Ya'll Come back now!

Mt. Airy, NC, is the home of Andy Griffin. If I'm not mistaken, they actually filmed the show there, back in the day when it was on location and not a bunch of studio sets in California.

Aunt Bea has a restaurant named after her, as does Goober. Then, the downtown area has his barber and other tourist traps. One of our faves is The Emporium. 3 stories of shopping and eating. Normally, I would not take 4 kids to a knick knack haven, but Beth thinks I am Super Mom and she is Super Aunt, so she talked me into it. I'm amazed we didn't get kicked out...it wasn't exactly kid friendly:

They had a whole section of dog stuff - Katie found her Happy Place:

See the Monkey Backpack/leash? See it NOT doing it's job?
That rocker, by the way, was like $250!

Seriously, Katie's "happy place"

And this is my happy place :)

I have a friend that cut his twin boys' door in half, and put bars up the top half. He didn't go all the way up, and woke up one morning to find the couch, carpet, and walls covered in syrup, ketsup, and all kinds of fun stuff. They had climbed OVER the bars. That is totally a story I could relate to.

Mock up of Andy's police desk:

Hello? Hello? Could you imagine still using one of those?

Oh! funny story!
My mother in law laughed so hard telling me this: One day, when Katie & Ethan were with her that 3 weeks , after Chad's grandma died, the phone rang. Jody was talking to a friend on the phone when Ethan walked up to her and said "WOW! Grandma, how'd you do that?!" She whispered, "What are you talking about?" She said he just kept saying, "Wow, that is so cool! How'd you do that Grandma?" She finally realized he was pointing at the cord attaching the phone to the wall. She had one of those rotary phones mounted to the wall, with the cord plugged into the jack, and a cord to the handset. Ethan has grown up with cordless phones and cell phones -he was in awe and wanted to know how she did that. Now, don't that make you feel OLD?!

I just remembered...we did have one of those in Japan. Most cordless phones wouldn't work on base because of signal issues. But he was 4 years old when we moved here and apparently he doesn't remember it.

After a hard day of window shopping...cupcakes & Sprite!

This was our home for 5 days - Knights Inn:

I was very happy with the room and service. Especially with the cable tv :) It's been a looooong time since we had cable tv at our fingertips - and it showed!

Katie & the boys slept on the floor the last two nights, saying it was "more fun". I was made to sleep on the floor as a kid...I didn't think it was fun at all!

A little friendly wrestling going on :)

I think he was getting even with his big sister by making her smell his diaper.

Thank God for vacations. And cable tv. And tent meetings. And family. And vans with vcrs. And tylenol. Amen.

Miss me?

I didn't get to do regular updates from Mt Airy, NC, like I had planned. The motel boasted about it's free wifi but forgot to mention it offered just ONE BAR of connection! Then, my little broadband stick was hitting only 2 bars, and my pages took forever to load, much less upload a picture. So, I was basically internet-less for 5 days. It was a LONG five days, in that aspect.

Here is my quick update, until I can get some quiet time to actually think deep thoughts ;)

I played the organ every night I was there, and my sister Casey kept Ben while Mom watched Ethan & Micah. Katie is good on her own. She constantly checks on me to see if I'm giving her my "evil eye." She's so me!

My view from the organ:

I love playing the organ because I get to view ALL the action from a front row, elevated seat. And trust me, there is ALWAYS action at these camp meetings! I'm talking, a guy knocking preachers' hands away when they tried to pray for his girlfriend - I mean, you knew it was a Pentecostal meeting when you passed that big sign at the entrance that said HOLY GHOST TENT REVIVAL. And yeah, we like to lay hands on anything that moves. If it moves suspiciously, like you did, we lay hands it TWICE.

Then, of course, there is always shouting. Flailing arms-busted lips-shoes flying through the air kind of shouting.

There is nothing like a Holy Ghost Tent Revival - especially campmeeting style. I'm so glad I went.

And then, there are healings. A wonderful lady from our church, Sis. H, has walked with cane for 4 or 5 years. She has to sit through the entire service, even when she comes up front to sing. But Friday night, she got miraculously healed without anyone touching her, and is now cane free! She walked up to me Saturday night before church and I just about did some shouting of my own. She has wanted to be healed and talked about the day she wouldn't need that cane, since I met her. God is good!

Thursday, July 2, 2009
We ended up filling this tent by Friday night, over 275 people there:

Then, my little boy. Ethan came to me about 2 weeks ago with a deep punture wound on his hand. He said he had scraped with with lego, but as the sore continued to grow and eat away at his flesh, we all had the same thought: brown recluse spider bite. The skin was green, black, and infamed and red, circular, and spreading very fast. Here's what it looked like Saturday night (PS this is not for the weak stomached!):

I took this Saturday night, right after they prayed for his hand:

See how big? How red, green, and black? It was breath-taking to see for the first time, and every morning I dreaded seeing how much it had spread.

And this is what it looked like the very next morning, after they prayed! Today it is
even better but I'm too tired to run take a pic and do all that. I'll update again as it totally heals up. He definitely got a miracle! Thank you, God!

And last, but certainly not least, my baby brother got saved! So many friends and family have been there with us as we sat in the hospital room with Aaron last year, when he was so messed up on drugs that he didn't even know what had happened. We prayed and God moved for him. Over the past year he has been in and out of trouble, with such an aimless, restless spirit in him.

But Sunday night, he gave his heart to God! He was with my parents in NC and at the altar call, he went forward and accepted Jesus as his saviour. I wasn't there, but my parents and friends said he cried and cried for about 15-20 minutes, then went between laughing and crying for the rest of the night, his whole body shaking like a leaf.

I think God knows what each of us needs, what it takes to get our attention, and what we need to feel when He comes into our life. He totally overwhelmed Aaron's emotions, totally cleaned him up and out, and gave him an experience he will NEVER forget.

Isn't He good to us?

So, that is my fast update. I will have more later, as I unpack, look at my pics, and replay it all over again in my head :)

PS Congrats, Michelle, on your new job!