The Howerter Family Homepage

Elijah has started school at Calvary Aacademy, and he loves Kindergarten.  Ryan told me that on the first day of school he came downstairs with his backpack on at 7:00 a.m.!  He goes all day, so he is pretty tired in the evening.  He is doing very well and learning lots of things.  I miss him because he is not there all day when I babysit, but I have been trying to hang out with him some after school.  He loves getting to buy his lunch, but he also has a very cool lunch bag.   He looks so big with his backpack on when he comes home.  It makes me sad because I don’t want him to grow up. 

Lily's first birthday cake.

Today the entire family went down to Collinsville to have our family picture taken and to celebrate the 6 August birthdays in our family (John, Katherine, Sara, Brad, Lily and Jay).   We try to take a family picture every other year, and this was the year.  Haury, the photographer, does a great job getting all 14 of us to look good in the pictures.  The kids did great during the session, but when they tried to get shots of the 3 kids, Lily was too tired.  Jay will take some of them on another day.

After the photo shoot, we all headed to Bart’s for lunch and birthday cake.  Grandma Nell and Laurie had a great lunch ready for us, and of course we had birthday cake.  The birthday people opened their presents, and Grandma Nell and Laurie even had gifts for Elijah and Josiah.  Thanks Laurie and Grandma for thinking of them.  After Lily’s nap, we ate cake, and she had her very own since she is turning 1.  She enjoyed the icing very much, as you can see by the picture!  Thanks Bart and Laurie for hosting us all. 

Jimmy, Glenda, Jessie, Kelsey and Aunt Betty came over, and it was great to get to see the Vickers.  They are only here once a year, so it was fantastic that we got to see them.  Lily really enjoyed JImmy.  He had her laughing so hard that she got the hiccups!

It was a great day, and we had a good time.  It is always fun to get together with Bart and Laurie, and even better when both Brad and Donny are there too!  Elijah and Josiah love to hang out with Donny.  He plays video games with them, so he is definitely at the top of their list!

Jay and Katherine have sold their house and are moving in the middle of August.  They will be moving to a 3 bedroom ranch on the west side of town.  It is in great shape and has an in-ground pool!  The back yard is completely fenced in, and it is quite large with beautiful landscaping.  They should not have to do anything to the house before they move in.  We are very excited for them.

Last week, Ryan, Sara, Elijah, Josiah, Lily and I went to the revival at Morningstar Ministries in South Carolina.  We left Monday afternoon, and came home early Sunday morning.  We split the drive down there into 2 days, so it was not too bad.  We arrived at the hotel/conference center about 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday.  The revival started at 7:30, so we got unpacked as quick as we could. 

Each evening service started with Worship, and I think that was my favorite part.  They had a live band (Molly Skaggs was one of the singers), and they were good and LOUD!  There is nothing that makes me feel closer to God than singing praise to Him.  After Worship, there was a speaker, and then they went into the Ministry time.  Rick Joyner spoke the first night we were there, and it was pretty cool to listen to him.  I have read some of his books, but I had never seen him in person.  Each night during the Ministry time, the band played again, and people prayed for anyone that asked.  It was pretty different for me, and I saw some things that were a little weird to me.  As in anything, there are always people on the outside fringe of “normal”, but that does not mean that they are not sincere.  I have yet to feel the presence of God in the ways that my kids do, but I know that every night I felt something. 

On Wednesday night, one of the girls from the kids camp that was there prayed for my back.  It was really hurting me from the drive down and the day at the water park.  As she prayed, it started to feel better until the pain was gone.  My back has not felt that good in quite a while, and it felt great the rest of the trip.  Thank you Lord! 

We went to a water/theme park on Wednesday and Thursday, and we really enjoyed ourselves.  We went to the water park the first day, and it was great.  They had a great area for kids, and Lily crawled around in the water.  Elijah went down a water slide, and Ryan and I went down a very tall, fast, dark water slide.  The next day we went back and rode the rides.  We rode the log ride first (standing in line for about an hour).   After that we went to the kids area, and the boys had a blast.  Elijah and I rode the roller coaster, and he loved it.  As soon as we stopped, he said, “I want to ride another roller coaster!”  A good friend of Sara’s lives down there, and she kept Lily while we went to the theme park.  Thanks Lindsay!

We left Saturday morning planning to stop in Tennesse and spend the night, but Ryan felt like making the entire trip that day.  It was a long day, but it sure was good to be home.  It gave us all day Sunday to just hang out. 

All in all, it was a great trip.  The kids were great, we had fun, and it was my first revival!

Today is my last day of work at Cherry Hills.  I am retiring once again   I am looking forward to having more time to go visit Mom and hang out with the kids and grandkids.  Maybe I will even be able to travel with John some!

John and I spent this past weekend in Naples, Florida, with a group of LRS Senior Mangers.  Dick and Ag graciously shared their hospitality with us for a luxurious weekend.  We were flown down on the corporate jets Friday afternoon and returned Sunday afternoon.  Friday evening Dick and Ag hosted a cocktail party at the hospitality room at their condo complex.  The food was wonderful, and we saw a beautiful sunset over the ocean.  Saturday they took us all out on their 105 foot yacht for a day of playing in the ocean.  There was food, drink, jet skiing, swimming, shelling and lots of laughing.  Thank you so much Dick and Ag for the wonderful weekend.

What a crazy few days of weather we have been having!  We have had waves of wicked storms roll through.  These storms have been unlike anything I remember seeing before.  The thunder and lightning just go on and on, and it rains hard for long periods of time.  Then, once one storm finally rolls through, another one rolls in.  We had 3.5 inches of rain in our rain gauge this morning from the storms we had the last two days.  The fields are saturated, so I hope the heavy rains are over for a while.

Lily started crawling over the weekend.  When I was with her on Thursday, she would move forward 2 “steps” with her hands, but she had not gotten her legs to move yet.  Evidently, she figured that out over the weekend because she was crawling all over our house on Monday.  She is not moving too fast yet, but it won’t be long!  I am not sure Grandma can keep up with all three now that they are mobile.

The curse is broken!  Jeff and Judy tempted fate once again by inviting us to the Indy 500.  Every time that John and I have gone to the Indy 500, it has rained on race day.  This year it did rain on Friday, but not a drop on Sunday!  I had a fantastic time at the race.  Due to many minor accidents, there were many restarts which are always exciting to me.  We also got to see Danica Patrick get out of her car and head over to Briscoe’s pit to confront him for running into her and knocking her out of the race.  It was pretty exciting, and the crowd was really cheering her on! 

The entire weekend was a blast.  We drove over on Friday and came home Sunday after the race.  We ate, shopped, ate, saw the new Indiana Jones movie, ate, played cards, ate and even saw a race!  Thanks Jeff and Judy for taking us!

This week has been a long one for me, but it is finally Friday.  John came home last night from Japan, so hopefully this weekend we will do something fun.  Although John’s idea of something fun is working in the yard   I think it is supposed to be sunny, so I may at least go out and pretend to work in the yard!