Our Time In Prison

As most of you probably know, John and I are very heavily involved in our prison ministy at our church. John goes to The Federal Medical Prison here in Springfield and he goes to the processing facility in at Fulton. We both go to a women's facility outside of Oklahoma City called Mabel Bassett every month that has a fifth Sunday and then we go to a women's facility in Newport, AK called McPherson. We just came off of a wonderful trip to Mable Bassett. We had one saved--Praise the Lord! and who knows how many seeds were planted. We truly love those women and the experiences that we have with them is amazing. Several of the ladies are faithful in our services everytime we go and they have really become friends. We look forward to seeing them and hearing how they are doing and the different ministeries that God has allowed them to be involved in even where they are at. We always come home refreshed and very blessed. When we go to Mabel Bassett, we leave on Saturday afternoon and spend the night in OKC then get up about 4:00 in the morning to get ready to go to breakfast and be at the prison at 7:30 to be processed and in our place by 8:00. We have 3 services, one at 8:00, one at 2:00 and one at 6:00. We leave around 8:00pm from the prison and drive to a fast food place to change our clothes, get a bite to eat and get on the road to head home all while shouting and rejoicing about God's Goodness and Grace! We normally pick up our kids at my mom's and are home around 2:30 in the morning Monday morning then John gets up and goes to work. It is a rough Monday morning for him but we wouldn't change it for the world!

I Timothy 1:12 says "And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry:" I do thank God that He has allowed up to be a part of such a wonderful ministry at Wilson Creek Baptist Church!

Floods of Joy..........Welcome Noah!

Late last night, we got a phone call from Kevin, our nephew, telling us that Sarah was in labor and that Noah was on his way. He is a beautiful baby! Here are his stats, if you don't know already: Born at 11:50pm on June 16, 2008. Weighing in at a big 7lbs.14oz and 20 1/2 inches long. Congrats to Kevin and Sarah. We are praying for ya'll and we love you very much! Now John and I are a Great Aunt and Great Uncle again for the 3rd time! There's nothing better!

Let's Go Racin' Boys!

What a great day today! First we had our version of VBS and then we went to the Springfield Race Track. It's dirt track. We have a friend that goes to church with us that races. John and I took John out tonight after VBS to see Cody race. HE WON! His first time to take the checker flag and we were there to see it. John is so excited ----still----an hour after we left to come home and shower. We have dirt in every pour of our bodies! How much fun was that! Here are a few pics that I took tonight. This one if of John and Aaron. He's onery!

This was taken during the race. Cody's car is the number 9 car. It's not a great pic, but I couldn't get the lighting right!

Here is one of John and Cody after his big win and then one of Cody and Jaime, his lovely wife! They were soooo excited about him taking first place!

Sing, Sing, Sing, Sing......

We had our Patch the Pirate Club and Pee Wee Club minister tonight at church. It was my niece's, Ashylnne's, first time to sing with the kids in Pee Wee Club. They were soooo cute. Missy's brother, Michael, was a soldier in the US Army and he marched in with the kids to sing their song. It was great! I know that some of the kids look as if they have hallow eyes, but it just wouldn't fix right for me. I guess it was the lighting in the church. Ashlynne is on the far left looking up and the young man in the back row, A.J., and Michaela is in the back row standing next to A.J.

Then Patch got up and did their skit before they sang and we got this pic of John in the skit but the batteries went dead in my camera before we could get a pic of them singing. They did a great job also!




All in all we had a WONDERFUL day at church. What a blessing it is to attend a church where the Gospel is preached from a King James Bible. I know that we are going to hear the Truth from the Word of God everytime we go. I love my church and the people there. God has richly blessed us!

Happy Anniversary!

John and I have been married for 11 years! What a great day we had today. We slept in then went and did some shopping. Yes--I said shopping. Our kids really don't like to go shopping and we had a few things that we wanted to look for. So....we did what WE wanted to do. I will try to get some more pics up, but for now, I will say good-night!

Life as we know it

We are slowly but surely getting back to life as we know it. Since we have been home I have done laundry, mowed the yard, gone grocery shopping, and successfully cleaned out a 2 and a 10 gallon fish tank. So we are gradually getting back into the swing of it. I guess we will continue to keep this blog and just let our family and friends in on what is going on in our little lives.

Our 11th anniversary is coming up this Saturday. It's hard to bleieve that we have been married for 11 years let alone the 15 that we have known one another. I suppose that we will head to Branson for a little alone time. We just came back from a big vacation, so we won't be doing anything big. Probably just a trip to Silver Dollar City and some shopping that we don't get to do when the kids are with us. I'm sure that I will have some pics to share. But for now, I bid you good-night.

Lawrence County

We had had a great trip back home. Before we left New Mexico, Lori fixed this massive breakfast complete with cinnamon rolls, hashbrowns, bisquit and gravy, eggs and bacon, so we were no where near ready to stop and eat until about Weatherford, OK. We were watching some beautiful lighting shows off to the north and east of us, but couldn't find a radio station that would give us good weather reports. About the time we entered Missouri, we started noticing that it was getting much closer and the lighting was more intense. John found KTTS and we listened to the tornado signals going off. As we were listening intently, John begins to pull over. He said that the car just died. We stopped and he started it again--no problem. The radio was saying that Lawrence County was under a tonado warning and that if you were between these certain mile markers, that you would be affected by the storm. A few miles down the road we see a sign--Lawrence County. Okay. We proceed through Mount Vernon and in the distance we can see the sign for Chesapeake. Again, the car dies and we pull off on the side of the road. By this time it is pouring and lightening and we can't get the car started. We set for a few minutes to see if it would start again. To no avail. We weren't going anywhere. I did forget to mention that this was about 2:30 or so in the morning Sunday morning. So what does a person do? We tried to call my mommy! Only when I opened our phone up, it says "Emergency Only" WHAT DOES THAT MEAN--THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!!! We sat there for a few more mintues and I checked the phone again. It was working fine now so I called my mom to come and get us. During our wait, Michaela informs me that she is going to "throw up" and so I hand her a small bucket we had aquired. I guess she had a nervous stomach. After about an hour, mom got there and we loaded the kids in her car and tried to start ours. It started right up. We decided to just go on to my mom's house since it was closer and we were going to have to get up in a few hours to get ready for church. Michaela did end up getting sick--just a little bit-- but felt much better after sleeping for a while after we got to Gran's house. Mom and John headed to church and let me stay home with Michaela and John. They were both a little sickly after we got home so we just let them sleep.

God is good! He protected us through everything. We can look back now and chuckle, but that little experience won't soon be forgotten.LOL LOL

May 31, 2008

We had such a wonderful time on our vacation. The joy of spending time with family never goes away. Many smiles and laughs were shared and many tears were shed when it was time to say goodbyes, but we will always be thankful for family and friends that God has given to us freely. He has seen fit to bless us tremendously. Over the last week we have been broken down on the side of the road, seen natual wonders that God himself has created, and been with family that we love very much. Nothing in the world could take those wonderful memories that were created over the last week and a half. Thank you God for your blessings on me!


I know that you can't tell by the look on Michaela's face, but one of her favorite parts of New Mexico was the Pump Jacks. It was about 104 degrees and very windy Saturday morning when we left. We just had to get a picture of the kids in front of a pump jack.

Taking a midnight swim on the last night we were in New Mexico. They had sooooooo much fun!

I'm trying to decide which one of their parents we can blame this behavior on. I know---DAD! LOL LOL

I LOVE this pic of John.

This is probably one of my favorites of Joe. He is sooo sweet!

Gettin' some extra coaching encouragement from dad. Doug wasn't able to get to the game until the top of the second inning, but boy o boy did Joe's face light up when he saw his daddy. He did a double take when he saw him and grinned from ear to ear.

The Last Days of Vacation

Lori with the boys. We really missed Doug on this trip. He was going to get the day off on Friday but something came up and he had to work. That's the oil fields for ya.

Michaela wanted to take a picture with her daddy. I'm glad they did--isn't is a great pic.

I'm not sure what they were doing--silly kids!

It really didn't smell that great in the Natural Entrance of the cave. LOL

The beginning of our adventure 750 feet underground into Carlsbad Caverns.