Over the past few weeks Avoca Praise! has been working on some new stuff. Last night we had a concert at church to introduce the new songs to the congregation. My prayer before the concert last night was that people wouldn't just see us performing on stage but that the music would point them to God and help them focus on how AWESOME He is. Today I am still praying that is what happened last night. We all had a lot of fun at the concert and the band sounded really great and I give God all the glory for that!

Last Monday night the band got to record many of the songs from the concert at Bandy Brownlee's studio. Tonight Heather and I will begin adding some of the vocals and then the rest of the vocals will be added later. Recording is a very difficult thing so if you think about it, please say a prayer for us that we will be able to get it right and not get too frustrated or cause Bandy to go crazy!!

Tonight we had a BLAST (our Sunday night kids' program) party at the putt-putt course in Chinquapin. Where else can you putt-putt and feed goats all at the same time. The owners of the course reserved the entire course just for us, so our kiddos had the whole place to themselves! Everyone seemed to have a good time. Nicole managed to get the last cookie from Christy and then she fed it to the goats....how funny! On the way to putt-putt AND on the way back our van full of girls sang the songs from "CAMP ROCK" at the top of their lungs (sorry Chris)!! They really sounded quite good!

On Thursday, June 19th, Jac Cagle Lewis Gurley was born to our dear friends Jeff and Candy Gurley. Mom. Dad, and baby Jac are all doing well. We are so excited for Jeff and Candy as they have been waiting a long time for this day to come! CONGRATULATIONS!

This was forwarded to me by my mom...she received it from a precious family friend of ours. When I read this I got a bit emotional...God is an AWESOME God!

A couple of days ago I was running (I use that term very loosely) on my treadmill, watching a DVD sermon by Louie Giglio...and I was BLOWN AWAY! I want to share what I learned....but I fear not being able to convey it as well as I want. I will share anyway. He (Louie) was talking about how inconceivably BIG our God is...how He spoke the universe into being...how He breathes stars out of His mouth that are huge raging balls of fire...etc. etc. Then He went on to speak of how this star-breathing, universe creating God ALSO knitted our human bodies together with amazing detail and wonder. At this point I am LOVING it (fascinating from a medical standpoint, you know.) .....and I was remembering how I was constantly amazed during medical school as I learned more and more about God's handiwork. I remember so many times thinking....'How can ANYONE deny that a Creator did all of this???' Louie went on to talk about how we can trust that the God who created all this, also has the power to hold it all together when things seem to be falling apart...how our loving Creator is also our sustainer. And then I lost my breath And it wasn't because I was running my treadmill, either!!! It was because he started talking about laminin. I knew about laminin.

Here is how wikipedia describes them :'Laminins are a family of proteins that are an integral part of the structural scaffolding of basement membranes in almost every animal tissue.' You see....laminins are what hold us together....LITERALLY. They are cell adhesion molecules. They are what holds one cell of our bodies to the next cell. Without them, we would literally fall apart. And I knew all this already. But what I didn't know is what laminin LOOKED LIKE. But now I do. And I have thought about it a thousand times since (already)....Here is what the structure of laminin looks like...AND THIS IS NOT a 'Christian portrayal' of it....if you look up laminin in any scientific/medical piece of literature, this is what you will see...

Now tell me that our God is not the coolest!!! Amazing! The 'glue' that holds us together....ALL of us....is in the shape of the cross. Immediately Colossians 1:15-17 comes to mind. 'He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth , visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things HOLD TOGETHER. ' Colossians 1:15-17

Call me crazy. I just think that is very, very, very cool. Thousands of years before the world knew anything about laminin, Paul penned those words. And now we see that from a very LITERAL standpoint, we are held together...one cell to another....by the cross. You would never in a quadrillion years convince me that is anything other than the mark of a Creator who knew EXACTLY what laminin 'glue' would look like long before Adam even breathed his first breath!!We praise YOU, Lord!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "

Here is the official "Myrtle Beach Gang" photograph. Thanks Dennis!

Today we are traveling to Knoxville to have family photographs done by the amazing Julie Roberts. We haven't had professional photographs taken in a very long time so we are very excited! Thanks to Larry and Christy (and all the rest of you that have shared your Julie Roberts' pictures with us) for introducing us to Julie's work!

On Monday night a terrible storm blew through the Bristol area. At our house we experienced some pretty incredible lighting but we had very little rain. We did have one tree that didn't make it through the storm. Thankfully it is not in danger of falling on our house. We are not sure if it was struck by lighting or if it just couldn't withstand the wind. It is a pretty tall tree so if anyone needs some firewood...just let us know.

Another storm passed over our house tonight. There wasn't as much lightning but we did get a heavy rain. I was told that at the South Holston Little League field that rain was actually blowing sideways...YUCK! I am sure there were some very wet ball players!

Tonight the girls went to VBS with their grandma. When I went outside a little before 9:00 to welcome them home, everything had a pink tint to it. When I looked up at the sky, the clouds were just gorgeous. God had painted the sky with a beautiful scene. Maybe it was to remind me that He is in control even during the storm (whether that be a weather related storm or a storm in my life)! God is so good ALL the time!

On a completely different note...we recently discovered that we have foxes living near our house. They are living in old ground hog holes and we can watch them from our deck. We have seen a momma and two babies. They are really beautiful animals but I am not sure that I am crazy about having them live that close to us! I guess that is what we get for living in the middle of a field! The picture below was taken while standing on our deck.

Alison somehow talked us in to letting her bring a hermit crab home from the beach. We bought the cage and got the hermit crab for "free". Well, Myrtle (as Alison named her) made the trip from Myrtle Beach just fine. She even got to go in with us to eat lunch on our way back. Alison noticed that this morning that she hadn't moved much. We came home this afternoon and of course the first thing Alison wanted to do was check on Myrtle. Well, as soon as Alison (and Nicole) got to her room, I started to hear loud sobs from both of the girls. I knew that something bad had happened to Myrtle. Alison said that when she picked her up she just fell apart. Sure enough parts of Myrtle were on the bottom of the cage. Chris did a google search on this and found out that hermit crabs often "fall apart" as a result of stress while adapting to a new environment...who knew....they forgot to mention that when we purchased Myrtle. We learned that there is nothing really you can do for hermit crabs when this happens and that they soon perish...so we had to say good bye to Myrtle.

I felt terrible about the whole situation, Alison thought that she had done something wrong and Nikki drew a sad picture of two little girls crying. Anyway, I made an EMERGENCY trip to Pet Partners and returned with not one hermit crab but TWO (the girl at the store said I needed two so they could be buddies...good sales pitch!). Now we have the penthouse of crab habitats and two very happy crabs(not sure how you tell if a hermit crab is happy but they seem happy). Alison named hers Beth (she said she named it after me - Beth is my middle name...I've never had a hermit crab named after me) and Nicole named hers Hailey.

This is Nicole's new friend - Hailey

This is Alison's new friend - Beth

We made it home from the beach today. We had a wonderful time on vacation but it sure is nice to be back home. It is amazing how quickly time flies when you are on vacation...during a normal work week the time never goes by that fast!

All of Chris' family, Tracy's dad, Dennis' sister and her family and my mom got to enjoy spending some quality time together. We especially enjoyed the time we spent at Myrtle Beach State Park. We were able to have a cookout, sit back away from all of the hustle and bustle, and enjoy God's beautiful creation!

We are at Myrtle Beach enjoying some rest and relaxation! The weather has been hot but beautiful!

This is the view looking south from our resort!

This is the pier at Myrtle Beach State Park.

Alison and Nicole were "trying not to get wet"!

Nicole's cute litte feet on the beach.

I am not sure why but we saw a ton of jellyfish washed up on the shores all around Myrtle Beach!

Yesterday, Chris and the girls had some fun Boogie Boarding!

OK...I had some fun too!

Today Alison and Nicole had fun playing in the pool!