Things that make me happy: 21-30

21) Driving long distances makes me happy. Especially in a quiet car (which doesn’t happen very often).  Izzie and I drove 5 hours last Sunday and I listened to 4 WONDERFUL sermons.  I was so refreshed after such a great drive.  

22) Girl time makes me VERY happy! :) Izzie and I took my mom on a girl trip to New Orleans.  I love girl time so much! I hope Izzie loves being around me as much as I love being around my mommy.  Here are a few pictures from girl weekend —

Yummy Café Du Monde

Enjoying delicious fudge at the fudge factory

having a blast at the aquarium

I am already looking forward to our next girl trip!! I love you mom!

23) A messy living room makes me happy. Well, okay, not all days…but, I do love to see that my kids enjoy playing. 24) I also get really happy when I clean up the mess and run across a toy like this…We have had this toy for about 2 years and my little kids play with almost everyday – this is not what makes me happy.  What makes me happy is the fact that we have managed to keep every piece to this toy! We loose toy pieces all.the.time. But, this one particular toy has kept all of it’s parts! It’s one happy toy :)

25) It makes me so happy when I run across videos like this: http://vimeo.com/7072300  I bet you cannot watch 10 minutes of this without crying! I love Compassion International so much.  What an amazing organization.

26) I am happy I laugh so much during the day.  We honestly are surrounded by so many opportunities to laugh.  We also are faced with a lot of things that make us cry…but, this is a happiness post, right??

Here is something funny that happened today.  My sweet, wonderful, amazing husband swept and mopped my floor this morning.  An adorable little boy left his jacket at our house and I had set it over a kitchen chair.  When Zach moved the chair, the jacket fell and 5 pencils fell out of the pocket.  Upon examination, Zach found 16 pencils in one pocket!! I don’t know about y’all, but we thought this was hysterical! Here is proof:So funny!

27) I am happy that we have so much food in our pantry! We have a shed at the ranch that is full of donated food, cleaning supplies, toiletries, clothes, etc.  Our men went to a food show today and came back with quite the load. 

All of this is for our house alone! What a blessing!!

28) I am happy that a group of us housemoms have started having a weekly get-together.  We met this past Tuesday and it was AWESOME!  We were planning on watching a sermon on the TV, but had some technical issues and had to go to the computer to listen to a sermon I had saved about 2 years ago.  We later realized this was just what the Lord had planned, because the sermon was amazing and just what we all needed.   It is all about not building our home on earth, because we ultimately don’t belong here.  Francis Chan goes into details on not looking back, but setting our eyes on the “prize”….Christ! I want to do a blog posting about it, but you all should really check it out.  Go to http://www.cornerstonesimi.com/special/media_player.html and scroll down to 03/08/09. The sermon title is, “Living a Life that Matters: Living Eternally.” If you listen, let me know what you think!

29) I get really happy when I can connect with old friends.  I was recently asked to judge an FFA event and was so excited to catch up with some extremely special people. 

This sweet man has had so much influence on me.  By sitting under his leadership for years as a student, he taught me to love the Lord, to love students, to be passionate about the resources the Lord gives us (especially agriculturally) and to believe in myself.  I love this man and his sweet wife – they are wonderful!This adorable girl was a student of mine.  She has turned into such a confident young woman and seeing her made my day! Each of us in the picture below graduated from the same school and all took a year off of school to travel as a Florida State FFA Officer.  The sweet girl all the way to the right is currently serving.  Our ag teachers were really excited that we were all under the same roof and they could get this picture.  It really was cool! I cannot believe that “stage” in my life was 10 years ago.  Craziness.

30) “I am extremely happy I have a bed to sleep in.” 

When working on my previous 10 things (11-20), one of our boys came up behind me and asked what I was doing.  This particular boy loves our blog and loves to be involved in it.  I shared with him what I was doing and then told him I was done with that particular posting, but would be writing more things that made me happy.  I asked him what made him happy and his immediate response was, “I am extremely happy I have a bed to sleep in.”  Comments like these hit me like bricks –they stop me in my tracks.  I have no clue what it is like to go without a bed.  So many of our boys…so many people in our world, have never had that luxury.  I am so thankful for reminders like these…reminders of the need in the world.  I want to touch more on this when I blog about that sermon.