I have been neglecting my blog for some time now...I don't tend to visit Xanga much due to trying to focus more on my family and ministry work.  But I still visit the occational online friend to see what they are up to.  I was visiting my neice @purpleamethyst76 and she was mentioning some of her finds on Kindle so I thought I would share some of mine.  

This is my favorite site that updates daily about free and low cost books for kindle that are Christian - Many of my favorite finds have come from this site.  Although many of the books are only available for a limited time for free.  

I divide my books into catagories - my first collection is in Christian Living/Devotional:

I discovered the great A. W. Tozer through reading The Pursuit of God.  It is a great read for anyone who wants to know more about God.  I grew so much from reading this short book and have looked at more of his books to add to my future reading list. 

Freedom from Performing by Becky Harling - is an awesome book for ladies.  It really explores how you see God and how you think God sees you. I was so moved by this book that I lead a ladies small group study with the book (my first time teaching adults).

I am working through a book that is changing the way I think about the organizational body of the local church and how the local church is structured.  The book is called "Leading from the Sandbox by T. J. Addington - it is a great read for anyone who is a ministry leader or runs a business.  It really asks the questions that we need to think about as leaders. 

My favorite devotional that I downloaded is called "Don't make me come up there! Quiet moments for Busy Moms" by Kristen Welch - as you can imagine it is a great read for any mom.  It really makes you enjoy the little things that God brings into our lives as moms.

Another catagory that I have branched out into is biographies and non-fiction:

I read A Dog Named Slugger by Leigh Brill before my 14 year old did simply because I wanted to make sure it didn't have any topics that I thought she shouldn't be reading at this point.  I was very moved by the story and found it a delight to read.  A great book for those animal lovers out there.

Purpleamethyst mentioned Letters from a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart- it was a very interesting book that records the life of a woman through her letters to a friend.

I also have a slue of Christian Ficton that I love - many are Historical (I am not looking for the romance thing but so many of them tend to be that way). Here are just a few of my must reads:

One of the most interesting books series that I have read recently is by a favorite author from my childhood - Janette Oke, she partnered with T. Davis Bunn and wrote about the time of early Christians (the book of Acts).  The first book in the series is often free The Centurion's Wife - is such a different book - it looks at what it would have been like to live at the time right after the ascention - from the viewpoint of a Roman centurion and a woman in Pilate's household.   These authors also teamed up to write another of my favorite series called Songs of Acadia.

Riven by Jerry B. Jenkins, is a book that I would recommend for mature readers - it is about a mans life and how he ended up on death row who becomes a follower of Christ - a very true to life story that has some surprising twists and turns in the story.

Gods and Kings: Chronicles of the Kings by Lynn Austin is another Bible time fiction work.  It is set at the time of Isaiah (the prophet).  It brought to life the stories and prophesies of Isaiah...in a whole new light.  It was another book that I would not recommend for those under 16.  But it does make you think and study the stories recorded in the Bible in a whole new light.  I haven't read any more of the series but it is on my list of future reads.

Roanoke (Keepers of the Ring) by Angela Hunt and Angela Elwell Hunt,  is another thought provoking work.  It is about the lost colony of Roanoke in the early 1600's.  It has some agonizingly slow development of characters, but overall a great read and is full of historically accurate settings and character profiles.  There are more books in this series as well that I would like to take time to enjoy.  

I am finding it fun to expand the types of books I am reading - it is also helping me expand on my thoughts of God and people in new ways.  

I hope you enjoy my short list.  (I have about 150 books on my kindle currently).  

Let me know if you have any treasured reads that you would like to share.  

Here is what we have been up to for the last few weeks....

On June 17th we went on vacation to this lovely cabin in the woods of PA. (It had it's own bathroom and kitchen in the cabin)

We had a great time having a camp fire every evening...and even popped Jiffy Pop for the first time for the kids over an open fire.

My grill master...one of the many times we ate at the campsite...

Hiking

Relaxing by the fire

Just being together...

Or doing our own thing...

We went and say the sights (we were staying near the "Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania)

It was spectacular!

We went mining for gems at a gift shop in the middle of no where...

We caught a ride on a train...

Our friendly Mr. Conductor!

That had some great views...

And met a nice lady who offered to take a picture with me and my two oldest girls.

Then the two oldest got bored on the train...

My youngest being her good natured self...

The engine that could...

My Meg...with one of her many hairstyles...

We hiked around this whole lake (this is the campground)

I took many pictures of so many things in nature that we might write our own book...we will see...

My crew...

Sitting to rest when we were half way around the lake....

An Ice cream treat when we made it to the camp store...

Over looking the other side of the canyon...after hiking for hours earlier in the day...

The view from the other side...

A picture of the whole family!

My oldest entertaining themselves at the campsite - they begged for us to buy the rope to play with...

We also went out to the movies and saw Mr.Popper's Penguins and were out having our first meal off the campground when we got a phone call from my in-laws...that there was flash flooding happening at home.  We finished dinner and quickly went back to the campground to pack up.  Our house was not flooded that night but we wanted to be home to help with the clean-up.  That was Wednesday the 22nd...we cleaned all Thursday and started to relax after a long day of working when my father-in-law came rushing in our house to let us know that the flash flooding was happening again...

This is our street ...

My girls ended up going over to my in-laws to help pull the fans and shop-vacs out of the water and got stranded on the other side of our driveways for about 3 hours. 

This is where our driveway usually is...looking at my in-laws front yard.

This is my front yard...

My in-laws front flower bed near the road at the front of their drive.

After the flooding slowed a little...

Our ground around our house was so wet that the water was gushing up the cracks in our basement floor...

The next day after the flooding was finally stopped by a gentleman who volunteered his excavator to clean out the creek that was overflowing it's banks...

This is Cory one of two fire fighters that stayed at our house voluntarily on Thursday night to keep our furnace and water heater out of the water...

 I have a picture of the other fire fighter but it won't load right now...

This is the hoses that the fire fighters were using to empty my in-law's basement of water....

I have also been very busy because my father fell July 1st and broke his hip - he is 76 and was in the hospital for 5 days...now he is back in the nursing home I work at...  I was also helping throw a baby shower for my sister-in-law who is expecting her first baby...the shower was July 2nd. (the day my dad had his surgery)...now I am working on having a church picnic here at our house today...at 6:30  VBS is being planned and is only a little over 2 weeks away...  My in-laws family reunion is in Virginia next weekend...so it has been a crazy summer so far this year. I am so thankful for a God who I can lean on when I am weak and tired...who knows the future and will be there for me know matter what. 

A couple of weeks ago my family took a field trip to The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY.  It was a bright, sunny, Friday...warm, and full of spring.  We had kept our trip a secret from the girls - they only figured it out when we were 15 minutes from Corning.  Everyone was full of excitement.  My husband had taken the day off of work, I had taken the evening off before the trip, so we were all well rested.  We didn't leave from our house until around 10:30 and got to Corning around 1.  We had scheduled workshops for the girls to do some hands-on glass work...but more on that later.

(This floor is right above the cafeteria...and it is a quote from Mark Twain that says "It is a little thing - glass is- until it is absent, then it becomes a big thing..") 

Some of the girls were a little too scared to step out onto the glass floor - but it was fun...

We had a fun time exploring all the different hands on parts of the museum...they had displays of the different types of glass, and how glass is used. 

Then it was time to head to the workshops for our scheduled times.

Of course you have to wear your safety goggles when working with glass....

Even if you are going to be only blowing on the end of a pipe...

The younger two made glass fused wind chimes...

I got to go in and help since it was one of the larger projects...

The girls worked hard on their creations...

We made patterns and designs, Meghan has an orange flower on one. She also likes blues and greens. 

 (She let me make one - I did all different triangle pieces.)

Marissa made a clover, and let me make a purple flower...she had a lot of fun designing.  These are the finished projects...we had to assemble them when they arrived.  Marissa's is on the left and Meghan's on the right.

Molly in the action of blowing her sculpture...

Her finished project...I didn't get to see them do their glass blowing since I was busy with the younger two, but Hubby was there taking pictures.

Madelynn's turn....

Her finished project.  They got to choose the colors and what type of pattern they wanted on the sculpture.

We watched all of the demonstrations throughout the day of glass forming, blowing, how fiber optics work, and glass breaking (our favorite). Toward the end of the day we were waiting for the fiber optic demonstration - Meghan and I started exploring the hands on part of the museum again...without many people around.  So we were havign fun with the giant water filled globe...

Then we had Marissa get in on the action...

And Molly

And Madelynn...we were having so much fun, just being silly.  I was laughing so hard at some of the pictures we took...and the expressions on the girl's faces.  It is fun to see what just a little glass and water can do to change our view of ourselves.

Hope you enjoyed reading about our adventures...we are all enjoying the spring weather here.  Of course that means more laundry because of the mud...but to be outside after the long winter is worth it.

My family has done rather well this winter in the illness department...but it had to end at some point.  We now have the nasty upper respiratory virus that is going around our area.  So I have been up just about every night for the last 3-4 nights (last night I at least go a good solid 6 hours! - so thankful for that). Molly and Meghan seem to have it the worse right now...Marissa had it last week.  Madelynn just started with the cough yesterday.

I am feeling drained.  But I have see my oldest display some great maturity over the last couple of days.  She is usually pretty whiny when she is sick - but not this time.  I cannot say the same for Meghan...she has been my frustration.  I hate to say it but I am going to be honest - she is a hard child to show love to when she is sick.  She is also one that has a weak stomach when she coughs...so she gags part of the time and will occasionally loose her cookies so to speak. When we hear that lovely noise we automatically turn to see if she needs any help - and she starts either yelling at us, or starts crying (in her embarrassment).  Both reactions tend to make the coughing worse...and the cycle continues.  Plus there are time that I think she is making herself upset just to start another chain reaction - like bed time, or chore time.  So I am not only tired but also feel like a horrible mother for even thinking these thoughts about my sick child - but I know that is the pattern.

So why am I telling you all this- because I cannot be alone in this...there has to be other mothers that get frustrated with their children when they are sick.  Also I want to record this, because I am sure that eventually she will outgrow this behavior (like the fact that she didn't sleep through the night until she was 5 years old!)  And when she does grow out of this, it will all just be a vague memory.

Hoping you all have healthy families - and hang in there Our Father knows what we are going through.  He cares about us.  He will guide us through. 

P.S. - We got 16 inches of snow yesterday...just after we finally started seeing the front yard again.  I think I am pretty tired of the white stuff. 

~Colleen~ 

Yesterday during the service, I was reminded of a song I learned in church as a child...

Give me oil in my lamp,
Keep me burning, burning, burning, 
Give me oil in my lamp, I pray.
Give me oil in my lamp,
Keep me burning, burning, burning, 
Keep me burning
Till the break of day. 

Sing hosanna! sing hosanna!
Sing hosanna to the King of kings!
Sing hosanna! sing hosanna!
Sing hosanna to the King!

The sermon was about being salt and light...and I was suddenly singing this song in my head. I probably haven't sung the song in years.  (Although we have a great Veggietale CD of Sunday morning songs that has the song on it.)

So remember that all the effort in teaching our children is never wasted...it just may take years to have the greatest impact on children's hearts.  Keep your light burning for the Lord.