THE FERN AND THE BAMBOO

One day I decided to quit.... I quit my job, my relationship, my spirituality..... I wanted to quit my life. I went to the woods to have one last talk with God."God", I said. "Can you give me one good reason not to quit?"

His answer surprised me..."Look around", He said. "Do you see the fern and the bamboo?"

"Yes", I replied.

"When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them. I gave them light. I gave them water. The fern quickly grew from the earth. Its brilliant green covered the floor. Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo. In the second year the Fern grew more vibrant and plentiful. And again, nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo". He said. "In the third year, there was still nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit. In the fourth year, again, there was nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit. He said. "Then in the fifth year a tiny sprout emerged from the earth. Compared to the fern it was seemingly small and insignificant. But just 6 months later the bamboo rose to over 100 feet tall. It had spent the five years growing roots. Those roots made it strong and gave it what it needed to survive. I would not give any of my creations a challenge it could not handle." He said to me. "Did you know, my child, that all this time you have been struggling, you have actually been growing roots. I would not quit on the bamboo. I will never quit on you. Don't compare yourself to others." He said. "The bamboo had a different purpose than the fern, yet, they both make the forest beautiful." "Your time will come,"

God said to me. "You will rise high!"

"How high should I rise?" I asked.

"How high will the bamboo rise?" He asked in return.

"As high as it can?" I questioned.

"Yes." He said,

"Give me glory by rising as high as you can."

Never regret a day in your life. Good days give you Happiness. Bad days give you Experiences. Both are essential to life.

Happiness keeps you Sweet, Trials keep you Strong, Sorrows keep you Human, Failures keep you Humble, Success keeps You Glowing, But Only God keeps You Going!

Have a great day! The Son is shining!!

"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it." Maya Angelou

~Settlers of Catan and The Seafarers~

Some of our friends have introduced us to a board game called Settlers of Catan. This is a buy and trade type of game. You have to use resources such as brick, wool, wood and ore to buy and trade. Kevin & Amy bought the expansion version called The Seafarers and the second expansion City of Knights. Now, we have only played with the Seafarers so far. We want to get that one down before we play with Cities of Knights. You build settlements and cities, roads, trade routes with ships, and you can buy developement cards. There is a robber and a pirate. It really is pretty fun. Below are some pictures of our last game. In the picture of the game board there are empty spaces and as we are able to open each of those spaces we turn over a hex and it could be water or it could be land/resource. You just never know for sure what you are getting.

This is one scenario.
You can change scenarios and with each scenario you change rules.

Mark is looking like he just can not decide where to put his settlement.
Sarah and Kevin just hope he does not settle on the spots they want.

Amy is usually pretty quick with her decisions.
She is a "no nonsense" kinda person.

I had to share this picture.
Derrick and my kids all like to see if they can
do something funny when ever I am trying to take pictures.
They all think it is funny but, I do not have the humor they do all of the time.It is good clean fun and it makes us use our brain.
DeAnna is even pretty good at it.

Afton Wesleyan Daycare / Preschool

We had another open house for the Daycare / Preschool on Thursday night. It went really well. We had a couple more new families stop by. It will be open on the 27th instead of 20th (YEAH). Cheyenna finished decorating her room for the most part. She may have a few other things to put up but, she did most of it. She also has some letters and numbers coming to put around her walls that have not come in yet. She is decorating in Rainbows and Busy Bee. I am decorating in Monkey Mischief but, am not finished decorating yet.

Here are a few pictures.

~Pictures of Cheyenna's Classroom~

Here is a picture of the main play area.

Here is the picture of Amy's Daughter, Emma dressing up.Here is my Giraffe with Monkeys hanging on its neck.
I will show you more when it is all finished.
I will post more info and pictures as we get things done and get closer.

~~Bats~~ You never know what you will find in your yard.

Sunday morning I was running behind so I asked Derrick if he would take the dog outside for a walk for me. He did. When I came down stairs to leave he wanted me to go outside to look at something. Well, below you will find pictures of his find.


As you see he was actually waking up because Derrick was pulling on the branch to get a good look at him. Poor bat was wishing he never stopped to sleep in that tree. Bats do not really frighten me but, I did think that it was a little odd that this bat decided to sleep so low to the ground. He was also a very large bat. He looked fat. (Maybe it was a female and SHE was pregnant?????)

Days Off work.

Derrick seems to think that since he LOVES being in the woods that the rest of us should love it as much as he does. Well, we do sometimes but, we do not desire to be there all the time. He would live out there all the time if he could.

So, since he has such the desire to do something in the woods all the time on our days off (Mondays) he makes plans to go somewhere. Last week on Monday we went to Yellow Springs in Ohio. I had never been there and had no idea what it was like. The town was really hopping! Lots of stuff going on every where that you looked. We did some hiking in a park called Glen Helen Park. We found out why they call it the Yellow Springs. Here are some pictures.

This tree is the tree that they adopted as there climbing tree.

And, of course I have 2 monkeys in my family.
This is why they are called Yellow Springs.
This is where the spring comes out and there is so
much oar in the water it paints the rocks orange(they call it yellow).
If you rub the rock your hand is orange.

This is the pool at the bottom and Derrick DeAnna and the dog went
wading through it. The water here was very clear.

Here is Matty after a day of hiking. She loves to go hiking -
if you get your walking sticks out she is ready
to go and starts getting all excited.

This past Monday we went to Carter Caves in Kentucky. Here are some pictures of that adventure.

It was very misty inside the cave when you first walk in.
This was an unguided cave. You just had to get a permit showing you were
going in the cave and take it back to the office by 6pm.
To show you came out of the cave. The permits are free.

Derrick and DeAnna feel the need to climb everything.


We had to get real low to get around this water hole.
We were trying to stay dry as possible.


My husband the wall scaler.
(I bet you didn't know he was part spider man.)

This picture is a cluster of bats. If you blow it up you can see there faces.

The bats were very funny. We were looking at the cluster when another bat started flying around and all of a sudden just wiggled its way in the middle of the cluster. The bat you see out to the side started squawking like it was really mad that the other bat did that. We were all laughing.

We did not take Matty on this trip.

We do always enjoy the time away and together. We just are not always the most enthused people about going in the first place. But, are always glad we go. Next Monday he has to work so we will not be going anywhere then. Who knows maybe one weekend after we get our part timer up and running real good we can take an extra day and go to Florida and see PD & Sherri.