone are so worthy of
I want to make much of Your mercy
I want to make much of Your cross
I give You my life
Take it and let it be used
To make much of you

And how can I kneel here and think of the cross
The thorns and the whip and the nails and the spear
The infinite cost to purchase my pardon
And bear all my shame
To think I have anything worthy boasting in
Except for Your name
Cause I am a sinner
And You are the Savior and…

I want to make much of You, Jesus
I want to make much of Your
I want to live today and give You the praise
That You alone are so worthy of
I want to make much of Your mercy
I want to make much of Your cross
I give You my life
Take it and let it be used
To make much of you

Eggplant

Cleaning, packing, finding pet sitters, finishing up VBS stuff, completing my last online class! That was yesterday...and most likely today too.

Last night we had a Cub Scout party at the water slide! The kids had a blast and I got some fun photos!

Here is a picture of Brooke from our photo shoot the other day! She is getting so grown up looking:(

Josie is needing my eggplant recipe...so here's to you Jos! I have two eggplant recipes that we really like.

Here is what we call

Eggplant Lasagna
2 med eggplant
1 lb ground chuck
1 lg can tomatoes
1 can tomato paste
1 lg bell peper
1 lg onion
Parmesian Cheese
Mozarella Cheese
3 eggs
1 c flour
1 tbs oregano
olive oil


Slice eggplant 1/4 inch thick and soak in salt water for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, saute onion and pepper. Add burger and brown. Add tomatoe and paste. Cook until sauce thickens. Add water and season as needed.

I do this assembly line style! Mix flour and oregano in flat dish. Dip eggplant slices into egg and then dredge in the flour mixture. Heat oil in large pan and then
add the slices as go. Lightly brown each side.

Layer sauce, eggplant, parmesian cheese and mozzarella cheese until the pan is full.

Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.


Eggplant Parmesian
2 med eggplants (sliced and fried)
2 cans of Italian tomatoes, drained and coarsely chopped
salt
Mozarella Cheese
Parmesan Cheese (I prefer fresh)
1 1/2 tsp oregano
2 1/2 tsp butter

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Line the bottom of a buttered baking dish with a single layer of fried eggplant slices. Top this layer with chopped tomatoes. Add a pinch of salt, a generous sprinkling of mozzarella and a tablespoon or parmesian. Sprinkle a pinch of oregano and cover with another layer of sliced eggplant. Continue building layers of eggplant, tomatoes, cheese until you have used up all the eggplant. The top layer should be eggplant. Sprinkle the remaning parmesian cheese over it and dot with butter. Place in the upper third of the preheated ove.

Bake for 20 minutes. Pull out the pan. Press with the back of a spoon to check if there is an excess amount of liquid. If there is, tip the pan and draw it off with the spoon. Return to the oven for another 15 minutes. Allow it to settle and partly cool before serving. It should not be piping hot.

Note: this is a great dish to prep ahead and refrigerate. It also makes for fabulous leftovers!

Enjoy! I need to get back to my school work! I hope to get my final lesson plan completed today so that summer school will be over before I head off to the beach! WOOHOOO!

Catching Up!

Jeesh! The summer is just flying by like crazy! I can not believe that we will be leaving for vacation this Friday! Myrtle Beach...here we come!!

I have been super busy as usual. Working on my online classes for continueing Ed to renew my teaching certificate is taking a lot of time! Getting ready for the This Is My Story class that I am teaching at church-an awesome faithbooking class that I am so stinkin excited about! It started this past Sunday night. Also trying to get stuff ready for VBS which starts the Monday following the Sunday that we get back from the beach...so everything has to be ready before I go! I am seriously going to be ready for that vacation come Friday!!

Friday we took the kids to Forever Memories photography for a photo shoot. Stevin will be leaving on the 28th to go back to Seatle for the year with his mom so we needed to get our Cousins photos taken before he heads back. Cathy Freed did an awesome job on the photos! I can't wait to show some of them off! But for now..here is one that I took after the photo shoot with Cathy! Since I had all the kids matching and photo ready...I ran over to the park where we spend all of our time at tennis lessons! Beside the tennis courts is this tree that the kids LOVE...so we got a few shots in the tree! Now I just need to get some photoshopping tips so I can brighten them up a bit!