Sometimes It's Hard to Pray

It's Marriage Monday

Well this past week hasn't been so sweet in my marriage. Philip has taken a HUGE step backwards. I was so very proud of Philip for all he gave up once he came home from Iraq last November. He stopped drinking and smoking. Philip was a new man when he came home from Iraq. He was EVERYTHING I prayed so hard for. I was amazed at how God answered my prayers and it was so awesome to see the answer to my prayers walking around me, hugging me, talking and walking with me every day! I was on "cloud nine". I was bursting with happiness! I could not contain my happiness to just my household. I had to share with the world- or at least my extended family and friends. I wanted to shout from the mountain tops how proud I was of MY man! However since I'm in no shape to climb to the top of a mountain, and even if I did get to the top of the mountain no one would hear my proclamation of love for my "new" man. So I did the next best thing... I emailed EVERYONE, I called EVERYONE, I instant messaged EVERYONE, I talked to EVERYONE I crossed paths with while around my neighborhood!! I experienced amazing feelings while Philip was sober and smoke-free. It was an awesome feeling to witness his priorities. They were straight and narrow. He was happy, proud, full of joy, encouraging, supportive, loving and caring. He was a great communicator. He talked with me about everything!
Well while we were on our vacation Philip began taking steps backwards. He had a drink. when he said to me, "I am going to go get a drink", I felt like a HUGE sword just stabbed me in my stomach. I felt sick. I knew this drink would push the door WIDE OPEN!
And so it did. Philip is drinking again. It truly breaks my heart. It hurts to even type those words. Every time I see him bring a drink up to his lips it feels like he is drinking away our marriage, our kids happiness, my joy. When he drinks he is refilling his cup or opening another bottle of selfishness, hate, hurtfulness, carelessness, and lays one more brick to the wall in my heart.
I prayed, I supported, I encouraged, I comforted, I followed, I stood in his corner while the world around him was biting at his ankles, I forgave and for some months I reaped what I had prayed so hard for.
He stays out all night and the sun always beats him into my home. I lay in my bed all night not able to sleep. My mind goes and spins. I try to imagine God's whisper in my ear, "I LOVE YOU". I try to imagine God's whisper, "I AM HERE". I try to feel God's arms around me. The next day I try with all I have to put on a smile and hope the girls did not notice that he was not home the night before. I pray they did not hear his slurred speech and swearing. I hope they did not peer around the corner to see him stumble or fall.

Family Game Night!

A few night ago Philip downloaded Monopoly to his XBOX 360 (XBOX is a game system) We were all pretty excited about playing Monopoly on the TV! Every time we play on the XBOX we get to choose from 4 different Monopoly boards. The classic board, future board, sweets board and the world board. The girls and I picked the sweets board. My game piece was a gingerbread man, Joslyn was a cupcake, Allison was a wrapped candy and Philip was a donut.

We all had a super fun time playing the game! We played Monopoly until 1am. Philip came to a point in the game where he owed me $600 for landing on my property (I had 2 houses on my property) He was going to go bankrupt or had to sell ALL his property. All of a sudden he became "tired" and wanted to go to bed. All in fun though, that was okay. It was 1am and Philip did have to go to work in a few hours! Can't wait until our next family game night!!

Little Business Lady!

Last week Allison finally got one of her wishes. A lot of children had lemonade stands around our neighborhood. Allison wanted to sell something different than all the other kids. She thought of things that kids really like to eat. Allison came up with the idea to sell pickles and cookies. I took her to the commissary. Allison picked out a big jar of huge dill pickles and a package of chocolate chip cookies. Allison bought the pickles and cookies with her allowance. She also bought small ziplock bags. We came home and put one pickle in each ziplock bag. We also put 2 cookies into one ziplock bag. Together Allison and I did some math together. We figured if she sold every pickle in the jar for 50 cents each she would make a profit of $5. We also figured if she sold a bag of 2 cookies for 25 cents each she would make a profit of $3.
Philip drove around our neighborhood, looking for an old table. He also went to the recycling center. Philip found an old, small bookshelf. I filled a small cooler with ice from our freezer and we put the pickles in the cooler. Allison made a cute sign for her stand. She placed her pickle/cookie stand in the shade, and on the sidewalk of one of the busiest street in our neighborhood. Her stand was also across the street from the recycling center. Its all about location, location, location!

Allison did a pretty good job selling cookies and pickles. She came home with $4! She had a lot of fun! Now Allison would like to have a picnic outside with a few of her girlfriends. So we are working on the details of Allison's picnic!

Weekend Fun!

Our family was invited to help celebrate our little friend's 4th birthday on Saturday. It was a super cute party. The kids had fun jumping in the bounce house and playing on the playground. Everyone made dump trucks out of twinkies, mini oreos, frosting, and crushed gram crackers. Happy Birthday, Jackson!

Sunday evening Philip and I took Moriah to one of the many parks in our neighborhood. Allison came along (Joslyn was out playing with her friends).

Wonderful & Amazing Summer Vacation of 2010!

We just returned from a wonderful vacation aboard the Costa Fortuna Cruise ship! Our summer vacation began on Saturday June 26th when we left our home and drove to Frankfurt Hahn. We spent the night at a nice hotel in Frankfurt Hahn. Sunday morning (June 27th) we boarded our plane on Ryan Air (a European airline) and flew to Treviso Airport. Once we landed in Treviso, we collected our luggage and boarded a shuttle bus to Venice, Italy. Once in Venice we found the Bread and Breakfast where we would spend the night. Joslyn, Philip and Allison changed into fancy clothes and took a water taxi to the opera house, Teatro La Fenice to see Giro Di Vite in Italian. Moriah and I sat down at a restaurant along side one of the canals and shared a pizza. Once Philip, and the girls returned from the opera and shared their experience with me, we all went to have dinner, explore some of Venice and had ice cream. We had a nice night in our hotel and we all slept well.
Monday afternoon (June 28) we all went to a resturant in Venice to have lunch before we boarded the Costa Fortuna Cruise ship.

We were so excited to board the Costa Fortuna Cruise ship and make it our home for the next 7 days!

After Philip, the girls and I settled into our room we went to explore a bit of the ship. We went out onto the deck and saw Venice from the ship. We took the girls swimming for a bit. Our Cabin Stewart gave us an itinerary of the evening events aboard the ship. We were also given information about the restaurant that we would eat at every night while on the ship. The restaurant we ate dinner at every night was The Michelangelo Restaurant. (The ceiling in the restaurant was a replica painting of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel)We would have the same waiter every night. We would also have the same assistant waiter every night. Our assistant waiter would bring our drinks to us.
Every night at around 10pm our Cabin Stewart would deliver a daily paper titled Today to our room. The Today paper was an itinerary of the daily events, hour by hour, that would happen on the ship the next day. The Today paper also gave us the weather and time expected to be at our next days' destination. We were also given the time that the ship would leave the port of the city we were to visit. I carried our daily Today paper every where.
Tuesday morning we woke up in Bari, Italy (June 29th). Our ship took us from Venice, Italy to the bottom of the "boot". We had breakfast in our room before we headed out to explore Bari. (every evening we also received a menu with breakfast items for the next morning. We checked the items we wanted and how many of that item we wanted and hung the order/ menu form on the outside of our cabin door.)
Wednesday (June 30th) we went to Olympia, Greece however Philip was not feeling well at all so we stayed on the ship. The girls and I spent most of the day at the pool.
Thursday (July 1st) we arrived in the bay of Santorini, Greece!

Santorini, Greece is so beautiful! I absolutely love Santorini. The people are so sweet and the food is delicious! After visiting Santorini I know my 3rd favorite place in the world! #1 is San Antonio of course. My family is there and that will ALWAYS be my home! California is #2. I love CA. I love the weather, the beaches, the cold lakes, rivers, (unlike TX the bodies of water are actually cold and will cool you off on a hot day) mountains and of course most of my extended family lives there! Now #3 is Santorini, Greece!
After we did some sight seeing in Santorini we had to be on the ship before 12pm. The ship was leaving Santorini at 12pm. We only had about 2 hours on the ship before our ship docked in Mykonos, Greece. Mykonos, Greece is a very beautiful city too. I think Mykonos is a more modern city than Santorini. We saw windmills and the beautiful beach in Mykonos! We also witnessed an amazing sunset while we were in Mykonos!

On Friday (July 2nd) we stopped in Rhodes, Greece. We walked to the "New City" of Rhodes and saw the place where it is believed that The Colossus of Rhodes stood (at the entrance of the harbor) It is one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

We also had a fun and educational experience as we walked through the Archaeological Museum of Rhodes which is in the medieval building of the Hospital of the Knights.

It was a great experience for the whole family!
Saturday (July 3rd) was our last stop. Our cruise ship took us took the country of Croatia. We visited a city called Dubrovnik. It was beautiful. We walked along the city wall of Dubrovnik. The view from the high city walls was amazing! The sea is so blue and so pretty!

Sunday (July 4th) we spent the entire day at sea which for our family meant an entire day at the pool! We had lunch poolside and Moriah had a nice long nap in the shade close to the pool. Our family was invited by some of the Costa Cruise staff to one of the party rooms on the ship. We celebrated the 4th of July with about 10 other American families on the ship. We were served glasses of champagne and the kids were served glasses of punch. We were also served delicious hors d'oeuvres. There was a cake as well!

Bright and early Monday (July 5th) morning we woke up back in the port of Venice, Italy! Our family along with the other guests disembarked the ship. Our vacation however was not over yet! We said good bye to what was our home for the last week and made our way to a beautiful in Venice!

We did a lot more exploring in Venice. We went to San Marco Square, Rialto Bridge,  and of course rode a Gondola down the canals of Venice and through the Grand Canal of Venice! We had delicious Italian pizza, and did a lot of souvenir shopping as well!

Tuesday night at 10pm (July 6) we flew out of Treviso Airport and said good bye to Venice, Italy. We arrived in Frankfurt Hahn aound midnight and drove to a small town a few miles from Hahn. We were exhausted! Early Wednesday morning (July 7th) we ate breakfast at the hotel and then drove back to our home in Schweinfurt! We all had a WONDERFUL summer vacation!!!

Marriage Monday- Appreciating Blessings in my Marriage

Today is Marriage Monday. A great time to reflect on my marriage- its strengths and weaknesses.
I just finished reading Mrs. Julie's blog Come Have A Peace. The post today is titled Facebook & Faithfulness
As I read this post I was reminded about the social network site, Myspace.(It is very similar to facebook.) My husband and I had 2 different accounts on Myspace. In 2008 I found messages to my husband from other women in his inbox. I immediately became insecure. At the time that I found the messages Philip was having real struggles within himself, work and our marriage. This began a string of bad decisions Philip was making through out the summer of 2008. (My stomach gets all knotted up just thinking about that summer, and all the bad, irresponsible decisions Philip made) Now I can appreciate that time of struggle in my marriage. The summer of 2008 brought me so, so much closer to God and my relationship with Christ was so strong! I prayed AT LEAST twice a day for my marriage and my husband. I prayed more for Philip than I prayed for my kids, myself or parents!
I have recently deleted the Myspace account I had for a few years. I am now on facebook and have been for a while. Philip still has his account with Myspace, but very rarely signs into his account. I always pray that Philip will not open an account with facebook for the exact reasons stated in Facebook and Faithfulness.
I have experienced a lot while Philip was an active user on Myspace. I now see how many people that Philip and I both know from school or past encounters. I think I would become very insecure if Philip had a facebook account (still praying about my insecurities). I praise God that Philip does not show any interest in signing up for facebook. I pray he will never have interest in any other social network sites again! I trust Philip, I just don't trust the intentions of all women out there.
Well I am going to thank God for the many blessing he has blessed my marriage with. During the summer of 2008 I honestly thought my prayers were going unheard. I would have never imagined the tremendous changes in Philip were possible. How crazy was I! It was very, very hard for me to see anything during the "storm" in my marriage. The storm has since past (it was about a 4 month long "storm")and I can see how AWESOME God was, is and always will be! I know I have blogged about the many positive changes in Philip and in his personality.
Now every time it begins to even slightly drizzle on our marriage- little arguments here and there, I go STRAIGHT to God in prayer! I know everything and anything is possible for God and I am a witness to his amazing, awesome, mighty power! I encourage you to pray for your husband daily! Never give up on praying for him. It may take a few weeks before you see how God answers your prayer, maybe 4 months, maybe longer. Just be fervent, persistent, and faithful as you cover your husband in prayer. Recruit all your "Prayer Warriors" to help you lift your husband up in prayer! Your prayers will be answered. I need to remind myself of this too!
A good book to help you through storms in your marriage is The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian. I took this book everywhere I went! I still take this book with me where ever I go (when I travel)
Have a wonderful day as you reflect on your Marriage this Monday!

What a Wonderful Week!

Monday was the girls last day of school. Joslyn graduated from elementary school. Joslyn made all A's on every single report card while in elementary school! How awesome is that! Joslyn received the President's Award for Academic Excellence! She earned this award by maintaining a GPA of 90 or above for the entire school year! We are extremely proud of her!!

Joslyn and the school principle, Ms Holt

As I have mentioned in previous posts, Allison did not receive numeric grades in 3rd grade. She will receive numeric grades in 4th grade. Allison did very well this school year too! We went to a local German restaurant to celebrate the girl's hard work and wonderful success.(I forgot to take my camera to the restaurant) We actually walked to the restaurant. It was a very nice evening and we enjoyed dinner outside!
So we really don't have many plans for this summer. We are leaving in a few days (notice my countdown in the sidebar) on a cruise. We will also spend a few days in Venice, Italy! We are all very excited! I would like to make a trip to Berlin, Germany sometime this summer and I would also like to visit the Black Forest! Hope you all have had a wonderful weekend!