We made it.

Eight people and one very long plane ride later. We are with our family in Holland. Phew!

I did not think I would have a chance to write, but jet lag does funny things to a person. At 5:30 this morning, I was up and ready for my day. So, I do have a few minutes.

Yesterday, the Dutch won their match against France in the European soccer championship tournament. That means they go on to the quarter finals and will play Romania on Tuesday. In the states we have the super bowl, or basketball championships (the Lakers have their work cut out for them), but over here it’s all soccer. The fun part is that besides professional soccer teams, each country has its own national team, too.

So, last night we all gathered in Hanneke’s living room to watch the match. Twenty or so of us, all dressed in orange (Holland’s national color), to cheer on the Dutch national team. We decorated with orange streamers and ballons. Some of us even wore orange hats and/or wigs. Great fun. A night that I will always remember.

I’ll post photos when I get back from vacation in July!

 

 

 

 

Here are some past posts, my personal favorites. Just click on the link and enjoy. I’ll have lots to share with you when we return from vacation in early July. Unitl then, blessings to all of you…

Terrie

Confessions of a Wannabe Grammarian - April 2007

Kenonaphobia - April 2007

God’s Grace - April - 2007

Requiem for an Ash Tree - May 2007

Dominion Antology - May 2007

Things I Have Learned - May 2007

Arnie’s Belt - June 2007

Releasing My Inner Gardener - June 2007

Tour de France Fever - July 2007

Stupid Kid, Me - August 2007

The Wacky World of Professional Golf - August 2007

Life’s Little Mysteries - August 2007

The Mercy of God’s Word - August 2007

Pleasures Pure - February 2008

The Problem With Physics Majors - March 2008

 

 

 

We are going on vacation, truly the trip of a lifetime. I will be joining my incredibly handsome Dutch husband, my three amazing young adult kids, and three of their coolest friends for two and one-half weeks in Europe.

We depart from Los Angeles, non-stop to Amsterdam, arriving on June 13. One of my husband’s four sisters, Hanneke, and her husband, Sjaak, have graciously opened their home to us for the first couple of days. Over the next several days in The Netherlands, we’ve rented an apartment at a farm located on the outskirts of my husband’s home town. We look forward to visiting with all of our family members and taking several day trips to see the sights in Amsterdam and the surrounding area.

From Holland, we plan to drive through Germany to Switzerland where we will enjoy three days in a small Alpine village called Gimmelwald. I am very excited about this leg of the trip. From what I have seen online and heard from friends who have visited this tiny town perched on the edge of the Swiss Alps, we should be treated to some spectacularly beautiful views of God’s handiwork. While in Gimmelwald, we’ll stay at a Mountain Hostel. Nothing fancy, but who needs elaborate accomodations when one is surrounded by such beauty? Ah, nothing like a hike in the Alps first thing in the morning. I can’t wait!

From there we will spend a couple of days camping just outside of Paris near Versailles, France. We have reserved a couple of tents at a campground called Huttopia. The tents come with all the bedding and blankets we will need and are big enough to sleep four people. The train station is within walking distance from our campground, and it’s only a 20 minute train ride to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. We can also rent bikes for the short ride to Louis XIV’s palace in Versailles.

Our next stop is Normandy, France, where we will visit the cemetery and World War II Memorial honoring the American soldiers who died there during the war. This is sure to be a highlight of our trip.

Our last stop before returning to The Netherlands is the beautiful coastal town of Honfleur in France. This will be the only time during our whole vacation that we will stay in a hotel! We have one day in Honfleur, and then we’ll drive back to Holland for a couple more days with family. 

We return to the United States on July 2, just in time for Fourth of July celebrations. As you can imagine, I’ve been extremely busy readying everything for our trip. I’ll try my best to post at least once more before we leave on Thursday. Perhaps I’ll leave you with a “Best Of” post with links to  some of my favorite posts from the archives.

By the way, I am not taking my laptop with me on vacation. So, from June 12 through July 2 or so, there will be no new posts on my blog. However, I do plan to bring a good, old-fashioned spiral notebook (you know, the kind with real college ruled paper inside?) and do some journaling while we are away. I’ll also take lots of pictures. It will be fun to share our vacation with all of you when we return.

I appreciate your prayers. Mostly for traveling mercies and safety. I look so forward to spending time with our kids and their friends. My heart’s desire is that we will look back on our vacation together, grateful to the Lord for His provision and blessing, treasuring always our trip of a lifetime. 

P.S. I think most of you know that if you click on the highlighted words in the body of this post, you can follow the link and get a better idea of where our travels will take us. Love you all!

-Terrie

 

 

I did not plant the apricot tree, but I still get to enjoy the fruit of someone else’s labor.

When we first moved here four years ago, I was thrilled to discover that there were several fruit trees growing in our yard. We have an apricot tree, a plum tree, a lemon tree, a grapefruit tree and an almond tree, all planted by the previous property owners.

This season, our little apricot tree is loaded with fruit. The apricots are small, but yummy. I’ve been able to take apricots to work, send apricots home with my parents, share with our neighbors, and keep a bowlful of freshly picked fruit on my kitchen counter for my family. I’ve baked apricot cobbler, apricot scones, and tomorrow I will begin freezing some apricots to make apricot jam later in the summer. We have been blessed by those apricots!

I must say that I especially enjoyed the apricot scones. They tasted delicious with a cup of hot coffee. I even froze a couple dozen uncooked scones for future breakfast fare. If you are interested in the recipe, you can click here.

When we are tired of apricots, sweet, juicy plums will be ready in the fall. And in between, there are sunny yellow grapefruit or grapefruit juice for breakfast and lemons for my tea. But, I still haven’t figured out how to harvest the almonds. All the same, I am thankful for whoever took the time to plant all of those fruit trees.

Yesterday, I shopped at our local mall. I lasted all of twenty minutes. I rarely venture out shopping, let alone tackle the mall. Here’s why.

1.   Aesthetics. Or lack of them. Doesn’t matter how you cut it, malls are ugly. Big and boxy. Angular. Antonymous to cozy. Oh, they try. Fountains here and there. Shiny window dressings. Slick advertising posters. Over the top architectural treatments. Guys playing grand pianos on level one.  But, a few well placed potted plants do not a pleasant ambiance make.

2.  Malls are crowded. Like sharks in a feeding tank kind of crowded. Way too many people with way too much spare time and way too much disposable income. In fact, I’ll believe we are really in a recession when the mall parking lot is empty. And that leads me to reason number three…

3.  Germs. Crowds of people translate to billions of germs. The place is crawling with them. How many given shoppers on any given day are coming down with colds or the flu? I admit, I am slightly germophopic. Maybe a lot germophobic. I hate using public restrooms. Especially at the mall. I avoid actually touching the toilet seat. I flush with my foot. I wash my hands with soap and water. Twice. I use my forearm to roll out the paper towel. I hold a piece of paper towel in my hand and use it to open the restroom door. Yes, I’m one of those.

4.  The mall is expensive. If you like throwing money around, shop the mall. If you like inflated prices and brand name brouhaha, frequent the mall. Cash, check, or credit card. It’s all good at the mall. Oh sure, there might be a few good deals to be found. But, does a $150.00 sweater marked down to $80.00 really qualify as a good deal? Oh, but it’s a designer sweater you say? Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Would an off brand sweater at Target keep me just as warm? Probably.    

5.  The biggest problem with the mall is that going there almost always has something to do with shopping. I’m a bit of an anomaly, but retail therapy does nothing for me. Especially if it means a trip to the mall. You can read about one of my better shopping experiences by clicking here.

6.  It’s too easy to get lost in the mall. It doesn’t help that I have a terrible sense of direction. I mean, I could get lost on a one way street if it was the only street in town. They should hand out GPS devices at every entrance. But then again, I am even more technologically retarded than sense of direction deprived. Perhaps a big ball of string like a spelunker would use might come in handy, but I doubt it.

7.  After looking at the inserts that come with your morning newspaper, have you ever suddenly remembered all the things you had forgotten you just couldn’t live without? A trip to the mall does the same thing. Oh my gosh, I’d forgotten how much I needed a $15 tube of lipstick! Wow, my life will never be complete if I don’t buy that $80 purse. A healthy dose of consumer’s selective memory loss certainly couldn’t hurt here.   

8.  I am a very simple minded woman. I have trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time. Please don’t give me too many choices. The mall is Sensory Overload City and I’m a Small Town Girl. The mall is Disneyland, an out of control block party, and Vanity Fair (and I don’t mean the magazine, remember Pilgrim’s Progress?) all rolled into one.    

9.  Coupons are not accepted at the mall. Need I, Her Majesty the Coupon Queen, say more?

10. Mall noise. You heard me. But you wouldn’t have if we’d happened to be at the mall. So many of the stores play their music (and I use that term loosely) so loud that the shopper’s paradise they are attempting to create becomes nothing less than mind numbing noise pollution. Why do they do that? Did some retail psychology guru pronounce earsplitting rap music an opiate for the wallet wielding masses? Well, I beg to differ.

So, there you have it. However, I must admit that although I heartily dislike visiting the mall, there is one place that makes the mall seem as mild as an allergy sufferer’s antihistamine induced naptime. If there are ten reasons why I hate the mall, there are at least ten thousand reasons why I hate…WALMART. But, that’s another post for another time.    

What if the manufacturers of automobile GPS units used human voices rather than computer generated ones? What if those voices belonged to celebrities or other well-known people? What would they say? Here is my best guess hypothesis of how just such a scenario would play itself out.

Jeff Gordon: Speed up! Turn left! Speed up! Turn left! Speed up! Turn left!

Diana Ross: STOP! In the name of love.

Jimmy Carter: Negotiate a turn here.

Rush Limbaugh: Turn right and stay right.

Gandhi: Yield.

Hilliary Clinton: Step on it Buster! We’re taking some sniper fire!

Barack Obama: Change! Change! Change lanes!

John Denver: Country Road, takes you home.

Yoda: Turn here, you must.

Billy Graham: Turn or burn!

Kobe Bryant: Drive through the lane, and whatever you do, don’t travel.

C.I.A. Director, General Michael V. Hayden: I could tell you how to get there, but then I’d have to kill you.

George Bush Sr.: Read my lips, no new map’ses. (Ok, we’re stretching it a bit here, I admit.)

Wolfgang Puck: Watch for the fork in the road.

Barry Bonds: You’ll get there faster if you use performance enhancing gasoline.

Paul McCartney: Take the long and winding road that leads to your door.

Lassie: Ruff! Ruff road ahead!

Robert Frost: Take the road less travelled by, and that makes all the difference.

And finally,

Oprah Winfrey: All roads are equally valid. There’s no right or wrong way to arrive at your destination.

So, how about it friends, can you think of any more? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am so very surprised. I am so very pleased. The new American Idol is David Cook. Did he really just win by 12 million votes?

My prediction proved false, but in this particular instance, I am happy to be wrong. In my opinion, America got it right.

At least I have my Tuesday nights back now. I’m ready.  

In keeping with the evening’s boxing theme, I have taken the liberty of renaming the two Davids.

LADIEEEES AND GENTLEMEN! In this corner wearing the fresh, unshaven face of youth, your Baby Face Archuletta. And in the other corner, sporting the indomitable spirit of a man who is about to blow the biggest opportunity of his life, Cool Hand Cook. 

ROUND ONE:

Cool Hand Cook kicks off the bout singing “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Great Song. Good song choice for Cook’s singing style. In my opinion, a little less than an amazing performance, but a good start for round one. Unfortunately, Cook’s punches fail to connect, and his voice seems slightly forced to me.

Baby Face Archuletta hits some notes in this round that I did not even know existed. While it is true that Baby Face has not been my favorite in this competition, I can appreciate that this young man has talent. Tonight, he sings with poise beyond his years. Ladies and gentlemen, Baby Face Archuletta has taken off his gloves and is ready to fight. 

DING! At the bell, round one goes to Baby Face Archuletta.

ROUND TWO: 

Cool Hand Cook delivers a one/two punch by performing with his guitar. He still seems to be holding back, though. Cook continues to pull his punches and probably could have benefitted from some extra conditioning before the fight. Perhaps he should have sucked down a couple of pureed raw eggs or something. Would that have helped? Or does that only happen in the movies? 

Singing a ballad, Baby Face Archuletta delivers his signature sucker punch to the noggin and seems to take Cool Hand Cook by surprise. Does Baby Face Archuletta have Cool Hand Cook on the ropes?

DING! At the bell, Cool Hand Cook stumbles to his corner. Round two goes to Baby Face Archuletta.

ROUND THREE: 

Cool Hand Cook makes a comeback. Hip and happening, Cook still has some fight left in him. Overcome by emotion, Cool Hand leaves it all out on the stage. But will it be enough?

Baby Face Archuletta closes the finale by delivering the knock out punch. IMAGINE that!

DING! At the sound of the bell, Baby Face Archuletta raises his arms in victorious celebration. Baby Face wins round three.

My prediction: Baby Face Archuletta wins the fight. We’ll just have to wait to see if America agrees.

 

 

Our Reputation is Mud…My sister Edie (left) and I didn’t exactly get to make mudpies like we did when we were little girls, but we sure had fun anyway. You would be amazed how satiny smooth our skin was after a good rinse.

 

Many of you will remember that my sister Edie and I both received gift certificates to Glen Ivy Resort and Spa for Mother’s Day. (Thanks, kids!) On Saturday, we met at the resort for our Glen Ivy adventure.

We began our day with a 50 minute full body relaxation massage. I can’t explain why exactly, but about ten minutes into the massage, I felt as if I could cry. Very strange. It was as if all the accumulated stress, emotions, and worries that were bunched up inside of me all came unwound and the experience moved me to tears. A relaxation massage is a wonderful thing. To say that my sister and I felt relaxed afterward is an understatement. In fact, it was all we could do to peel ourselves off our respective tables.

But, peel we did, and boy did we ever work up an appetite with all that relaxing. After our massage, we made our way over to the Glen Ivy’s Cafe Sole for some delicious Mediterranean cuisine. We shared a turkey sandwich and a Naked Waldorf Salad. Now, I’m not sure what the difference is between a Naked Waldorf and a Fully Clothed Waldorf, but I will say that the naked version was delicious…Mmmm! Free range chicken breast, strawberries, candied pecans, baby greens and a feta cheese vinaigrette dressing. Simply scrumptious.

After lunch, we decided to check out the resort’s infamous Club Mud. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, but I was relieved to discover that the mud baths were not anything like what I imagined. In my mind, I had conjured up images of filthy people rolling around like pigs stuck in a big old mucky mud hole, all the while sloughing off millions of dead skin cells into mounds of sloppy, icky, sticky mud. (I have a very vivid imagination.) I don’t know about you, but I like my mud CLEAN! And so it was. Or at least as clean as mud can be. I mean, it wasn’t as if the resort people just took a hose and let the water run until a mud hole formed. This was special mud, probably purchased at a high end mud boutique somewhere. So, my sister and I bravely took our mud bath, and it left our skin, oh so soft.

The remainder of our time flew by, lounging and talking and making the rounds visiting all the different pools and spas available to us. We enjoyed a lovely day, one I will always remember. Edie is loving, unselfish, loyal, generous, funny, thoughtful, kind, and compassionate. She is a joy to be around, and we have such fun together. Our adventure had to come to an end, but not before sharing a glass of ice-cold lemonade and a slice of carrot cake. A sweet dessert indeed, but not half so sweet as time spent with my sister. I am truly blessed.

by Terrie v.B.

How oft do we condemn when Christ would not?
Is it more than repentance we require
as if the perfect work that He has wrought
suffices not to save us from the fire?

How is it that we refuse to forgive?
Dare we ask for more than His sacrifice?
Are we more righteous than He who would cleanse?
Yet, we cast the first stone, quick to chastise.

Why do we turn from the beauty of Him,
preferring darkness to One Right and Fair
and fixing our eyes on weakness and sin,
shamelessly feast on transgression laid bare?

Are we not sinners redeemed at great cost,
and but for Christ’s blood yet hopeless and lost?