Waste No Time

How do you feel about social media?

For me, it's a love-hate relationship.  I LOVE being able to connect with people I don't see very much.  This is especially nice since we usually live hundreds of miles away from our family and friends.  Someday, it will be many thousand miles.  And with the technology that we have, I can see what is going on in my friends' lives!  And I can see pictures of their kids growing up!  So I love social media in that sense (mainly talking facebook, but blogs, etc too).

However.

I have talked to many people about this, so I know I'm not alone.  But that doesn't make me less guilty. It is so easy to let computers steal my time!  My precious time that I have with my beautiful kids.  And my precious time with the Lord, or precious time doing many other very productive things!  So in that sense...I despise social media.  And myself, for having such a lack of self-control at times!

So today, I want to share with you all a solution that I have found, that works really well for me!  (Actually, my friends Ben and Alisha told me about it...so they get the credit.  Thanks guys!)

There is this app-type thing that I downloaded on my computer, called "Waste No Time".  I can basically pick which websites I want to put on my "block list" and then allot a certain amount of time to be on them each day.  When the time is up, my computer will not let me get on them anymore.  (It is kind of funny, really...a big screen pops up and it says "Shouldn't you be working?"  Ha!)

Right now, Facebook is the only website I have on my block list. If I was on Pinterest (which I am not...yet), I would probably add that one, too.  I only allow myself 5 minutes on facebook between the hours of 8-5 ("working hours") and then 10 minutes after 5:00.  I find that this is plenty of time to just check for messages and things.  And on Saturdays, I allow myself more time, for adding pictures or that sort of thing.

If you are interested, try googling it.  You can get it for Safari or Chrome, I think.  It works great!  (Although I don't have a smart phone...if I did, I would probably try to find a similar app for that. )

Me and my sweet Halle...I don't want to look back and regret not investing more in my precious kids.  These years are so valuable!!

back to reality!

Last week Nathan and I dropped our kids off at their grandparents' house and left them for a SIX day Florida vacation!!  It was a much needed and appreciated break--we had such a great time together.  Although we missed our kids quite a bit, too...

So the whole reason that we decided to go to Florida was because we have some good friends (from our training in MO) who were getting married in June.  We thought it would be a great chance to have a getaway to a beach state :)  And also, we had credit card points to get our hotel stay for FREE!!  So...we decided to go to the wedding.  However...due to some scheduling misunderstandings (kind of a long story)...we actually missed the wedding!!  The whole reason we went to Florida in the first place!  Such a bummer.  (Good news--we did make it just in time for the reception!)

So anyway, our trip was wonderful.  We stopped in North Carolina on our way down, to visit Nathan's Uncle Steve.  It was so great to see him.  He is such an encouragement to us and he is so supportive and interested in what we are doing with New Tribes...it was awesome to catch up with him!

We also got to hang out with Nathan's cousin and his wife, Stephen and Pam.  It has been a lot of years since we have seen them, too!

Here we are, dressed up for the wedding reception :)

We took golf clubs along with us...one of our favorite things to do together.  We hardly EVER do it unless we are on vacation together.  So we went golfing twice while in FL :)

We ate out at an old favorite, Aunt Catfish's.  What a great place to eat!  About 9 years ago we ate there with my parents and Aaron and Jill--before we had any kids.  It was fun to go back :)  And very yummy!  They have the BEST blackened catfish!!

We spent a lot of time at the beach!  I will never get tired of seeing the ocean--so amazing.

So now here we are, back to our four kiddos and "real life".  Absense really does make the heart grow fonder!  I think I appreciate them much more after being away from them, you know how that is?  

Dad/Mom S. and Dad/Mom M...thank you for keeping the kids!  We feel very blessed that we were able to go away together like this.  

our kids' friendships

Our kids have some amazing friends here in our hometown.  It is really wonderful to be able to invest in these relationships all summer!  

As we think ahead to our future, being overseas for years at at time...we try to be very intentional in helping our kids form good friendships.  We feel so very blessed that Nathan and I are both from the same small town, so that we can be "stationed" in just one spot all summer!  (for the most part, with some traveling thrown in there).  

Another huge blessing...we have a lot of good friends at our church, and one awesome thing about these families?  They have a LOT of kids!  Our kids all have such a great time together, and we just thank the Lord over and over for blessing us with these relationships.

Here's to a very fun-filled (and very busy) summer with friends!