It started waaaaay back when we were in our second apartment. We had no kids at the time. We lived in a one bedroom tiny apartment $325 a month rent (that tells you how small it was) with a pull-out sofa that was used when Mom and Dad came to visit.  They would come for a week or two weeks at a time so that Dad could take intensive classes to get his Master's, and then he started working on his Doctorate. One apartment, three kids, and now this house later, he graduated.

The cool part is that during the weeks of his classes, he would come home and over dinner would talk about what he learned in class that day.

During his graduation (this past weekend)  I kept thinking how nice it would have been to have Jeff there witnessing it.  So that he could see how valuable education is.

I did not know until I saw the program that Dad was graduating Summa Cum Laude (4.0 grade point average)

Steve's parents.  I think Coco gets her pretty little face from Steve's Mom.

I also enjoyed hearing my uncle speak at the graduation.  Jotted down a few notes..

"Don't spend your whole life looking at circumstances... looking around at what is predictable"

"At what point do you say to God 'No further will I go'?  What are you willing to sacrifice for Christ?  To live for Christ? To lead for Christ?"

At our small group that meets at our house once a week, we had a couple come and speak.  They just came back from cultural training before they head to Peru as missionaries.  They talked about selling their home that was not even a year old yet, selling all of their furniture.  They have to go through every single thing they own and ask "Do I really need this, can I let this go?"  I asked them what was one of the most important things they learned in the cultural training and one of the things they said was this question "What are you willing to let go of in order to minister" and that is not only physical belongings but also cultural barriers. the second was this.

"Just love the people, that is more important than being task-oriented"