Quarter Century

December 27th is a momentous occasion for the McGehee family this year, for we are celebrating the 25th wedding anniversary of Mom and Dad! This morning, the lovebirds took off on a special overnight excursion to Manitou Springs (a fact which Mom is not yet privy to).

I do not expect anything less than unconditional love, fidelity and devotion between my parents so I am certainly not amazed that they "made it" to this silver celebration. There is absolutely no reason for me to doubt that they will celebrate many more anniversaries. But our culture tells me that I am a minority: my parents are still together. Beyond that, they are still very much in love!

The pride that I take in my parent's 25th anniversary has nothing to do with the fact that they "beat the odds", remained faithful to each other, or even that they still exhibit affections toward each other. My pride in my parent's love and marriage exists because I know that they have a firm foundation in the Lord. Affection, tenderness, romance, attraction, and loving qualities are the natural result of a marriage that is built upon God first. So for that reason, Mom and Dad, I admire you, aspire to emulate you, take pride in your marriage, and love you so very much.

Happy Silver Anniversary!


1986


2011

Carl's Trusted Voice

Our dear friends, the Bobb family, have sought to encourage and pursue entrepreneurial endeavors for as long as we have known them (and even before!) One venture that is especially exciting for us as consumers is the initiation of Carl's Trusted Voice. Mr. Bobb has taken to his carefully constructed home sound studio and recorded incredible pieces of audio work that will appeal to listeners of all interests.

Mr. Bobb has provided a variety of demo sound bytes for those to express interest via his web site, www.mrbobbsvoice.com. As the greeting on the home page reads, "Carl’s Trusted Voice will make your ad copy, script, audio book or elearning material come alive...". I can say by experience that this is most definitely a trusted proclamation.

Most recently, we received the gift of The Hartz Boys audio book. This little treasure was republished by our friends, the Williams family and joyfully recorded in audio format by Mr. Bobb. My family spent three nail-biting nights listening to and discussing this book during our family worship. Each chapter spoken, each character and circumstance introduced kept us eager to hear more.

As we listened I wondered why it was that I was so intrigued by this book. Not only is it safe, wholesome, and valuable as a story, but the way it was presented by Mr. Bobb had a great deal to do with my personal reception of it. He was easy to listen to, expressive, and emotional. I never confused the characters voices as each was distinct and clear. I felt the fear, excitement, and repentance as the characters spoke their piece through Mr. Bobb, and I only wished that every book I could possibly want to listen to could somehow be brought to life by Mr. Bobb's voice!

Please visit his web site and hear for yourself. You will both laugh and be moved by the sound he produces. God has most surely given him a voice that people will listen to.

Acts of Random Kindness

This morning we broke out the snow blower to clear the driveway and sidewalks in front of our house. This relatively quick project became an adventure spanning multiple hours. Our neighbors across the street were struggling to shovel their driveway, so across the street we went with the little Deere to help them out. Appartently they had planned to travel to a family farm a few hours away, but were not sure that they could get their car out of the neighborhood. They left shortly after we finished their driveway.

When that one was through, Collier noticed that another neighbor was shoveling his driveway by himself. His name is Mike. Back across the street we went and his driveway was clear in a jiffy!

Meanwhile, I noticed that this neighbor's neighbor had their garage door up and car running as if they were preparing to leave. The deep drift in the driveway made me wary that the little Altima would make it out into the street. So, off we went to that neighbor's house and started on her driveway. When she emerged from her garage she was surprised to see us clearing a path for her car. Before we knew it, Mike walked over with his shovel and helped us clear that driveway to send our neighbors successfully off to work.

Yet again, I noticed a neighbor shoveling her walk way. Back across the street we went. When I asked this woman if we could help her clear her driveway, she replied that she didn't have any money to pay us with. I was afraid of that... I quickly stopped her and told her that we don't expect anything in return, just that she remember to pass along some kindness to another person. She was very skeptical of us and I truly believe that she felt like we wanted to weasel her out of money somehow. After chatting with her for a few minutes and blowing her driveway she had warmed up to us and we finished the walkway together. We ran the snow blower until it was out of gas. She told us what a blessing it had been to have our help and we knew that the morning's venture had been a success.

This Christmas we want to gently but pointedly remind people that there would be no CHRISTmas without Christ! To have the opportunity to bless other people is a gift. Our snow blower is also a gift, and it would be awful of us to keep it to ourselves.

As you go about your gift shopping and snow shoveling and whatever else you set out to do this Christmas, remember what a gift it can be to serve other people when you and they least expect it. You may never realize that God was using you to make an impact in another person's life at precisely the moment that they needed to see Christ's love displayed.

New Seams

The Christmas season is upon us! For the first time in three years, our family has made a real effort to decorate for Christmas. We have a real tree (a luxury that we sorely missed while living in Jacksonville), outside lights, and other touches that have become part of the feeling of Christmas in the McGehee household. Beneath the tree our beloved town scene (an inheritance from my grandmother) is proudly displayed to remind us both of sweet and humorous memories from previous Christmases.

Now that we have become mostly settled in Colorado and the fall semester has come to a close, I have had the opportunity to pull out my much neglected sewing machine for a few projects. I had forgotten how marvelous it is to see my bedroom covered in fabric and thread as I plan new projects. This season has beckoned much creative inspiration both for gifts and technical ventures. Here are a few of the projects that have been undertaken thusfar:

As we sifted through our Christmas decor I noted a severe lack of tasteful and festive hand towels. So, without spending a penny I sifted through our towels and my stabilizer and embroidery thread collection and created this cute little design (which was also free from my favorite embroidery web site).

The other two completed projects are actually Christmas gifts for Mom and Dad, so I will post pictures of them at a later date. Suffice it to say that the Bosch now has a custom quilted fabric cover, and we finally have a place to hang our keys!

I have also been experimenting with more precise techniques for sewing. I can figure out how to accomplish just about any project, but I have not mastered any one particular aspect of the craft. So, in an effort to train myself more formally, I decided to undertake my first real quilt. This project will require that I sew together blocks, stitch "in the ditch" for a quilted effect, and combine colors and designs in a cute and tasteful manner. After researching quilt blocks I decided to incorporate pinwheels into my design. After further research and a few test runs, I figured out how to make a "perfect pinwheel". Not that it is actually perfect by any means! I simply made an extra effort to use good technique and take no shortcuts during this project. A tutorial for these pinwheels is soon to come!

Think

For our family worship we are beginning John Piper's book, Think. Today we prepared by reading the forward, introduction and first chapter. Then we came together after dinner and read the introduction together. Our readings always evolve into thoughtful discussions as this one certainly did. The Spirit was especially present in this devotional.

There were many direct quotes from the introduction that I highlighted and intend to utilize in some sort of needlework display, but there was one in particular that really summed up our perspective as homeschoolers and which did not include the verse from Proverbs 22 ("Train up a child in the way he should go"). Often people ask us why we chose to homeschool. Many people find it odd and automatically label us as anti-social, ill educated and conspicuous, especially when they have not been exposed to the products of the process (Collier and I). Piper says,

"...that all thinking-all learning, all education, all schooling, formal or informal, simple or sophisticated-exists for the love of God and the love of man."

This is precise, succinct, and clear enough for people to understand. I hope that we find more of these little gems as we read through the book as a family this December and take the time to pray, be challenged, and Think!

To Colorado We Go!

We have finally arrived (officially) in beautiful, snowy Colorado! The journey didn't go exactly as planned, but God's grace brought all of us home safely. The last couple of weeks in North Carolina were riddled with stresses as we realized that we were truly coming down to the wire on time. We decided to only focus on work that was required to prepare us for our final inspection on the barn. The electrical work was completed, the gas company installed our heat and water heater, and Papa Don has volunteered to be our plumber.

Dad came to visit us for Thanksgiving, a wonderful addition to the family gathered on the mountain. Only three days afterwards, he and Collier loaded up one of our vehicles and drove home to Colorado. While this left Mom and I to complete the work without our right hand man, we anticipated and prepared for our final week by completing all of the most difficult work when the boys were still in town, leaving Mom and I with tasks that we were confident that we could complete.

In order to prepare for Papa to install our plumbing (sinks and toilets) we needed to tile, grout, and seal the counter tops in the kitchen and on the bathroom vanities. We spent one day cutting granite for the kitchen and piecing it all together to make absolutely certain that we had enough tile to complete the job and to decrease the time needed to actually lay the tile with mortar.



The bathrooms turned out nicely as well. As you can see we went ahead and set the sinks in for aesthetics. We couldn't help ourselves! We wanted to see what it will look like all put together.



Here are a few other pictures of the finished product with some staging and decor.






Also, you might find it enjoyable to go on a video tour with me. You can access it HERE. Please forgive the crazy camera angles. For whatever reason it did not occur to me that I would not be able to rotate the images because I was recording a...ahem...video. I tend to be a bit technologically challenged, and to be honest I did not have my go-to guy (Collier) there to correct my blunder.

After completing the counter tops, staging a few rooms, and organizing the work shop Mom and I took off with the remainder of our belongings and little Noah. We had planned to stay at an Air Force base in Missouri after about 15 hours of driving, but they were booked. With our truck-load of tools and the puppy we really didn't want to find a hotel so we decided to keep on going. We left at 9am on Tuesday morning and arrived home at 6:15am the following morning. With two time changes, gas stops, and one sit-down meal we thought we did fairly well getting home and surprised the boys (they thought we had stopped during the night). We actually made it in time to greet Dad as he left for work.

It is so wonderful to be home! There is still much moving-in and organizing to do, but we feel relatively settled for the moment. Currently we are looking forward to our New Years Eve bonanza with all of our dear friends here in Colorado. It is wonderful to feel like we are coming home to a sweet "Colorado Family".

On Friday we decorated our Christmas tree. Pictures and updates to come!