Our Girls Are Back! Me in my Prayer Submarine, Weekend Happenings and All that Jazz...

(Was) Listening to: Love is the Thing and More by Nat King Cole...the best cd ever...it ministers to my heart actually.

Now just finished To Kill a Mockingbird theme...I feel much like Scout today...Humming by myself like a little girl in my own world today. I really did feel like Scout today.

Earlier a sweet walk with hubs after our dinner...A nice Italian rosemary, white bean and broccolli soup over sauteed brown rice w/onion and a tomato basil bread from Phoenicia and some wonderful garlic ciabatta bread made by Delle.

Thought I would update a bit...My girls are back from overseas!!!!!!!!! Welcome home Mar Mar and Delle!!!!!!!!!



Mar Mar and Becs, Becs was sooooo glad to have her big sisters back. Is this not precious?




Becs making some wonderful blueberry pancakes for a big "Welcome Home" breakfast.



Delle and Mar Mar just arriving enjoying the sweet decorations Li LI and Becs put up!



Becs made this free hand, she just sat down and put her scissors to work in her artist hands, she didn't even draw it first...Just cut, cut, cut and there ya have it! : ) Isn't this sweet???



So full of joy, and may I say I've been underwater in my praying submarine for the past several of months at least. For those of you I owe notes, even prayerful blog articles...I have not forgotten. It's just been the praying submarine mom has been paralyzed in prayers in my submarine for a while now...The preparation for overseas was unbelievable. Many other things too to pray about in this mom's praying submarine. I'll be coming up for air don't worry. : ) Ya know? We have to go under water in our praying submarines a foot or two while the questions of life and the treacherous waters go over us. Yes, in this season of life many life questions are whirling around not to mention two girls overseas in an unknown country.

So many powerful and touching accounts told by my daughters. They were in china teaching english. The prayerful teaching team taught the Bible to classes of around 40 - 60+ highschool students per class as a history lesson. : ) miraculously approved by officials. The students were so beautiful as they repeated the story of Christ reading their lesson back to my daughter(s) in each classroom. My daughters tell me they were speechless and in tears hearing these students recite their "history" lesson. Other teachers on the team also felt that same lump in their throat as well. Young men as well relay the very same feeling being so choked up they were made to pause. It's so beautiful, the students clapped after the Story was told of the resurrection. One young lady told my daughter, "Now I know that it was God who created the world". There are odd stories too, one night I had had a very black, dark, nightmare. I found later there was a situation of two way mirrors, strange phones etc. in an old hotel they stayed one night. (the same night as my nightmare). Many odd stories and many pleasant stories of graciousness as well. And then other stories are so adorable, so poignant...so full of our Savior. On one visit in previous years a team member shared...a precious man cried so hard, harder then our team member had ever seen someone ever, ever cry, when he learned of the team's visit that year. He had been praying for years for brothers and sisters to come and bring our special Book, he had been in prison and his wife had died in prison. I hope to share more in the future...You can see why this mom has been in such intense prayers? So out of it for more than several months now? So many intense things in lives...

This past weekend was a busy one, when it rains it pours! Homeschool convention, the big one and it was very nice indeed. Lots of good books, the Lord speaking to my heart even through the exhibit hall. The beautiful Holy Spirit speaking to my heart. One thing I need to be careful of is time management...I need to be very in tune to the Holy Spirit on some things. Basically time is our currency. Every day is a journal page what will we compose?

We were able to attend my favorite homeschool church, worth the drive to see precious friends and hear a wonderful message from Dr. Jobe Martin, his daughters are so precious and godly acquaintences of our daughters. We were also able to meet up with another precious friend who came in from china just that morning. Just like family.


We attended a baby shower for our niece and it was nice. Ya know... I see so many women who are suffering. Many widows. One lady close to my sil's age, such a sweet, sweet beautiful woman... she always reminded me of my Mitzi doll from when I was little? Did any of you ladies have a Mitzi doll? We could dye her white-blonde hair colors with water color pens? She had this sweet face too, a neat little doll and she wasn't a "stick" like Barbie, she was normal. I liked Mitzi. This middle aged lady who looked like Mitzi was married to a handsome veterinarian. He was recently killed in an auto crash. I remember the last time I had seen Mitzi she was with her sweet husband and had brought a feast to my mil's home after my father in law's funeral.

Another most elegant and beautiful lady around my sil's age, she reminds me of a movie star, her mannerisms etc. Much like a very tiny, tiny Rosalyn Russell...30 Years ago I remember sitting in her most elegant but simple home as she gave my sil a baby shower for the now-mommy to be, I remember as a very young lady...this lady in her in a long purple satin belted tunic over black pants and high heels; her hair up, she was actually smoking a cigarette with an Audrey Hepburne (Tiffany) holder. I remember her holding the long cigarette in her sophisticated way saying...It's been a long time...Just imagine Rosalyn Russell saying it but add...darling to the end.... I'll never forget being fascinated as a young woman as she strolled over to her formal table with this simple modern, large glass vase filled with simple long stemmed flowers she had placed in it herself and how elegant it looked...It was as if she had stopped by the grocery store and whisked up a bunch of long stemmed flowers and threw them in the huge vase. *poof* Instant elegance as only this lady could have pulled off. Even her curtains were like that on the massive tall windows... Simple lace panels, long, long panels. Not gaudy, just an almost hand woven contemporary lace of sorts. I remember she had a little boy that walked through the home with a tennis outfit on... A few years later we received the news...Her husband was murdered in a horrible criminal case. This very same woman was so sweet to me as she strolled up to me at this recent shower and looks at me closely, soulfully with her gorgeous blue eyes, oh my goodness her eyes are so gorgeous...she tells me I am so pretty and how she remembers me from years ago....Please know, I don't say that as a backdoor compliment, it's the way she said it...She was so kind. So ministering to my soul. She was just so... very kind and ..broken...but still so lovely if not more so than years ago. God was using her. She was amazed to see our daughters there, you see, when I met her we weren't blessed with children yet, I was so young myself.

There were so many women with stories similiar, broken women. Two of my favorite cousin in laws beaconed me to come sit with them, I just love those two, so down to earth and lovely inside and out. As I sat there visiting with them, I learned one of them had lost her mother when she was only five years old ... the other, Virginia...She had lost her husband as she was carrying her first baby, she delivered alone but not alone because she had Jesus with her. Such faith.

As we left and I'm walking out with my 82 year old pretty mom in her ridiculously high wood platform shoes. I tell my mom she needs flats but she's from the old school that for dress-up you wear heels. My mom is probably the most simple down to earth lady ever, she's a Seabrook girl, not from the city but she has her own ideas on dress up... When it comes to the City-Italians, these women need to get real if you ask me. ; ) Now is no time for insecurities, that kind of thing makes me crazy. We run into a cousin and her mother in law, another 82 year old. She is wearing patent loafers and walking with a cane, she tells my niece that she used to wear super high heels like hers and jitter bug in them too! Ha! She is a gorgeous woman, another blue eyed Italian...She tells me her cane is just for attention and if I don't like her cane she was going to beat the * out of me with it. LOL I told my cousin, Judy .... I believe her! Ha!...I do!!!! : D

Me? You would be proud and I was proud of myself. I'm getting smart in my middle age yes I am. I wore my new cat eye glasses, I like'em and I wore'em. I pulled my hair to the side and clipped it in a messy pony tail and noooo hairspray. A simple black top belted with my chain belt, ankle length black cotton skirt, black strapped ballet flats, I could walk and talk, wear my beautiful pearls and scarf from china my sweet girls brought me and I was a happy girl. Yep, me and Aunt Maryann wore our glasses...Yep I like'em.

Happy in my skin....K.I.S.S. Keep it simple sweetie, it's plum luverly.

Pretty is is pretty does. Can't we just talk and laugh and stop the foolishness? It's just me, the Seabrook girl. Now the last child in the woods....

Signing off, Amelia at the Forest Cathedral. Take care All. I'm in my submarine in the woods. : )



Even the mommy and her calf were waiting on our girls that morning...I think this mommy totally understood me that morning... : )