Well, its another Thursday and time to share my thanksgivings of the week.  But first I feel I must make some sort of explanation for my neglect of keeping up my blog of late.  It kind of goes hand in hand with giving thanks.  More than kind of, actually.  I am free now to share our praise and thanksgiving to God for His answer to our longstanding prayer for a special man to love and cherish our daughter, Emily.  Once God revealed His work in Emily's life, things started happening and so it is with great joy that we anticipate the marriage of Emily to Glenn on January 15th.

That praise and thanksgiving is only overshadowed by our humble thanksgiving as we prepare to celebrate the birth of God's only Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, at this time of year.  What joy could possibly compare with that!!  In answer to the question "Are you ready for Christmas?" I say a resounding "Yes and Amen!"

Thankfulness

I am very thankful for the rain we are receiving right now!  Its been raining most of the afternoon and so far its 0.84 inches on the rain gauge!

I am also thankful for the cooler temperatures.  Mid-seventies for the high of the day is practically perfect!  Murphy and I had a delightful walk this morning when it was 68 degrees and the skies were overcast.

Earlier in the week, we celebrated Emily's birthday.  Andy had Monday off so we took Emily and a friend water skiing and tubing.  As we switched to the tube, Murphy took advantage of the opportunity and jumped off the boat onto it so even he got to go for a ride!

We had a great time together!  Well, all of us humans anyway.  Murphy was a lot less enthusiastic as the boat got farther and farther away from us.  And once we anchored the boat and started swimming off of it, he was even less sure of the fun of the outing.  So we put him back aboard, never expecting that he would jump onto the clump of grassy weeds that went floating by!  I sure wish I could share a picture of that with you!

Anyway, we had a great time together and, back to gratitude to our gracious God, I am so thankful for the blessing of a loving family and the fun times we have together.

Thankfulness

Its been another hot week here in Crystal Lake, IL but we did get some rain last weekend and the grass is a bit less brown than its been.  Praise God for that!

I'm also praising God for the talent and abilities He has given to our Emily who is giving a concert on the harpsichord tomorrow.  Its a noon concert, part of a concert series at a church in a neighboring community, and I am thankful that I will be able to attend and enjoy it.

And I am thankful for some improvement in the residual pain associated with my shingles as well as the drugs that help to ease the pain.  Finally, I am thankful for your prayers on my behalf and for a God who listens to them.

Thankfulness

Our evening walks with Murphy have been so lovely this week!  Perfect temperatures and gorgeous sunsets over Crystal Lake!  And I just came back from a very pleasant (70 degrees) walk with Murphy this morning.  So I thank God for His provision of lovely mornings and evenings in this hot summer we've been having.

I'm still in the clutches of shingles so I was so thankful when Emily came home Tuesday evening with a loose fitting summer dress that she saw at Walmart and thought might be a perfect shingles dress.  She was right and I appreciate the thoughtful, loving daughter God has given me.

Speaking of family, I am thankful not only for our working A/C but for the fun times together we're enjoying despite the heat.  For me, its not what we're doing so much as the fact that we are together.  Even if we're each engaged in our own activity, we are together.  I am thankful for the gift of family.

How about you?  What good gifts has our gracious God given you this week?  Please share.

New Year's Eve Report

Emily and I have been attending a performance of the Jim Brickman Holiday Tour each Christmas season for the last couple of years. This year we enjoyed the show on New Year's Eve at Rockford, IL and it was excellent, as usual. Jim Brickman, America's Romantic Pianist, was joined again by vocalist Anne Cochran and electric violinist Tracy Silverman. New to the show was Benjamin Utecht, NFL star recently turned vocalist. After a fun, relaxing evening, we were walking out when we realized that Anne Cochran, Ben Utecht and Tracy Silverman were available in the lobby so we circled back to see what was going on. To make a long story short, we ended up getting our picture taken with Ben Utecht displaying his Super Bowl ring. Now this struck both of us as extremely funny because we are about the least sports-oriented people you can imagine...unless you count fishing as a sport, I guess. But at that point, we had never heard of Ben Utecht before, even related to music. So we got the picture and headed home to google him. For those of you in our category of sports knowledge, it turns out he was part of the winning team from Indianapolis, IN in the 2006 Super Bowl. And for those of you who are dying to see it, here's the picture...

That cute blond in the background is Ben's wife, Karyn, who was Miss Minnesota in 2005. We recognized her from his website.