Weeds

Really??? I've never seen so many dandelions as this year! These are in the field just across the street.

Because of the curse!

"He told the Man: 'Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from, 'Don't eat from this tree,' the very ground is cursed because of you; getting food from the ground will be as painful as having babies is for your wife; you'll be working in pain all your life long. The ground will sprout thorns and weeds, you'll get your food the hard way, planting and tilling and harvesting, sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk, until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried; you started out as dirt, you'll end up dirt.' "
Genesis 3:16-18, The Message

"But Christ rescued us from the Law's curse, when He became a curse in our place. This is because the Scriptures say that anyone who is nailed to a tree is under a curse."
Galatians 3:12-14, Contemporary English Version

Christ Is Risen lyrics and music video provided by SongLyrics.com

Commissioning

Last Sunday, Palm Sunday, was our son-in-law's last Sunday as worship pastor of our church.

Our church is birthing a new church in Hillsboro, Kansas. Many from our church are going to help start this new church.

Adam is going to be the new pastor!

I will sorely miss seeing my grandbabies popping their head in the nursery to tell me "hi, Nana!". And my new grandbaby won't be in our care Sunday morning either. Adam's mother was Hannah's 1st grade Sunday School teacher and his dad was a helper with Sophia. They will be missing them too. But right now, they aren't moving and we do see them during the week.

We are so excited for this new journey God has brought their way. Praying for them as they follow His lead and praying for those who do not know Christ in Hillsboro and in the surrounding areas! Blessings!!

Drive home

We got up early and out of Birmingham before 6:30. If you wait even one half hour later, you will be in gridlock with traffic headed to work. A stop at Starbucks and we were off.

Look at the fog! A blogger friend's son once said "Fog is when God tears off a piece of cloud like cotton candy and puts it on the ground."
It is a long drive back to Kansas. But we are adventurous and we decided to take another scenic route after passing Little Rock. At Conway, we turned north on 65. This is the road through Damascus. :) on to Branson and Springfield. This is a picture of part of Damascus.
Couldn't resist a stop to see this.


It was a very steep and winding road and at the bottom there was this old log house. We had to pay a little admission fee to see this natural bridge.

I thought it was pretty cool. Worth the side trip I think.

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A close up of this vehicle. We were close to Branson.

When we got closer to Kansas, we began to hit all the bugs. Al wondered if there were any left for any birds to eat!

Well, it was a great trip to Birmingham!! We have a couple more scenic routes to take on the way there so we will have to go again!

Evening drive

In the evening, we went for another drive. This time to the northeast area of Birmingham, in the mountainous region of Lake Purdy.

Dogwoods in bloom everywhere!











Driving back to Mindy's, we saw the moon, Jupitar and Venus. You can barely see Venus in the tree branch.
We played Uno and Clue. I wasn't feeling very well (my symptoms from Rocky Mountain) but I won 3 games!! Woot woot! Then off to bed so we could get a good night's sleep for the long drive home (about 14 hours).

Morning drive

On the last morning in Birmingham, we slept in, ran some errands then Mindy took us to The Preserve. Birmingham has several of these communities, kind of like a village within the city. They have their own little "downtown" area.

The Preserve has southern style homes. Some other communities have an English flair to them or some other architectural style.
All the homes had front porches with chairs or swings on them. Such a friendly feel and country charm.
The garages are all out of sight in the back. The owners drive into their garages through a little back alleyway. It was so fun to walk around this little village.

Around lunch time, Mindy took us to Whole Foods, a unique grocery store.

We didn't really shop for much. We went through the various food bars and ate our lunch there.
Then it was home for afternoon rest time.