What a busy couple of weeks.  Things are hopping at work.  While I was away for the summer our International Astronomical Search Collaboration grew by leaps and bounds.  We were featured in the magazine Sky and Telescope and that has sparked a lot if interest in our program that reaches out to schools all over the globe.  (Our students have made over 850 asteroid discoveries so far.)  

On the homefront I feel like I am finally back in the swing of things with writing and quilting and keeping everyone in clean clothes;not to mention well-fed.  The weather has changed, it is actually foggy this morning.  Warm and muggy, but fall is starting to make its mark on our weather patterns for which I am most grateful.  One of the things I thoroughly enjoyed about our summer was that we seemed to follow spring up until mid July.  Starting our adventure in May meant that snow was still an issue-it even snowed three feet in the mountains of Montana about the time we were in Glacier National Park.  

This was the first time we had been back to Glacier since Ken's grad school days...26 years ago!  I hope you enjoy this glimpse of the park through my eyes.

Things I Like From Around the Web:

What You Can Learn from Calvin and Hobbes about the Message and the Medium-"The only appropriate media for communicating the gospel are lives and words. Christians have to wrap themselves up in the good news of Jesus Christ, live that mystery together in the fellowship of the church, and give the world something worth seeing. And they have to explain it in the form of sound doctrine, explaining biblical truth, making the message clear as only words can. There is a strong temptation these days to seek refuge in the claim that “my life is my testimony,” as if a set of behaviors could take the place of preaching, teaching, witnessing, and the host of other verbal interactions the New Testament is about. But the gospel is wordy, just as it is lifey. It just isn’t very bumper stickery."

9 Questions to Help You Steward All of Your Life For God's Glory- Brad Hambrack asks some very good questions to help us discover how we can best serve God with our lives. "If the law of God can be summarized in a positive command, then we consider how to 'run to' God rather than merely how to 'run from' sin. Life is not primarily about what we avoid, but what we pursue."

Give Me Gratitude or Give Me Debt-Glennon Doyle Melton with a wonderul perspective on our homes and how we should view them.

Eye Candy for Quilters- Lori Baker from Quilter's Newsletter shares some of her favorites from the Quilting LIVE show in Atlanta, Georgia. 

My computer is full of photos that were taken over the course of our summer travels.  Thousands of photos.   What a summer it was.  12 national parks!  Ken says we traveled over 10,000 miles and there are parts of my body that think he has underestimated.   We saw sights in New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Arizona.  The last photo I snapped was of Ken arriving home with our camper trailer in two after the axle broke in the panhandle of Texas- it almost made it home. Oh, and the air-conditioner went out so our drive from Colorado to Texas was, shall we say, hot.  It took a lot of prayer for this Oregon gal to have a good attitude in the heat.  I love my new travel tea mug! (more about that in a later post.)

The low point of our summer came just a few days into our travels.  We lost my sweet Anya to cancer that hit suddenly and very hard.  That was in May, and here it is September and I am still reduced to sobbing at times.  I miss the old girl who had been my constant companion for 10 years.

The highlight of our trip has to be when we were in Oregon.   Our youngest proposed to the love of his life and she said yes!   Our future daughter-in-love is a delightful addition to our family.  We just love her!!!!  Can you believe these two spent their summer traveling with us?  That was from mid-May to mid-July!  I guess she knows what kind of family she is marrying into.

Just a couple of new thoughts as I read through God's Word this year:
No Bit and Bridle for Me...I hope- What will it take to keep near to God?
Big Bang-Thinking about creation.

And for you quilter's:
Freebie Thursday- a couple of beautiful patterns and hints about an upcoming UFO challenge.

And just for fun:

A lovely little poem shared by Grammar Girl  “The Alphabet of Errors”  was written by Boston schoolgirls in 1921 and submitted to the The English Journal by Elizabeth M. Richardson.
It appears that each girl wrote a 4-line poem about an error that people make with a word that starts with a specific letter. 

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!
Debra