I'm Thankful For

I was reading Keren's blog "What I Like About Life" and noticed her "Thankful List". She inspired me to make my own list of things I am grateful for. I think she is aiming for 387 items on her list. I'm don't think I'll aim for any particular goal, but I do like the idea of counting my blessings, so mine will be numbered as well.

I'm also very excited for Tracy & Andrew's wedding in a few weeks. Mark & I begin our trip north a week from tomorrow. There are many things to be thankful for just in those two sentences :)

1. Vacation Time

2. Visiting family and friends

3. Traveling

4. Love :)

5. My husband helping to plan our trip

6. Minnesota!

7. Weddings

8. Being able to help with the wedding

9. Girls' Spa Night... Can't wait!

10. Tabitha's fabulous ideas for Spa Night

11. Hanging with my sisters and brothers

12. Meeting my first niece, Lena

13. Seeing my soon-to-be niece & nephew, Bethany & Noah

I think I could keep going, but I don't want you to think I don't appreciate my current hometown.

14. Saturdays at the Farmer's Market (I like to take pictures of my market treasures)

15. Our church community group. We went Gator Golfing last night (that's mini-golfing for the non-locals). It was a lot of fun. The guys had the best average score, but our two best scores tied :)

16. A great church- I love New Heights. Good teaching, caring people, lots of application. I grow more each time I am there.

17. My girls at church. They're in 6th grade now. I'm happy I'm moving up to Youth with them. I'm sure they've taught me more than I've taught them. I can't wait to spend another year with them.

18. My job- I am so blessed to have a job I love.

Which reminds me, I have to go get some supplies for my PreK class. I will continue my list another day.

Camping

Last weekend, Mark and I went camping with a few friends. We canoed Buffalo River in NE Arkansas. I have never "roughed it" like this before. Thankfully, Ryan & Kelly have a lot of the necessary gear and love planning trips like this. It was good to have people who are more experienced... plus they're just a lot of fun.

We put in at Rush, and the next take out point was 20+ miles away where the Buffalo meets the White. It took us three days to get there.

Mark was in charge of filtering water. He pumped about 25 gallons of water during the trip. This picture is at our first campsite. There was a fresh spring bubbling right up out of the ground.

The river pushed us along so well, I didn't have to paddle all the time. That gave me time to take lots of pictures. Mark would steer us occasionally and let me know when he needed help. We make a good team :)

There is no way to describe how beautiful it is out there. I loved the fact that the places I was seeing were not places someone could just drive to. Pictures never do justice to God's creation, but I always have to try to capture just a piece of the beauty I saw.