Ice Cream & Hot Dogs & Such

Yep...that's right. Vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce first and then hot dogs . It was a backwards unhealthy dinner tonight and I thoroughly enjoyed each bite.

We heard our neighbors next door in their backyard cooking up some good 'ol BBQ and they were making sausage, ribs, hot dogs, and hamburgers...sure smelled good. We dropped Ashlyn off at church this evening and grabbed us some of our own meat...cheap dogs, with Ketchup and mayo and onions for me.

Just wanted you loved ones to know the finer things of life in the Downs home. Funny thing is, I may have a hot dog twice a year, so wanted to capture it while it happened.

I was going to get up at 6am this morning and take a picture of our neighborhood rooster, but after waking up at 3am and dozing off at 5:30, I thought it best to sleep in a bit and take a picture of the rooster another day, to show you.

A verse that has been on my heart today, "Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did." 1 John 2:6 I so desire more than anything to walk as my Savior did.

May you know the richness of God's blessing for you today.

March of Dimes Walk

Today Danyel, Erin, Robyn and I (from our Bible Study Group) went on an approximately 8 mile walk to raise money for research for premature babies. Our Fire Ladies team raised about $1200. Hundreds of people showed up for this good cause.The walk was originally suppose to be 6.25 miles, but at the turn around point we just continued on our way and explored a bit more of Fresno. We saw trees, hawks, a bunny, and walked by a variety of people on bikes, some happy, some not so happy.

Erin, me, Robyn, & Danyel (I love these ladies!)

At the start line...Robyn is there, Erin's arm couldn't quite reach far enough to get her in the picture.

After we broke off from the group beyond the turn around point.

Just to confirm, we do have wildlife in Fresno--a hawk

A bunny

What a great way to spend a Saturday...with friends and finished off our time together with Mexican food.

All I want 4 Christmas is my............VW Wagon! :)

Im 14, as most of everyone already knows, but im almost 15. For those of you that don't know 15 comes after 14 so 6 months after my big 15 party (not really) I will have a nifty drivers permit (hopefully, unless I crash b4 then, but thats impossible considering

i don't even know how to turn on the car) This made me wonder.....what car should I save for? A Porsche? A Ferrari? No, that may be a tad bit expensive... lets see. :) oh there is the one and only amazing VW Wagon out there! Oh yea give it up for the wonderous amazingly hideous car!

Don't you love it??? LOL. Wouldn't this be such a cool car to drive around the US of A? Sure the gas mileage is a mild problem and it may break down 24-7 in the middle of now where, but with God's help anything is possible :)

Precious New Friends

I had a draft of this post quite a while ago, but had to find the picture of our Fire Women Life Group so I could show them to you, and since our hard drive did something wierd, it took me awhile, but here we are.

The Lord continues to bless my socks off. I am so undeserving of His grace which makes it so sweet. He lavishes His grace on my life in countless ways. One way is through the ladies that I am privileged to do Bible Study with. The Lord has brought a potporri of us together from all different backgrounds and seasons of life and I absolutely love every second with each of them. Tonya Brownell and I are co-leading a journal study on the attributes of God, written by my friend Christie Lothamer (thanks to Kimi Akina Wright for introducing us 11 months ago). I love to minister with Tonya. She is such an encourager to me and invaluable as a partner in serving Jesus.

I love these ladies deeply!

Praise the Lord!

We got back last night from Hume Lake. I was blessed to go up and serve at the MADE conference which is for Jr. High girls. 125 girls were there and many made decisions for the Lord, to either go deeper with Him or to receive Him in their lives as Savior. Ashlyn & Julianne helped me with a craft to go along with the seminar I gave on having a "Great Time with God". The biggest blessing to me was when my girls came up to me and told me they had learned new things and enjoyed listening. How humbling to have my children who know me intimately encourage me, their Mom. Praise Him!

Thank you for praying for our family this last week, as two of our kids were experiencing a array of emotions after going up to Hume two weekends ago. We came down the hill last night and enjoyed some family time (Brian had been working on Friday and Saturday, so he didn't go to Hume with us), ate some ice cream, read John 2:1-12, when Jesus turned water into wine, had good discussion, then went to bed.

Praise the Lord for who He is! He is Sovereign & Righteous!