I know, I know…it’s been SOOOOO long.  I think I have maybe two readers left, but that is ok!  I will just write to myself for a little while.  Ha!  We have been so busy trying to get our footing on solid ground with homeschooling, piano teaching, dance lessons, speech therapy, and well, just life!  It is all going very well but it got so busy!  I have missed the blog and my random posts…

In other news, for family and close friends I have set up a private blog at www.mockavenue.com.  You must register to access the site, and we must approve you.  There I will be sharing more photos, more private family stories and events that I keep from the public blog.

Up next:  A randomness post!!!  Oh yes!!!!  Can you stand the excitement?

I was so privileged as to have the opportunity to co-write a blog post with my sweet friend Linda Reppert recently about a story from her life and what we can all learn from it.

The rumble of dozens of motorcycles were felt before they were heard. We were on a weekend getaway in the early years of marriage. To fit this trip into our tight budget, we made our reservation site unseen at a low budget motel near Stone Mountain, Georgia.

The rumble grew to a roar, then to a stop…

Read on.

• It’s August.  And it’s hot.
• Just took the dog and the kids on a morning walk and bike ride.  It says its 81…weather.com says it feels like 88.
• Tara says it feels like 100.
• I got S signed up for dance classes this year.  Ballet/tap combo is on the schedule!  Saying she is excited is an understatement.
• Our 3-going-on-13-year-old also has a major dose of attitude and drama going on right now.  Whew.
• Teen drama doesn’t start at 3 years old, right?  Oh.  My.  Word.  I feel my hair turning gray already.
• I wish we lived in a neighborhood with a community pool.  I am beginning to see the benefits of having such a feature in this unending summer as a parent of fish-children.
• We were blessed to be able to go swim at a friends’ community pool today.  I’m having a ball watching my kids get stronger and stronger at swimming.  Even G finally got the hang of underwater swimming today!  Yea!!!
• My favorite book of the Bible is currently Ephesians.  Wow.  Yup, that is pretty much it.  Wow.  WOW.  Love it intensely.
• I have favorite movie soundtracks I like to listen to:  Last of the Mohicans, Lord of the Rings, and Pirates of the Caribbean.  Those are faves, with Pirates probably being my all-time fave right now.
• (Ask me next week, I’ll probably change my mind again.)
• Do you have a favorite movie soundtrack?

Evidence Not Seen by Darlene Diebler Rose

I just finished reading the most amazing story of faith by Darlene Diebler Rose entitled Evidence Not Seen.  She and her husband, as newlyweds, were missionaries serving in the jungles New Guinea when World War II began and they were taken prisoner by the Japanese and spent the next four years in Japanese prison camps.  She was forced to sign a confession to a crime she did not commit, faced an executioner’s sword…and was miraculously spared.

This story of faith and perseverance and humility and strength is amazing.  If you love Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place, you will absolutely love this book.  Miracle after miracle happened, evidence of God getting the glory for providing abundantly more than they could ever ask or imagine happened regularly!  My favorite scene was her begging for even one banana and ninety-two bananas showed up.  WOW.  How can you not cry at that?

Her willingness to learn more and more about His character throughout these trying years and life-threatening circumstances without letting bitterness drag her down is only one aspect of this amazing testimony that inspires me.  It remains inspiring and convicting all at the same time!  How important it is to hide the word of God in our hearts!

Pick it up.  You won’t regret it!

Ah, Roma!  I was just beside myself in excitement to get to Rome.  As you can tell from my Pompeii post, it just thrills me to my toes to be able to see in person what I’ve only read about or seen in pictures before.  I was most excited to be able to see the Coliseum.

To back up a little bit, I wanted to admit to a slight fear of traveling in foreign countries.  We had been to England back in 2000 as large family trip of sorts and I loved it.  England was very easy to travel around with the trains and the Underground, not to mention the language minus the terminology differences.  It was the language similarity there that gave me a certain comfort level.  What I discovered is that it is really not so bad!  Italy was a very friendly place, the Italian terminology very easy to figure out, especially when you have a background of some Spanish.  The trains were, like England, very easy to navigate as was the Metro, also like England.  And cheap!  Relatively.

My entire goal in Rome was to see the Coliseum.

The Coliseum (and Larry's thumb's up)

What was amazing to me was the amount of ladies who toured rome and the treacherous ankle-twister streets of the ruins in high heels.  Just like this.

Random lady getting ready to tour ruins of Coliseum in heels. Yes, I'm shameless. And perplexed. My ankles hurt just looking at her.

The inside of the Coliseum.  It was everything I thought it would be.  I just loved being there.  Also a bit bittersweet, knowing that Christians were martyred in that place.

They built a replica of the floor at one end over the ruins of the tunnels underneath at one end of the Coliseum.

I personally liked the characters of the Roman gladiators here and there to appease the tourists.  Cheesy, if you ask me.  My favorite part, however, is when you catch them with baseball caps on.

Roman gladiators and baseball caps. Good stuff.

Oh, let me back up, we stopped by Trevvi Fountain first, as well as the Spanish steps.  Here is us in front of the Trevvi Fountain.  It’s huge and beautiful and CROWDED.

Trevvi Fountain or Fontana di Trevvi (I think?)

And the crowd…

Very crowded at the Trevvi Fountain. Lots of coin throwing.

Back to the ruins at the Coliseum.  We moved on to the Forums and other ruins.  Here, we walked through a park-like area and saw some of the aquaducts.  Chris loved that.  Here he is under part of it.

Chris under the aquaduct

We proceeded on to other areas.  We did not do a formal tour so I need to do more research on exactly what we saw.  I think this is us in front of the Temple of Apollo.  It was HUGE.

All the temples everywhere was very, uh, weird.  Being a family of Christian faith, it just felt so wrong and weird and I was thankful they were ruins.  The history was interesting.  I have some reading to do.

After walking and walking and more walking through Rome, we decided it was time to catch the train back to Civitavecchia to board our ship.  We really wanted to stop and see St. Peters and Vatican but there was limited time and foot power remaining.  It would have to wait for another trip back to Rome.  We really, really enjoyed seeing this amazing city and we know only touched the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we saw so we look forward to returning in the next five or ten years hopefully.

Next:  Florence!