Everything by Lifehouse

This song pretty much discribes how my relationship with the Lord is right now! He is so sweet and caring towards me! It's wonderful to have such a forgiving Father! :)

Singing is one of my favorite ways to worship the Lord, and I love what the words say in this one!

Here are the words just in case you can't view the video........

Find Me Here
Speak To Me
I want to feel you
I need to hear you
You are the light
That's leading me
To the place where I find peace again.

You are the strength, that keeps me walking.
You are the hope, that keeps me trusting.
You are the light to my soul.
You are my purpose...you're everything.

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

You calm the storms, and you give me rest.
You hold me in your hands, you won't let me fall.
You steal my heart, and you take my breath away.
Would you take me in? Take me deeper now?

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?
And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

Cause you're all I want, You're all I need
You're everything,everything
You're all I want your all I need
You're everything, everything.
You're all I want you're all I need.
You're everything, everything
You're all I want you're all I need, you're everything, everything.

And How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?
How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

Are there any songs that have been on your heart lately? Why did it speak to you?

I'm Still Living!!

Well I've done it again! Went to long without a post! I'm so sorry my sweet friends.....

Ok, so I'm going to give you a bit of my life these past months in nutshell... :)

Since I last wrote I have taken a very long bus trip to South Dakota for a Christian music Festival, stayed a while in MN again, went on vacation to the beach, moved away from my family to be a live in helper for my Great-Grandparents (missing my family a good bit right now), found a very encouraging group of christian to fellowship here, and currently I'm going to be helping at crisis pregnancy center soon!

The Lord has been doing such wonderful things in my life!!! Growing me more in Him everyday! Since I can't see my family everyday I learning to lean more on the Lord for companionship, trusting more in Him, and finding new ways fulfill the vision the Lord gave me back in June.

I'm not sure if I shared my vision with you or not so here goes......

While in MN during the summer, the put a burning desire on my heart to be a missionary, to minister to new moms... esp pregnant teen-moms. So these last months of my life have been the Lord growing me in that! I'm the type of person who when given a order wants to jump to the end result right away. In this case being a full time missionary. Well I'm finding that's not how the Lord works. :) He has been molding, shaping and refining me! The bus trip that in total lasted 4days let me get a true glimpse of what the world is really like, how people react to one another, while on it I got into some very interesting conversations :) I got to met teenage moms, people who were on their last dollar, an Amish family, as well as many other colorful people. I got to see how much the Lord must really love us and then wanting to show that to them.....

Now I'm living in a new city, more shaping going on here..... Learning to care for people in all forms of mental health.... patients and trusting that the Lord knows what He is doing are the biggest things on my plate at the moment! My goal at the moment is to stay here through the winter, then go home for a bit and in the spring move to MN to take missionary training.... please pray for me, as this is a huge leap for me to take!

So as you can tell, my life has pretty much exploded in the last little while and the Lord is slowly putting it back together, piece by piece, to better serve Him!!!

I have thought of you all often! I'm hoping now that my life has settled at bit to get back to posting things....but you will have to be understanding if I don't :) I'm going to set up my email and Facebook account on here so you can keep up with me a bit more if you like, and I with you!

I was very encouraged to see that I still have friends and people who stop by this blog..... thank you all!!!!

Let me know how yo all are and what new things the Lord has been bring into your lives!

Your Sister,

Laura

More Trip Pictures!!!

Here is the second set of pictures from my trip!!!!!!!

This part of the trip was spent with my pen-pal Michelle and her family.....

We went to the Como Conservatory in Minneapolis.

It was an indoor garden...

It was so pretty there!!!!
And it smelled great too!!!!

Loved the different verity of flowers they had on display!



Sorry this is sideways!

The spines on this tree were so neat I had to take a picture!

This was the outdoor Japanese Garden.

My favorite part of Como!

So peaceful!

This is the outside of the conservatory

Along the front windows, they had a lily pond with lilies of all colors!!!

The next day we went to the Mall of America!!!!!!

It was so much fun!!!

We were able to go to the Butterfly Habitat they had inside the mall!

It was really neat to have all the butterflies flying around you!!

Michelle and I with the butterflies......

LEGO Land!!!!!!

Found this fun store called Lush!

They hand make all their bath products.

This is the display of soap they had......

The Underwater Aquarium was really neat!!!!

I looked up once and saw this "face" looking at me!!!!!!

They had so many fish there......

I think the seahorses were my very favorite!

Or maybe the jellyfish!

We went to eat diner at Crave. Very tasty!

L-R: Michell, Candiss, Ruben, and Me!

The next day before I had to got home,

Michelle took me to the Fort Snelling National Cemetery

It was really sad to see so many headstones........

They went on for miles, with more behind those.

I had such a wonderful trip!!!!!
So thankful to my parents and brothers for letting me go!!!!!

Can't wait to go back for another visit! :)

How has your summer been?

Have you done anything special or gone anywhere neat?

Trip Pictures.........

I had such a wonderful time on my trip to Minnesota!!!!! Learned a lot of new things about the Lord and what He has planned for me!

I was so blessed that the plane trip went smoothly (Thank you to all who were praying!)

We left the airport at 6am, so I got to see the sunrise from the plane!

A view of the sunrise out my window.........

Some of the fields we flew over on the way to Chicago.......

I thought they looked like a patchwork quilt. :)


On the way to St. Paul MN I flew over Lake Superior.
It is a little hard to see because of the clouds.......

While I was up there my friends hosted a mini missions training camp, which I attended.
It was such a great time!!!!
We got to spend a lot of time with the Lord, eat ethnic foods (we had Indian curry once that we got to eat with our hands!), fellowship, sleep in a tent and go without flushing toilets, computers, cellphones and showers (except for buckets) for a week!!!!!!
It was such a wonderful experience!

We also went on a lot of hikes down to the lake and to Itasca State park.
One of the hikes we went on we took at midnight down to the lake!!! The stars we so beautiful!!!

Here are some of the pictures I took while on our hikes.......

The Lady Slippers we beautiful up there!!!!!



This is the 16 story fire tower we climbed!!!!
The view from the top was breath taking!


The lake we hiked back to often..........

I'm not sure what these are, but I thought they were really pretty!

The were growing wild by the lake.

So many of the flowers were in bloom while I was there!!!

I love how the bark looked!!!

I think I took more pictures of it than the flowers! :)

So many ferns there.........

Minnesota is a beautiful place!!!!!


This is where the Mississippi River starts......

We were able to walk across it!!

After I stayed with my friends for 3 weeks I was able to visit on of my pen-pal friends for the first time!!! She lives in Wisconsin.

We were able to take a trip to the Mall of America, which was a lot of fun.

When I get my computer to load those pictures, I post them as well!!!!!

Over all the trip was such a refreshing time!!

Now that I am home I'm learning how to put into practice

all that I leaned there.

Please be praying for me as I sort out what the Lord has for me!!!

If you have any questions about the trip please ask I'd love to answer them!!!

So Long, Farewell.........

Well the time is finally here for me to go on my trip!

For those of you who don't know the details, I'm going away for 3 weeks up to Minnesota to visit with some friends who are missionaries! They will be hosting a summer camp while I'm there. I'm flying up there and since this is my first time to fly I'm just a bit on the nervous side. :) I'm also going to be spending my 21st birthday up there! Yay!!

I'm very excited about going!

This will be the first time that I will be away from my family for this long.

Last week has been spent getting my bags packed and making sure that all the paperwork and household stuff is done.

Now that the time has finally come, it seems hard to believe that I'm actually going to do this. :)

If you think about it would you please keep me and my family in your prayers?

There are so many things that I am worrying about. I know that the Lord will take care of me and my family, but sometimes I do start wondering if something will happen while I am gone. Please pray that I will have a peaceful mind (I'm a natural worrier), please pray also that my family will be safe and healthy while I am gone, that I will have a safe trip and that I will have an open heart to anything the Lord might be showing me while I am away.

I'm not sure if I will have any Internet access while I am up there, so this will be my last post for awhile. If you have any posts, giveaways, etc. that you would like me to see please leave me comment and I'll be sure and check it out!

If you are new to my blog please look around! If you start following while I'm away please leave a note and I'll be sure and take a peek at your blog as well! :)

I will have my camera with me, so if all goes well

(full battery, remembering to take it out of the suitcase, room on memory card!, etc.)

I hope to be posting a bunch of pictures and all the details of my trip when I get back!!!

So stay tuned!!!

One last thing.....

While I'm up there I will be looking for a couple of things to host a giveaway with!!!!

I'm hoping to start it up when I get back, so be sure and check my blog for this!

Well, I hope you all have a very enjoyable summer!!!!

And I'll "see" you in a few weeks!!!

Blessings!

Frugal Decorating.....

A month or two ago we went to visit some of our sweet friends and while we were there the city was having a clean up day.

Anyone who had big items to get rid of could set it out with the trash and the city would pick it up or anyone who wanted it could have it.

Well, this is my kind of stuff,

so we went driving around and found some fun items.....

But this is my ultimate find!!!!

A very nasty white wall shelf!!!
I was so excited. :)

This is the side view.

Pretty yucky........

I sanded it first and wiped it down really good.

Then I spray painted it. I had to go over it a couple of times, but it only took one can of paint!

Here is the final product!!!!

Isn't pretty?

I think it turned out great!!!

I set it up in my room in my reading nook and put two of my Betta fish (Sherlock and Watson :) )

on it to use as bookends.

I am so pleased about how it turned out!

Here is the side view with my photographs above it.

The rainbows on the wall come from a prism I have hanging in the window

I got the idea for that from Pollyanna! :)


The total cost for shelf: $1.08 !!!!!!

Since my post is about how to frugally decorate, I though I'd share some pictures of the rest of my room as well!

This is my bed.....

The picture frames to the left I got very much on sale at Wal-Mart. I just put some photographs I had taken in them.

All the pillows I have were either given to me or I got them from a little old lady who makes them and sells them at garage sales. (I love garage sales! You never know what you will find!)

The shelves to the right I also got at a garage sale!

Here is a close up of the pictures.....

The center painting I got as a graduation gift and the one in the far right bottom corner my Great-Grandma painted for me!






I wanted to show you a close up of this one because
all the picture is a pretty card a sweet sister sent me!


I wanted to be able to see it often, so I just framed it! :)





Here is the other side of my room...

These shelves my Dad bought me a Habitat for Humanity.
The things on them were mostly given to me or I got them at a garage sale. :)

I'm still looking for the right piece to go above my CD player......
Who knows what I will find? :)

I hope this little tour of my room may have given you
some ideas on how to fix up your own space and still be frugal!

Have you refurbished something you have gotten at a yard sale or used?
What ways have you decorated your room/house frugally?

Please share so the rest of us can get some ideas! :)

A Garden Tour.....

Recently we have been spending a lot time in the garden since the weather has gotten nice!

we planted tomatoes, peas, spinach, all kinds of peppers, squash and two kinds of beans. with more to come! I think planting okra is next.

Here are some pictures I took of the garden so far.......

These are our black berry plants.

We just put them in not to long ago, so I don't think we will get much fruit off them this year.

This is view of the garden from the back

We are in the process of putting down gravel walkways, the black landscaping fabric is all we have done in some places. My brother and Dad have done a great job so far!

We like the gravel walkways best because it keep the weeds down and you can walk out there barefoot! We have terrible grass burs so the gravel helps t keep them down as well.

Some of the herbs in the herb garden.

Oregano (the huge plant!) and Fennel (the feathery one)
We also have planted in the herbs garden: spearmint, lemon balm, bee balm, bay laurel, a rose that makes rose hips, several other kinds of mints, lavender, comfrey and parsley.

I'm hoping to get some more herbs soon!

Comfrey

This is a wonderful herb to grow!

It gets really big and is easy to grow.
And it makes pretty purple flowers too!

This is the other side of or garden!

The plants aren't very big in this picture, they have grown a lot since I took this picture!

My blueberry plants!

I'm very excited about get these.

Blueberries are my favorite fruit!

Aren't these pansys pretty?
Mom planted them under a big pink rose bush.

One of the prettier of our chickens!

They are getting quite old , so soon we are hoping to get some new.



I really like working in the garden!

It is so refreshing to be outside listening to the birds, marveling over the lady bugs that took up residency on the pea plants, and just being surrounded by what the Lord created!

Do any of you have a garden planted this year?

What are you planting?

I like to hear about what other people are planting. It gives me ideas on what we might add. :)