Happy Birthday to Grandma

Oh my gosh, these kids are soooo cute. I love this picture so much that I put it as my desktop background. I can not get over their eyes. Wow do they sparkle. I wish the coloring of the phote was a bit nicer. I will have to have Dave Peeters help me out on this one.
These pics were taken last night at Grandma's house in Seal Beach. We celebrated her 82nd birthday with the Gisbert side of the family. Too fun.

Not too thrilled with Jacob's expression here but I had to post this one. Notice the too cool young adults in the background???? Took this picture with the party hats on the grandkids. I don't think they knew I would blog this one. One the left is Rochelle and the right, is Jennifer. They are very fun and totally hip.

Happy Birthday

This is me....April 26, 1970 on my 1st birthday.

This is me on April 26, 2007 on my 38th birthday. I turned 38 today. Yes today is my birthday, the day I was born, the day the world changed, the day the angels sang for joy. Yeah, right. Nonetheless, it is my birthday and it was a great one at that.

Lenny was home this morning which was wonderful. He was getting the kids out of bed and then all of sudden it became very quiet. I went in to see what was happening. They were on the bed giggling. They pulled out the cutest cards they made last weekend. They were adorable. Lenny had lots of French stuff on his, of course. Jacob wrote the sweetest sentiment on his IN CURSIVE about how much he loves me. And, Sarah wrote very carefully each word about what a great mom I am. It was sooooo nice. They made them last weekend when I went to lunch with some girlfriends AND they kept quiet about the project for 4 days.

Lenny had to leave for a while to go to a Firefighters for Christ breakfast. I was in 7-11 getting a FREE birthday refill (love them there so much) when my cell rings. It is Lenny with all of the firemen calling to sing me Happy Birthday.

I had been buggin' Lenny about painting the living room. I would do it, I just needed his help with moving furniture and stuff like that. So this morning, he told me to go get the paint and he would do all of the prep work for me. He moved everything and then taped the woodwork off so I wouldn't have to. Notice all of the blue tape???? All I have to do tomorrow is pull out the paint and start. No boring, tedious prep. I love that. I would rather have that than any birthday present. So while he was doing all of that, I proceeded to assemble 20 scrapbook pages for the kids in Sarah's class. They had a field trip to a farm and her teacher wanted to make a page for their scrapbooks. So, between all of the wonderful birthday calls, I am in the kitchen gluing, taping, cutting, cropping, sticking, and smiling at these sweet little people holding a baby chick in their teeny little hands. Here is the funny thing. For dinner, Lenny went to Lucille's to get take out. And, instead of a birthday cake, on my request, he went to Olive Garden and bought an ENTIRE sheet of Tiramisu. Tiramisu is my all time favorite ever in the world dessert. Now we didn't eat the entire 12 slices...just two. But the thing is frozen. So, that means, that every now and then, we can take a piece out and have it just for fun. I love being 38.

One more thing. Don't you love it when the people who know you - really know you? I got some great cards today. Of course the ones from my family are my faves. But I got two today that made me love my friends. Not because they gave me a card but because it was so obvious that they know me. Sonya sent me this one with the Eiffel Tower on it and inside it said something about having an Oooh La La day and best wishes for lots of pink. Then Debbie brings me on that made me nearly fall over. I open it up and it is Captain Jack Sparrow wishing me a happy birthday. When I opened it, it plays the theme to Pirates of the Caribbean. I have cool friends.

I am so thankful to God for the 38 years he has given me. I would never say that they were all great, but each year brings me to the next - even the bad ones eventually lead to the good/great/spectacular years. I really do have an amazing life. I sometimes feel like I have the life that others wished they had. Now I realize just how conceited that sounds. Really I don't mean it that way. I guess I mean it in the way that tries to show just how blessed that I KNOW THAT I AM. I feel soooo grateful that I know others would want to feel that. That's what I mean. Not that my house is so fabulous or I drive the best vehicle (remember that my van was stolen) but I have a peace that really truly surpasses all understanding. A sense of security and wellness, of balance that can only come from above.

Thank you God for my life, for my being, for putting me here with Lenny, Jacob and Sarah, for showing me the goodness of you. For giving a life that gets sweeter and sweeter as each year passes.

To the Batmobile

The kids came home from school with a letter from the principal. It was one of those warning letters that something had happened to another child at another school in the district. Usually, the letters are about lice or chickenpox or something like that. Warrants attention but nothing out of the ordinary.

The letter this time was bizarre. Well, not the letter, but what she was talking about. On Monday, a child at another school discovered a live bat on the playgroung at recess. She had poked the bat with a pencil in an attempt to free the creature. Later, it was found to be positive for rabies. Not the child but the bat. As a result, that student must undergo preventative treatment which involves injections over a period of several weeks. OUCH and OH NO!

A BAT ON THE PLAYGROUND??? Is this just crazy. We live in Southern California not Transylvania. Ok, I am exaggerating. I do know that creatures of all types - even bats- can show up just about anywhere, especially one in distress and has lost it's bearings, ie.. a rabid bat. But wow. A bat?? Creepy.

The LB Department of Health and Human Services offers all kinds of advice to help prevent the risk of exposure to rabies. I won't list them all but one of them struck me as nuts. "Consider "bat-proofing" your home." I must say that I have never considered this and I will take it to heart. I can just see Jack trying to fend off a bat with his funky cone on his head. He wouldn't have a chance.

Flat Jacob and Jack's Cone

I just wrote this long blog about Flat Jacob and then the computer shut down. I lost the whole post. So, here is a brief recap of it.

Jacob's class read this goofy book called Flat Stanley. This fictional kid gets flattened by a bulletin board falling on him and then gets sent to places in the mail. The kids in Jacob's class made flat counterparts of themselves and then sent them to friends or relatives all over the place.

Jacob sent his to his cousin Beatrice in France. The idea of the project is that the flat kid gets to visit someone and then comes home with lots of pictures to show. We asked Beatrice to take pics of Flat Jacob with her in her everyday life. Now, I KNOW that she goes to Paris quite a bit for work. I was hoping that she would include a pic of Flat Jacob next to the icon of all French icons...the Eiffel Tower. No deal.

But she did take some very nice pics that we love. Here is Jacob holding his Flat Self back from France with one of the pictures of him.

On another wonderful note.....Jack is now a eunuch. Well he missing his, hmmm, he is fixed. And let me tell you that this an entirely different dog. So calm and doesn't hardly bark at nothing. He barks at something but he doesn't sit there and bark at nothing. You thought I whacked out on grammar, didn't you? Lovin' the new personality. The cone is hilarious. This is a teeny tiny dog with this ginormous cone that just gets in his way. It is hard not to laugh. Poor little neutered male dog.

Heart Condition

Last Sunday, Pastor Chuck gave a rockin' sermon on a heart condition. His title was "Easter is Never Over" but I wrote in my notes "Evidence of a Heart Condition". The FACT of the resurrection is a mere fable to the unbeliever until the EFFECT of the resurrection is clearly seen in the lives of Jesus' followers.

Genuine Christians practice practical and observable love.

Six Evidences That Easter is Still in Your Heart

1. You experience Jesus' presence with you.

• do I live daily with an awareness of his presence?
• am I growing in my relationship with him?

2. You recover expection and excitement for what's ahead.

• Lord, I commit this day to you and I am expecting encounters with you.

3. You enjoy and intimacy of fellowship with Jesus.

4. You have direction for your life.

• you have a sense of purpose. Your life is not hit-or-miss.

5. You have a vibrant testimony to share.

6. You have a joyous release in your spirit.

• You aren't a bummer to be around. There is sense of hope, of excitement, of what lies ahead. Life doesn't rule you. God does.

This last one about a joyous release in my spirit. I struggle with that one. I do let life get me down at times. I do worry, I do fret and I do frown. I know in my heart that life has it's struggles, but should they control me? I think not. But, I let them sometimes. And I know that when that happens, I find myself becoming anxious, depressed, a BUMMER TO BE AROUND. I do not want that.

This message from him really hit home for me. Maybe all of you out there in blogland get it. Maybe I am the only one that needs to be reminded that we are living for Christ and our lives should SHOW it. It should be evident to all. Not just the people that I tell with words but to all who know me, who see me, who interact with me. I should ooze the love of Christ and stop oozing the contemptable habit of judgementalism. Oooooh that hurts.

Easter

I am a bit embarrassed to tell you where we went for Easter. I mean, I cringe when I tell you where we chose to celebrate Christ's victory over death. We went to Las Vegas. OOoooooh that sounds sooooooo bad. So sinful.

Let me explain though what we did. Our plan for about 6 months (I will show you the reservations) was to go to the Grand Canyon with a stop in Las Vegas for 2 nights. There is a gorgeous RV resort there that we thought we would try. The weeks leading up to the trip made it very clear that the weather in GC was going to be cold. I mean snow on the ground cold. Now maybe we could have dealt with that. But, driving all that way to the big hole in the ground just to sit in the trailer most of the time seemed to be something we weren't willing to do. Maybe for one day, but no more than that. Yeah, we could have played board games, watched a movie, blah blah blah, but who wants drive exactly one gagillion miles to sit in a trailer so we could say we went to the GC? I am not one of them.

So we decided to just stay in LV and enjoy the sun, the pool and maybe sneak in a trip to Paris Las Vegas. I am so glad that we did. The place was great and we had a nice hotel type RV vacation.

My most favorite thing about Las Vegas is, well I hope you know me well enough by now, is the Paris Las Vegas Hotel. All I wanted to do outside of being at the pool and with the fam was to go spend a few hours perusing the shops in my lovely hotel. We did get to do that and Lenny surprised me with a very nice lunch at one of the restaraunts in there. Had a great meal and the kids even tried and LOVED calamari. Although they didn't know what it was, they said they liked it because it tasted like fish. We were crackin' up at the opportunity to tell them later what they were enjoying. When we did, they didn't get too weird, but they did make a bit of a sour face at the thought of squid. Eeeeswwww... Then we went to the Bellagio water show. It still makes me tingle to watch that. And the song that we heard was the Andre Bocelli song Con Te Partiro. Oooooh I love it. I loved seeing it with Lenny and I loved that moment. The show is much more elegant at night, but this day happened to be pretty too with no haze or desert yuckiness. Just pretty for me.

I am really mildly ashamed about being in Vegas for Easter. How weird does that sound? We did attend the service that is regularly held at the place. Super nice pastor and we even participated in communion. I felt a bit underdressed and mildly irreverrant in my shorts and sandals. But, hey Christ died for us all, no matter what we wear. I love that about my relationship with him. I can talk to him here, there, everywhere. I can still appreciate what he did for me, I can still live for him no matter my location, no matter what my dress is, no matter. It is all about him...not the surrounding. He rocks and I am so grateful for the gift of everlasting life. Thank you God for sending your son for me. Even in Las Vegas.

I have a blog?

I have to keep reminding myself that I do indeed have a blog. In fact, everyone else seems to be reminding me of that too. I just can not seem to keep up with it lately. I am going through something right now that is unexplainable. Or maybe I just haven't tried to put it into words yet.

I have been having this "feeling" that most things, for a while, should be set aside. Not really a bad thing, just a stirring I believe is from God preparing me for something else. I have had this happen before, this sensation, this sense of a quickening to be ready. Be ready for something. But what that is, I do not know.

What I do know is that God has moved in my life and in my marriage in some very interesting ways. So, I have learned (sometimes) to recognize this "feeling" as something exciting and of great expectations. I truly believe and I know that I know that I know that God is for me not against me. So, what is there to fear? Really nothing.

When I have more to share.....I will. For now, this is what is happening in my heart. Thanks for listening.

I am still here

Hello All: I am still here but I am in a complete bloggout. Blog Funk, dry spell, not much to say. Call it what you will but I am quiet. Lots happening here...too much almost that I am somewhat overwhelmed with trying to blog about it. Blahhhhhhhh. Will catch ya later.