Home Sweet Home...

We are home and our hearts are full from an absolutely wonderful time with my family! Aaron and I were seriously so blessed to see our family interact with one another in a loving, servant-minded, Christ-honoring way! Thank you family, for being shining examples of Christ to Aaron and I (and even little Linnea).

Just to catalog our trip, I'll share with you the events that unfolded. :) If you aren't into all the little details, then just look at the pictures :)

We first spent the night in Livermor, CA, visiting with Aaron's Aunt and Uncle (mine, too, now!) and had a wonderful time! It was so fun to see their old home and all the projects that have done/are doing to it. They live in a beautiful town and had a nice big TV where Aaron and I throughouly enjoyed watching the World Cup on, rather than our little computer with a blurry screen. ;)We then headed just a few more miles up to Walnut Creek and visited with some friends of ours. We had a wonderful time with them and got to play with their little 6 month old, Lilly. Linnea wasn't very patient with Lilly's inability to move, so poor Lilly was often left to fend for herself.This pic was taken after we got home from church on Sunday......too cute.

We then got to celebrate my friend's 21st birthday....we just happen to be swinging through her town on her b-day, which was a fun treat! :)

...And on up to Orroville (south of Chico) we went to see Aaron's grandparents!! It is always a pleasure to be with them. Grandpa John always keeps me laughing :) and Grandma Janet couldn't get any sweeter than she already is!....I don't think so anyways, but I suppose it is possible. :) We had fun playing Wii Fit for the first time...which was quite a hoot! We were all laughing pretty good! Unfortunately it might be a while before we are invited back...Grandpa wasn't too happy we beat him in bowling. :)Linnea feel asleep on our walk with Grandma and Grandpa...
We then stopped for the last time before our big trip at in-laws of my in-laws' sister! ;) I don't know if I explained that right, but the Clarks were so sweet and hospitable to let us stay in there home to make our drive a bit shorter for the last day. She made a yummy breakfast, and was a wonderful host!

And then FINALLY we made it to Oregon! I won't go into super detail, but the home we stayed in was super big, which was a super blessing from the Lord. We didn't at all feel like we were on top of each other, and having the beach be our back yard made it feel like paradise. Much more important than the home we were in was the many new memories I have with the most precious people in the world to me....We had sweet times of fellowship, sang songs around a campfire on the beach, had a couple family devotionals, played lots of games, went for walks/runs on the beach, went skimboarding in what felt like 40 degree weather with lots of wind (it was SO fun!), jumped over the waves and screamed at the freezing water with my nieces, enjoyed too much yummy food, lost water weight in the sauna :), went out to a seafood restauraunt, relaxed on the patio with a good book, shopped at the outlets, got too many ice cream frappucinos from a cute little coffee place in town (ok, well Aaron did :)), had a photographer do a family photo shoot on the beach, and just simply had a relaxed time!

Linnea enjoyed the beach this time (we didn't put any sticky lotion on her), which was so fun. Although she wouldn't last too long, as it was quite cold and windy on the beach. She LOVED her cousins, but was a little stinker with her Aunts and Uncles and Grandma and Papa. It took Aunt Kristin the whole week to get Linnea to smile at her! :)She adored her cousin Grace and my cousin Brooklyn. Grace was like my little mommy helper all week long, which was SUCH a blessing! I'm so sad that I didn't get a picture of Linnea with Brooklyn, though.
She pushed Linnea around in this for a good 20 minutes! Linnea LOVED it....just sat back and relaxed! Spoiled little girl....
She only let us sleep in once (7:20!), but we had fun with her in the morning while everyone else was snoozing :) She just gets cuter and cuter every day, too. She started giving Mommy and Daddy kisses, which we are just LOVING! :) Aaron and I had a wonderful time together just the two of us as well. We read the Bible together in the morning, which helped get our days off to a good start with our focuse being on the Savior! My husband was such a servant to me, always being willing to help with Linnea! Thank you, Babe! :)Every time I am with my family it is hard to say goodbye. The reason being they are such a true joy to be around. I honestly don't take for granted the fact that Aaron and I are so blessed to have such wonderful, God-loving families who are so close to one another and more importantly close to the Lord. I just have to take one look around and see that MANY families are not that way. I praise the Lord for saving each member of my family and growing us all into HIS image. They are all beautiful examples in different ways of our Savior. Thank you, family, for allowing the Lord to use you in mighty ways!

We only made one stop on our way back down, but Linnea did quite well considering...definitely some moments of screaming and crying, but overall we were very thankful. Our stop was with another Aunt and Uncle of Aaron's, and though the time was short, we had a great time. There home and the area they live in is Paradise! Literally! That's the name of the town :) And the name is justified....it is beautiful!! Their house overlooks a gorgeous green valley....woods everywhere! I miss woods! We played a couple rounds of Bananagrams, which is a very fun game, and had a delicious breakfast. Aunt Carol then took us for a walk along a canal in the woods near where they live.

I have to admit, I'm having to work at being thankful for where we live and not jealous of people who get to live in the woods or somewhere where there is green, rain, and seasons! The Lord says to give thanks in everything and to not grumble and complain. I am learning that when I really open my eyes, no matter where I am, I can see the beauty of the Lord and all the wonderful things I have to be thankful for. And trust me, the more I think, the more things I realize I am thankful for living here. The list would be too long to write at the moment. :)

So that about sums up our fun family adventures! :)

On the Road!!

Just wanted to update everyone....

The Johnson family is officially on vacation!! We have been on the road since Friday and have slowly been heading up to Lincoln City Washington for a big Parker Family Reunion!! (Just our immediate family for the most part, but big enough to be called a family reunion!)

We have had wonderful visits with Aaron's Aunt and Uncle, some friends in the Bay area, and we are currently with Aaron's Grandma and Grandpa! We will make it to Loincoln City tomorrow

I want to share a sweet message from the dearest woman I know in Santa Clarita....her prayer for me is truly my prayer on this vacation, and my prayer for the rest of the Parker clan......

"If I could encourage you now, plan now for how you will continue to spend time in the word even in a house full of family...ask God for ways to serve your husband...and seek to serve and love on and enjoy that little girl of yours...even as you help her get used to new surroundings. Praying for some sweet fellowship with your mom and sister...what a blessing they are for you."

May we all depend on the Lord and grow in our deep love for Him through precious time in His Word...and may we always be looking for ways to glorify the Lord in serving one another, encouraging one another, and spuring one another on to love and good deeds. And may our fellowship truly incoorporate all those things! And may we be so thankful for the sweet new momories the Lord gives as a family!

Bed Hair

Sometimes her beauty sleep isn't so beautifying....



But she is STILL the cutest thing I have ever seen! :)

Brace Yourself....This is a Long One :)

Whew...it sure has been a while! But that is because the Johnson household has been going nonstop since "summer" started (even though summer hasn't technically started yet! :))....I'm sure the rest of you would say the same thing. For some reason, I still have the kid mentality that summer is a break, because it used to be that I would have a break from school, so summer would "slow down". Well, ever since my school days have been over, summer doesn't give me a "break" from my daily responsibilitie. But it is a wonderful busy time!

We kicked off our "summer" by taking a trip to Arizona to visit our wonderful family. It was truly a delightful, relaxing, time with the Johnson clan, and Linnea Joy was truly a "joy" :) to be around (last visit she had a bit of a difficult time sleeping, and wasn't quite herself). She napped beautifully (which was SUCH a blessing from the Lord) and grew to love Grammy, Grampy, Uncle Zach and Aunt Grace!




I tell yah, it has only gotten harder to be away from family now that we have a little girl....There are so many days where I look at her and think about how much our families' are missing out on the joys of watching Linnea grow up. The Lord knows that this is exactely where we are supposed to be, and we LOVE it here, and I can truly say we are content and thankful, but sometimes I wish family could be closer. It is indeed a desire of my heart. But MORE than that, I desire to be right where the Lord wants us, and that is right here! (Now....let it be known that we do indeed praise the Lord for James and Kimiko, who live .25 miles away :)!

......sorry for that little detour...... but since so many of you DO live so far away, let me update you on what our little girl has been up to lately.

She has been keeping mommy busy....really busy, because she is now cralwing all over the place! She started crawling shortly after my last post, which is probably why that was my last one until now :).She crawled for the first time over memorial day weekend while we were at Grammy and Grampys', which was so fun for them to see her crawl for the first time. She follows me all over the house, which is just adorable.




She finally just started popping a third tooth yesterday, and it's about time!...She has had her bottom two middle teeth for three months now, and the past few weeks she has been teething on everything and quite cranky! The third one is in a funny spot...on the bottom far right (don't know what it's called :))

She loves playing peek-a-boo. She did it for the first time in the car on our way home from Arizona.

She also went in a pool for the first time while we were there, and quite enjoyed it. She almost fell asleep on Grammy. And we went in the pool at a friends house, and floated in her little swim canopy and didn't move for ages...she once again almost fell asleep...so it's safe to say that the water relaxes her :)

She likes to eat wood...if I'm not watching her, she will most likely be scraping her bottom teeth on the edge of the coffee table....and she eats her crib. Funny child.

She just started clapping the other day, which is just so fun, and she now says more, which is clapping...we'll have to work on that one. :) I'll have to post a video of her clapping once I have it loaded.

And if our daughter is not keeping us busy, than fellowshipping with other believers has! The last month has been a wonderful time of having people over, going to others' houses, birthday parties, visiting friends out of town, and having people visit us! Right now we have two young men from New Zealand staying with us before they head to Palm Springs for the Resolved Conference. They have been enamoured with all the big stores and how everything seems to be supersized! I think they are quite overwhelmed with all the choices in a store or restauraunt....not to mention all the different options of places to shop! Aaron made them french toast for the first time, and they quite enjoyed it (I think:)).

We also hosted a neighborhood bbq last Saturday. My husband came home one sunday convicted about needing to reach out to our neighbors and not waisting any time... So 6 days later we did this bbq. We handed out invites to about 70 units, and about 30 people came! God is SO good! We got to know many different people, so it opened the door for building relationships. We were able to talk about the Lord here and there, but we didn't actually get the chance (or should I say "take" the chance) to share the gospel with anyone right then. We are praying ferevently that the Lord would give us great boldness and give us many opportunities to do so....and this bbq was hopefully one small step in the right direction.

Other than that, and even most importantly, God has been teaching me so many wonderful things this past month....honestly, there is something I would like to blog about every day....I say "oh, I should blog about that later!"...and "later" only arrives in the form of needing to go to bed. God has been convicting me of sin, particularly in the area of my tounge...I have realized how selfish I can be with my speech...I often interrupt peoples sentences (I know, people like that probably dive you crazy!). Well, it drives my husband crazy and I even do it to my own friends. Every time I do it, it grieves me...I get so frustrated with myself....but I have repented of it many times and diligently seek the Lord in prayer to help me overcome my sin...my sin of esteeming myself (my own words) as more important than others (Phil. 2:3). He is slowly growing me in this area.

There have been other sins as well that the Lord has convicted me of, but I don't want to write a book here....but needless to say, it saddened me, to the point of frustration, to the point of wanting to die so I don't have to fight this battle with the flesh every day. Frankly I came to the point of tears quite a few times, pleading the Jesus to come get me NOW!! I just want Him to win this battle and not have to fight it anymore. Then I read these precious words....

"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary."

Oh, oh, oh how precious are those words. "I" do not fight this battle alone, and it is not by my strength....how ridiculous that I forget that so many times. The Lord is my strength. The Holy Spirit is within me, fighting my flesh. I need to RELY on the Lord! And He has not forgoten me. Even when I stumble badly, he will give me new strength as I wait for Him. So it's OK to wait and anticipate His return...in fact that is a great thing! But I am not to get angry in my waiting, but I am to sore with wings like eagles!

And praise the Lord for His grace, because as you can see from what I wrote, I can easily let my frustration with my "performance" get the best of me...and that is when I have lost sight of the cross and God's grace. It doesn't matter if I have had a "good" or "bad" day, the Lord loves me the same and looks upon me as righteous!!! Because He sees Christ when He sees me!! Praise His Holy name for this. "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." ~2 Cor. 5:21~

I repent of my sin and lay it completely at the cross....and leave it there.
" For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." ~Phil. 1:6~

Fun on the Course

Well, it's official...this last Friday was the most fun I have had making a fool of myself, ever. I went golfing (And no, I don't mean mini golf...that I have done more times than I could count) for the first time in my life, and had an absolute blast. Actually, I did a bit better than I thought I would, which is definitely an encouragement to go out there again! A sweet couple from church invited us to go with them, and I was able to share her clubs.

Funny story: We were golfing at the course in their senior community, so there are a few rules to keep everyone happy. One of which was no children aloud on the golf course...you must be 18 or older. One dear gentleman felt the need to yell that rule at me across the course. "No kids are allowed here," he yelled, "You have to be 18 to play here!". Oh.....how funny, but not unexpected. We make it to about the 5th hole when a security vehicle pulls up to us on the course....sure enough, a woman who was golfing phoned it in that "Oh, my! A child is on the course!" The security guard got quite a chuckle out of it, and apologized for the inconvenience. Next time, Laura and Steve said they would make me a shirt that says in BIG BOLD LETTERS, "I AM OVER 18 YRS. OLD". Haha....I'm still chuckling.

Anyways...can't wait to go again! Aaron said we could go to the driving range for our next date. Yeah! :)

Remember Jesus Christ

Those are the three words our guest speaker in church wanted us to remember after walking away from Sunday's sermon, but I will remember so much more than those three words, because those three words mean so much more than just three words.

Remember.....a term we often use. "Honey, could you please remember to bring this home." "I'll try to rememebr to email you this week, or give you a call." "Remember what I told you yesterday!" We are either telling people to remember things or being told to remember things...and for me at least, it is often easy to forget rather than remember. Why? Because we tuck that little piece of information in the back of our minds, and hope to remember it later, or we write it down somewhere with the expectation that we will read what we wrote later.

If I were to ask Aaron to pick up some milk on his way home from work, he would note my request in his brain, maybe write it down, and then tuck it away for the day. He isn't going to be quoting "bring milk home" as he replies to email at work. He won't be chanting it while he practices the piano for Sunday. He won't look at his "note-to-self" every spare moment he has. He won't pray over it. No....he will either bring it to mind as he is leaving work for the day, or he will forget alltogether (NOTE: this is just an example :)....my husband is actually quite talented at remembering things).

Well....this type of "remember" that we are all familiar with is NOT what Paul is talking about in 2 Timothy 2:8.

"Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David."
Paul doesn't just want us to bring Jesus Christ to thought here and there throughout our days and weeks. He doesn't want us to write Him down and hope to glance at it later. NO! Paul wants us to put JESUS CHRIST at the forfront of our minds! He wants us to remember HIM all day long. He wants us to embrace His suffering and live in His resurrection. He wants us to focus exclusively on HIM until it changes us!

Remember His sufferings...oh, how he suffered so! Nothing we experience comes close to the suffering and death of our Lord and Savior. Praise His name that He suffered the utmost suffering for us...the wrath of God; death for our sins.

Remember His resurrection...Christ defeated DEATH!! For ALL of us. Remember Jesus Christ and have no fear of death, for we shall be with HIM in the likeness of His resurrection. "Oh death where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting? But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! (1 Cor. 15: 55, 57). Remember this beloved, and have no fear if you are in Christ.

Remember His Kingship...Jesus is the promised Messiah. Christ is King and will one day claim the victory that is already HIS. He was promised from long ages ago, and WILL rule over ALL one day! We are a part of his kingdom! Remember this as you go about your day....Get excited about our future kingdom, which will NEVER be shaken, and pray "Lord, come quickly!"

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For Karen, this is no small sermon to hear. For Karen, this sermon is a hard gift from God. As the tears stream down her face, she can truly share in the sufferings of Christ. "Remember Jesus Christ and the beautiful POWER of His resurrection," she is told. For Karen to be reminded that we are to have no fear of death is no small thing...for death is crouching at her door. Tears well up in my eyes just thinking about it. I have faith in our God, who can perform a miracle in her body....I promise you I have faith and I pray often that the Lord would be gracious and do just that....HEAL her. But from our human eyes and the world's perspective, it doesn't look good.

The fact that probably half of the church was close to tears, if not crying, as they listened to Sunday morning's sermon and thought of Karen, tells you just what a beautiful woman of God she is. She is loved by the church, because she has LOVED the church...she has served the body of Christ so faithfully. She served in nursery the day before she had her stomach removed, despite the nausea and pain she was feeling from the cancer in her stomach. She has served her husband and three children as a true Titus 2 woman, and her three teenagers who love the Lord so dearly are testimony to her dedication to raising her children in the Lord.

Kent, her husband, is an elder in our church and has had his own battle with cancer, one which he has so far fought and one. But stage four stomach cancer isn't exactly a battle to be won. Only the Lord's healing hand could do that. I write this, because my heart is heavy. I think about the Richardson family every day...many times a day, and bring them to the Lord in prayer. Their oldest graduates from hisghschool in a couple of weeks. Karen is still healing from having her abdomen divided and stomach removed. There are so many decisions they need to make.

I CAN'T even begin to imagine the different emotions they all feel during the day. I know many tears are shed in that home daily, but I can tell you one thing that is true....they have a beautiful relationship with our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Tears well up in my eyes as I think of how much they love the Lord, and their hope is in HIM...and praise be to God! Karen said she wants to use her time to get to know her Lord more intimately before she meets him face to face, whenever that will be. To them, this is NOT a HOPELESS situation. Oh, the world would definitely look at it that way, but they don't have to! Because they REMEMBER JESUS CHRIST, who has suffered for them, and has victory over death. He has called them to walk the road of cancer for some unknown reason to them, but He has promised to walk the road WITH them, and grow them every step of the way.

Yes.....Jesus Christ shines brightly in that home.

"More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." ~Philippians 3:8-14~

Remember Jesus Christ, beloved....every day....all day long.

Our Little Piano Player

Our little piano player is already progressing after some lessons with Daddy....now she can play all by herself (with mommy and daddy right by her side, of course! :)) Here are some videos for your enjoyment! (The first one was taken at least a month ago)ps...I apologize for my ridiculous baby talking voice :)....sometimes I just can't help it when talking to her. Especially when she seems to like it more than my "normal" voice.