Those of you who've been with me for over a year may remember this glorious old furnace that we'd hoped to install:
Evidently, Mother came along to supervise the job.
Kiki showed up about five seconds after we fired it up.
Didn't get a whole lot of entries this year, so I added one of my own to kick things off.
The "Happiest Aquatic Vertebrates" Award goes to me. Yay!



...or a Jack Sparrow wannabe...
...or Gladys...
...or...TAKE A GUESS...
...check out the long hair on Flutterbug...
WELL?
Well.
All three of us wanted to be certain that she was doing the right thing. While Flutterbug attended orientation classes and ice-breaker activities, Mike and I hunkered down in the motel room and prayed and talked and then talked and prayed with Flutterbug and stayed an extra day and prayed and talked and talked and prayed. All things we should have done a while back, but God brought us all the way here to force the issue - He knew what it'd take!
We sorted out the emotions from the facts - a huge and necessary step, since we know that decisions should never be made based on fear or emotions!
We also considered the general "college experience" - the dorm life and social aspect of school. Was it important enough to warrant attending (and paying thousands of dollars) for only that reason?
We talked about how important it was for this to be a new phase of Flutterbug's life, whether she went this direction or another, and that Mike and I would need to make sure that if she opted for a local or online education we'd keep her from being swallowed up in the urgency of Victory Home life and sucked back into the old routine.
And then we surrendered the whole messy caboodle to God and waited for His direction.
We're firm believers in God's personal involvement in our lives, and the fact that He is Good. He's not going to bring things to a head and then leave us hanging, confused and dazed. (Whew.)
So.....(drum roll, please),
Flutterbug has opted to enroll in the Institute for Nouthetic Studies, based in Greenville but available as correspondence, and at the same time will attend classes at a local Bible college. She'll be able to become a certified Nouthetic Counselor in just over a year – and be able to join the National Association of Christian Counselors even sooner. Then she will be able to fill in remaining requirements for a bachelor's degree after that, if God so leads, in whatever major God directs.
All three of us are confident that this is the right thing. (Take our word for it - we're the ones who struggled through that agonizing process!) And we're excited for Flutterbug as she plunges into this new and exciting phase of her life.
The moral of the story, that God ever-so-lovingly clunked us over the head with: seek first His kingdom, keep everything fully surrendered to Him, don’t get caught up in the urgencies of life at the expense of the most important things, and , lastly...
…be flexible! You NEVER know what changes may lurk right around the corner!

In our usual fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants way, we decided at the last minute to celebrate the 4th (rather than working all day). Normally we have a party, but we've been too busy and worn out to consider it this year. Too bad I bought about 150 glow-in-the-dark bracelets last month.
Yorktown sounded like a nice destination, away from the crowds of Norfolk's Harborfest or Williamsburg's popular goings-on.
Turns out Yorktown is a bit historic, too, particularly in the freedom-from-Britain vein.
We found ourselves sucked into a current of cars all snaking along a path of cones and yellow-jacketed wavers, directing us to a huge pasture - a revolutionary battlefield, actually - and we bumped our way back and forth for several minutes before finally being directed into a parking space.
Everyone around us was loaded down with coolers, beach bags, blankets, baskets...we had Buddy and some chewing gum. But we followed the crowd through the grass, enjoying the anticipation of what may lie ahead.
I'm speaking for Mike and me. Flutterbug hates not knowing what's ahead. So she was a little nervous.