A California update: Most Beautiful Love

What a blessed daughter I am! The life that the Lord has given me is good. Over the past three weeks I have had the most wonderful opportunity to be with my grandparents. I was supposed to be here caring for them however, they have been so well that I have not needed to do hardly anything to help them. I think the Lord has placed me in one of the most wonderful spots. Here in the sunny land of California, in the rather busy city of Madera/Fresno, I have the opportunity to sit and watch as my grandparents live their lives and unknowingly show the most beautiful example love. 

When my grandfather was in his hospital bed rather exausted from the hip surgery, my grandmother bent over and tenderly ran her fingers through his gray hair and whispered a sweet prayer of faith, love and healing. When she had said amen she told my grandfather that she loved him and then he replied in a deep but most sincere and loving voice "I love you too.." At first I wanted to take a picture of this most precious moment but before I could reach for my phone it dawned on me.. You can't capture such a love as that with a phone camera. This love has been tested and tried, it has gone through many battles and come out stronger and closer not only to each other but to their dear Savior. That moment I had te honor of witnessing is a moment I will forever cherish. 

Let us never take for granted the blessings He has given us. Lord help us recognize the blessings you scatter through our day. In hospital rooms, at our office, or when we are simply sitting on the couch resting, never take these moments for granted. 

To God be the Glory.
Bethany Joy

Catching up once again...

Life is always happening. It never stops. Never slows down. Instead it seems to fly by even quicker than we had planned. I love to sit and watch the livestock from the rocking chair on the front porch and just take a moment to breathe. Lately, it has been my favorite place to sit. Tonight I would like to just fill you in.
Lord willing, tomorrow evening will find my mother, Samuel, baby Daniel, and myself on a plane heading toward California. We are quite excited to take this trip and see my grandparents again. They are such a blessing to our family!
On Thursday I had the joy of doing a photo shoot with some dear friends. I just loved spending time with them and capturing photos of them together.
My rather playful puppy, Chloe, is still every bit in training. She is smart and beautiful and I believe she will make a wonderful service dog.
Miracle is quite well. He is maturing quite a bit and has started acting more like the trained and well behaved horse that I know he is.
Promise is every bit the baby. Bekah is excited to work with her while I am away. I am sure Promise will enjoy the change and love the attention. I am thinking she will be a great horse for dressage. She just has that "look".
Well friends, I believe that catches you up. I hope you have a restful evening.
To God be the Glory.
Bethany Joy

Texas Trip

Well it looks like I have an awful lot of updating to do. We'll start with our trip to Texas.

Texas:
We started our journey very early in the morning. I think it felt extra early because we stayed up rather late the night before. The bright side of waking so early is that we saw the sunrise before we pulled out of the driveway. It was breath taking!

We then drove several hours before stopping for breakfast.. It was so nice to stretch our legs for a minute or two. We were packed into the car so very tightly! It made for some very interesting and funny conversations.



After filling our tummies we packed ourselves back into the car and buckled up. Daniel and Josiah were my buddies for the trip. Daniel was quite some fun!

We met with our friends for dinner and then rested for the rest of the first evening of our trip... When we woke up early the next morning we packed everything up and started getting ready to leave. As we drove that day we saw many beautiful things!

When we arrived to our rental home later that evening we were SO happy. The trip was great but we were glad not to be in the car.

The house had many enjoyable traits...Like the play-set. It was so much fun to hear about Sanuel and Matthew's adventures as they played together!

The days leading up to the Reformation of Food and Family conference we did some sight-seeing. We went on the river walk, we visited the Alamo, we saw some breath taking caverns and even some pretty fish...

We then prepared for the conference. I actually forgot to take any pictures until the last day. The event was wonderful! We made many new friends. I look forward to the next time the Lord allows us to meet. It was such a blessed time of fellowship.

To God be the Glory.

Bethany Joy



Preparing for Texas

Our family is now preparing to take a wonderful little trip to Texas for the Reformation Food and Family Conference. We are simply thrilled to be going! Are you taking any family trips this summer? It can be challenging to take long trips with a large family at times. I'd like to share some tips, tricks, and what we will be doing for our trip to Texas.

Our family likes to plan ahead. We have a list of snacks and meals for the trip. Any snacks have to be mess free. So things like baby carrots, beef sticks, crackers, apples, and fruit chews are all usually in our ice chest.

For our bags we split into three teams (you can split your "teams" how you like). Each team gets one large bag with all their clothes, under garments, socks, etc. They also get a zip lock with their tooth brush, tooth paste, and floss. Depending on the bag it will also have perfume, makeup, hair brushes/combs, or other essential items.

We continue with our teams until the trip is over. Each team keeps their section of the car clean as we are driving and each team stays together as we go sight seeing and travel around. We try to pair people up in groups that will make the trip go smoothly. For example, don't put the three loudest, craziest, messiest kids together. Split them up and pair them with older kids who can help remind them to keep clean and quiet when we are sight seeing.

Let the children bring along one - two toys that they might enjoy.

And that is basically what we will be doing for our trip to keep things organized. We will be taking a u-haul with us to make a little extra room in the car.

If you are taking any trips I would love to hear about what you do to keep things organized!

To God be the Glory.

Bethany Joy

CHEF Convention and Ramblings

The Lord blessed my family with the opportunity to attend the 2012 CHEF (Christian Home Educators Fellowship) convention. It was a beautiful and blessed  trip. Our family walked away from the event feeling convicted, refreshed, and encouraged. We met dear old friends and sweet new friends, we enjoyed sightseeing, wonderful food, and all in all an abundantly blessed visit to St. Louis Missouri. I hope these photos convay the joy we had while visiting such a lovely place.

The riverfront was such a beautiful area! I could have sat there all evening.

Daniel LOVED this group. He didn't care for them so much when they were holding him but the music made him dance
giggle, and clap his hands. It was precious!

The beautiful riverfront area. I really enjoyed the old looking buildings!

Is that not the most precious face you've ever seen?!



My brother Elisha sketching the beautiful St. Louis river front town.

Me walking down the brick sidewalks.

My gorgeous sister-in-love, Miranda Wood. Isn't
she lovely? I cannot wait to meet Gunner Knox Wood!

And that my friends completes this peak into our trip. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
To God be the glory.
Bethany Joy

Update and A Fishy Sandwich

My mother blessed me with a Canon T3i this past winter. Now that summer has rolled around I have started using it much more. We bought the camera for our trucking business. We haul for an organic food company that I believe must be one of the best. We actually purchased our food from this company for roughly 15 years before ever even considering hauling product for them. Now we also work on their blog and websites and haul organic and wholesome foods all across the country. I am not the most computer savvy person and I don't plan on becoming a truck driver so I like to provide pictures for the websites instead. It is such a enjoyable "job". I love staging the food, playing backgrounds, and making delicious foods. It is such fun! Azure Standard is actually going to start doing the blogging and websites themselves so I will start posting more recipes and things of that sort over here instead. I will be posting only our favorites with links and item numbers so that you will be able to see what is most affordable  and do-able for your family.

The recipe I am excited to share today is a salmon sandwich. I may not like eating fish myself but I love blessing my papa and brothers. Since they love it so much I have decided to start making more of it. Maybe I might even find I recipe I'll want to try along the way!

Salmon Sandwich:

Makes: 2 sandwiches Time: 3 minutes Difficulty level: Easy

European Multi-grain artisan bread (our new favorite. Item #FG523)

1 can of Pink salmon (Item #GY658)

Mayonnaise (Item #CO032)

Lettuce (coming soon to Azure standard or you can simply pick some from your garden)

Salt and pepper as desired.

Simply spread a little (about 1/2 Tablespoon of mayonnaise) on your bread, put the desired amount of salmon on the bread, add some lettuce, salt and pepper and walah! You have now created a simple, refreshing, masterpiece!

If you have a favorite fishy meal, let me know! I'd love some more recipes.

To God Be The Glory.
Bethany Joy

Training: Marathon, Horses, Puppies..Oh my!

Well it seems as if the theme for this season of my life is training. Training for a marathon, training big horses and little horses, training puppies, and most of all training my heart. So, to update you all on the different trainings I am doing right now I thought I'd just put it all on this ol' blog.

First we'll start with the marathon training. So far so good. Its slow going but I am getting faster and running longer. Its not the easiest thing I have ever done but my mother recently told me," nothing good that is actually lasting comes easily. Its hard but its good."

My crazy fun running shoes ;-)

Now for the horses...ah where do I start? Miracle is growing to be a mature lad and is becoming the faithful mount that I need. Of course, he still has that fire in him that makes him so special to me. I rode him the other night and it was great. He kept calm and did well however, at the end of the ride his bit came undone and I now need to repair it. So thats something I'll do later this weekend.
Promise is...well... She is "Rebel's Promise", her full name lived to the fullest! She is just a little toddler and likes her fits and showing me the bottom of her hooves a little too often. haha! She has actually gotten better on that. She is beautiful, sweet (believe it or not), and so smart! We worked with tarps and garbage blowing in the wind the other day and she loved it. She didn't spook a bit!


Now for the puppy. ah, well.. she is a puppy alright! She loves to chew on shoes, eat anything within reach, she has the attention span of a gold fish, and she loves to nibble at my feet! It is quite funny! Currently I am taking her outside every 30 minutes for 10 minutes at least, teaching her to stay on her bed for "bed time", teaching her to "kennel up", teaching her to sit, "leave it", and go potty OUTSIDE. haha! I think I have my work cut out for me. On the bright side, she is the cutest dog ever, is very smart, and she sleeps in really cute posistions! haha...

Hahahaha...this makes me laugh every time!

Now for heart training. Bible study is good. Making new habits every day and enjoying my time with the Lord a little more each time I open my Bible. I always enjoy reading...everythng from the Bible to commentaries, how-to books, and fiction. My mother got me a book called "It's (not that) Complicated" by the Botkin sisters... It has been such a blessing already. I have been reading it with my Bible study each evening. The only thing I don't like is that every book has its ending and I'll have to find another good book pretty soon. Ha! Its really good though. I would recomend it to any young girl or parents with daughters.

Have a blessed evening friends!

To God be the Glory.

Bethany Joy