Pepere' and Memere'

This past weekend our Pepere' & Memere' came for a visit (that is French for Grandpa and Grandma). This would be my dad's dad and stepmom who live in the pretty state of Connecticut. :) Here they are with four grandchildren - Joey, Shayna, Matthew, and Brittany. (Matthew always makes a goofy face; he says he doesn't like posed pictures). ;)

They arrived early afternoon Sunday ... on Resurrection Day. Tony & I went to church that morning and then to a family get together at his parents house. I didn't get any pictures from there. Boo hoo. Lunch was great though and it's always fun watching our neices and nephews - they're growing so fast. We were at my parents house around 4pm. We ate a yummy dinner prepared mostly by dad & mom (pictured below). Then we stayed and chatted for a few hours. It was a nice visit.

Tony was the only one that had to work on Monday. :( My family came over our house for about an hour that morning. Then we went back to my parents house (it's real nice only living 4 miles apart). Pepere' & Memere' were buying a souveneir mug for each of our cousins back in CT ... one of them had broke, so I rode with them and my parents on the base to get a replacement mug. :) There were lots of laughs on the back seat.

When Tony got home from work, we all went out to eat at Pupetta's Italian Restaurant. Mmmm! Dad had called to make a reservation for 10 people. Joey & Chrissie arrived first and they said there was no reservation. No biggie; they just sat them down at a huge table that seats 14. We all arrived and gathered around the table ... after about 10 minutes dad gets a phone call from the restaurant, asking if he still wanted the reservation? Dad said, "We're already seated." There was confusion on both ends of the phone. Come to find out, dad had called the old Pupetta's number which is now Illiano's Italian Restaurant. Ha! :)

After some yummy bread and pasta, and lots of talking, we said our goodbyes. This would be the last time we'd all be together on this visit. From there, Tony & I went to Sam's Club to pick up his early birthday present ... an iPod Touch. We're both pretty impressed with all this little gadget can do! How did we ever live without one?? ;) Happy Birthday my love!!

Tuesday morning, Dad and I joined Pepere' & Memere' for breakfast at the Country Skillet. Pepere' and Dad had large cups of coffee; Memere' had a little; I had none. The guys enjoyed french toast with bacon (and eggs for Dad). Funny that they ordered the same thing. Since there are many miles between here and Connecticut, we do not get to see each other often. The last time they were here was for our wedding - almost four years ago. We did have a real quick visit with them last year about this time, when we went up for Laura's wedding. And I 'm looking forward to seeing them again in JUNE, when we go to attend Scott's wedding!

Pepere', Memere', and Dad

Campus Tour - April 09

After church last Sunday (4/5) we traveled to Newport News, VA to spend a few days evangelizing with the crew there. That evening Nathan & Mary invited over many friends and hosted a yummy cookout. The fellowship was great! Monday morning a group of us went to the local Abortion clinic to minister to the ladies there. Nathan, Tony, and Marcus tried to reason with this lady pictured for several minutes.


From there we went back to the house for a bit, then we made our way to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville - about a 2 hour drive. Part of our group set up at the outdoor amphitheater. The guys took turns open air preaching. Paul and Don set up not too far from us - Paul is with Open Air Campaigners and uses visual aids to engage the students. Several one-to-one conversations sprung from this presentation.

Prayer

Marcus

Tony toward the back

Ham speaking with a young lady.

Tuesday and Wednesday we spent the day at Virginia Commonwealth University. The Lord opened the hearts of several students to pay attention to what was being said (Acts 16:14). Many one-to-ones took place. There is a large Christian presence on this campus - which was very refreshing! A group of Christian students meet at the compass every day at noon to pray for their campus. Two of the groups I spoke with were familiar with The Way of the Master and witness to their classmates on a regular basis. Praise the LORD! May the glorious truth of God's Word continue to spread at VCU!

The student in the striped shirt had his Bible handy and started
to share scripture with one of the hecklers.

TRUTH

There were several Muslim students on Wednesday.

After dinner on Wednesday we made our way back to NC - home sweet home we were at 10pm.

23 & 25

Last Friday we celebrated Matthew's 23rd birthday!
and Dad & Mom's 25th wedding anniversary! :)
Praise be to God!

The yummy ice cream cake that Mom made.

A cream cheese blueberry pound cake parfait we made for our parents.

Sibling love...

Humbling Hospitality

After Tony got off work on Thursday, he decided to invite our friend Chris over for dinner and a documentary. ;) The time was 5:15pm and our company would be here at 6:30pm. Not much time. Since we were going out of town for several days, the house was a little bare of groceries. So after starting some pizza dough in the bread machine, we took a quick trip to the store to get the ingredients for the tried-n-true Italian Sausage Roll. Yum. Back at home I discover that the bread machine had already beat down the dough a second time ... I usually remove the dough before this point. So I let it sit there while I prepared the filling: ground hot sausage, diced green peppers, onions, mushrooms, garlic, cream cheese, mozzarella. Chris was now here and he received a phone call reminding him of a meeting that he was to attend that night. He had to leave in less than two hours. The dough still had not risen. So I just spread it out on my pizza pan and placed all the yummy filling on top. It was a rather strange looking concoction. I was worried. The guys started watching the documentary... I watched from the kitchen. In the oven it went. 20 minutes later the timer went off and so did our fire alarms ... :) The cheese had started to brown on top. So Tony gets a towel and starts fanning our fire alarms. Praise God that they're sensitive! Dinner is served - "flat strombolli" with a salad. We eat and even get seconds. ;) It turned out just fine. I had planned on making a pumpkin pie for dessert, but it wasn't feasible with the time constraint. I was trying to think of a quick alternative. "Oh yeah, Monday night I had made some chocolate chip cookies and put the leftover dough in the freezer." Praise the Lord! In the oven they went and out they came nice and golden, served with some coffee ice cream. Mmmmm! Although the evening did not turn out as I planned, it was still a lot of fun; and our guest was very gracious! :)

Established Steps

Six year old Marshall received his John Deere scarf today after he got out of school. He called me and said with much enthusiasm in his country voice "Thank you so much for that! And it's in a pattern. Yellow, green, yellow, green. It's neat!" "You're very welcome Marshall. I'm glad you like it." "Yeah, I'm going to wear it every day it snows." He was real excited and it brought a big smile to my face. :)

I went to town today to run errands. On my to-buy list was super glue, so I headed toward the office supply isle in Wal-mart. I turned down the isle and a lady approached me and asked if I could help her find the white out. She had looked up and down all the isles and couldn't find it. So I started to walk down the isle - and praise God, there it was. She said she had walked by it a couple times. I told her "I know exactly how you feel!" She thanked me and started to walk off. I reached into my purse and pulled out a gospel tract - "Here you go mam." She took it and paused for a second. I told her it had a gospel message on the back. She got a big smile on her face and was so grateful. She is a Christian too! We chatted for a little while about how God sends you one of your siblings in Christ just when you need them. Our steps are laid out before the Lord! :) She was familiar with Way of the Master and was so encouraged to hear that we put that into practice. She told me that she professed Christ at a young age, but not 'til much later did she really start living for Him. She is now 50 years old and regrets it - but is so grateful that God is raising up a younger generation. She was so sweet!!! And I am grateful to God that He crossed our paths. It is also neat to think back on the event that led up to my need for super glue. A couple weeks ago the strap on one of my much loved Crocs broke. Sad day. So I am going to try and glue it back together. Lord willing that will work.