Remember these fellas?
Well, my friend Tiffany and I were driving around town when we snagged them off of the curb, about to be tossed! I think it is important to note that Tiff. was about 7 or 8 months pregnant at the time… what a true friend!
Well, it has taken me until now (um… a year later) to actually do anything with them.
Baxter, get out of the way!!
Chris and I have recently begun a Saturday morning tradition of going to a local diner, Pop’s. I am so excited for these mornings that we are able to spend together. Sometimes we bring our bibles, sometimes we bring whatever book our small-group is going through at the time (right now it is this book), sometimes we bring our my calendar and talk about what events are coming up…. but mostly we just bring our appetites. 
There are only two locations, but if you live in Virginia Beach or Chesapeake, then you are probably only a quick 5 minute interstate trip from one – Lucky you!
Now, Pop’s is not a cute old diner with a lot of history (which I have yet to discover here in this busy, sort of dirty, city that I live in – let me know if you know of one). However, it does have its charms…and one of the best things is that it has been mostly undiscovered by ‘locals’.
(haha, I’m not sure why I don’t consider myself a local, seeing as how I was born and raised here in Hampton Roads…maybe it’s because I have always secretly wished I had grown up in a smaller town and don’t associate myself with these ‘city folks’).
A local Porsche club has also found Pop’s and deemed it their favorite meeting spot for Saturday mornings.
This is the only shot I was able to get, but the Porsches filled up this lot and the neighboring lots.
not sure if this one is a Porche…. but it certainly is cool looking
(and I certainly wouldn’t have parked it next to that van, which will most likely have kids jumping in and out of it, flinging doors open all willy-nilly)
What is your favorite local hot-spot?
This will be a big year for New Beginnings Christian Church. Woop-woop!
Our church currently meets in a school gymnasium every Sunday morning.
We don’t own our own building yet, so we rent from a small private school.
That means…
Unloading giant container-carts full of supplies
setting up those supplies
setting up chairs in perfectly-placed lines
Putting together power-point screens and projectors
Running cables to and from instruments and sound equipment
and many other things
… every Sunday morning.
and then, of course, packing it all back up nicely to fit back in those container-carts, which are then placed strategically back into a trailer truck, which is then hauled away to be stored in a super secret location until the the following Sunday.
“woops, you can’t find your keys now? You think they might have been in the ‘welcome center’ container? Too bad, that’s the first one that’s loaded into the trailer…you’ll see ‘em in a week!”
Anyway, I digress…
This is a big year for us because we are finally moving forward with building our own building!! We currently own approximately 15 acres in the sort-of-boonies, about 5 minutes from the border between Virginia and North Carolina.
The property was, and still sort-of is, zoned for farming. The first structure we built on had to be called a ‘pole barn’ instead of a pavilion, just to meet zoning rules.
Lemme just say, we love our Pole Barn.
We’ll use any excuse to hold worship on the property under the pole barn.
Unfortunately, during really hot or cold months we aren’t able to.
We will hopefully break ground in the next couple of months and then be able to worship in a building with walls!
All this to say….
here’s what we did last weekend: a little bit of grunt work to get things prepped for the Easter service on the land.
Also, Baxter tagged along to get some runnin’ around time.
We also used this opportunity to do some doggy socializing.
Our friends brought their dog, Casey, who is a Cairn Terrier.
In our minds: Terrier + Terrier = brotherly love.
Not true! Why didn’t you guys warn me?
After circling them around one another and ‘moving in slowly’ it seemed like all was going well, when suddenly…there was an ‘attack’.
Lemme just say…there was an immense amount of barking and gnashing of teeth.
It sounded like wolves fighting over the last elk left on the tundra!
When the event is re-capped by everyone else, they tell me that all of the screaming was actually coming from me! I don’t recall that part of it.
In my memory of that moment, all I saw was sharp pointy teeth and I heard the yelping of my little pup, Baxter!
Baxter didn’t even seem scathed by the ‘attack’ (as I’ve taken to calling it these past few days).
I guess in my naiveté I though “all dogs get along”… just like “all dogs go to heaven” .
Stop licking your chops Casey… you don’t get Baxter as a snack today!!!
Also… it was really windy that day.
We sought refuge out of the wind to enjoy our Nathan’s dogs in the truck.
And there was also a really pretty bird… who very dumbly made a nest in the middle of the field (where the lawn mowers and tractors roam freely)!
This momma bird is very lucky someone spotted her nest before this patch of grass was mowed. The eggs are SO beautifully speckled and camouflaged.
Happy hatching little fellas!
He is jealous for me.
Loves like a hurricane;
I am a tree,bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory.
And I realize just how beautiful You are and how great Your affections are for me.
So we are His portion and He is our prize,
drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes;
if grace is an ocean we’re all sinking.
I love this song. It has been in my head all weekend.
O Happy Sunday!
