Live a Meaningful Life

This picture was made in our backyard! It is the view I see out of our kitchen/living area every single morning. Seeing the handiwork of God in creation every single morning is so good for the soul. However, you do not have to be in the forest to see this, it is evident everywhere. But, I am so thankful for our current view! We continued our current trend of visitors! Last week my mom, Mitch (step-dad), and Memaw came for a visit. The laughter was definitely a trend for the week. Within minutes, Memaw went into their camper and couldn't figure out how to get out. Mom and I heard her laughing hysterically. She finally hollered out that she didn't know how to get out! She and the boys really connected with their sense of humor!  The mandatory generational picture.  She was a trooper! In this shot, she didn't want to take a risk climbing down the rocks where we took the boys scuba diving. She decided to sit in the chair at the top. However, she was quite worried...

One of the primary reasons we were able to ditch our current lives in Jug Fork and trek out to the forest with no idea where our income would come from was because we did not want to live with the regret that we never gave it a shot. A risk? I guess. However we were both willing to work as hard as we needed to make it happen. I would always tell people that we may have fantasized about this life and hate it. At least we would have more data and would know! So here it goes, here are our regrets... 1. We wished we had lived this way sooner. Seriously...Johnny and I are a little mad no one told us we could have lived in a camper when we first got married. As a matter of fact, we remember a conversation with someone in our family about living in a small trailer and they said we needed something bigger! Isn't that America's mentality? More space, a room for everyone, a room to work in, a room to play in... Whew...These days, when I see people building/buying bigger hous...

I was taking my morning walk through the campground last week and saw this sign on the side of a vehicle. It definitely grabbed my attention and made me want to hear their story. Thankfully, they were having breakfast at the picnic table, so I barged in.  Meet Greg and Joanna Jenkins (the Goat and the Rabbit). Guess what they are doing this summer? Serving others! They are from Rome, New York and had the desire to travel around to nursing homes to entertain the residents. So, on June 24th they started their first journey, "The Heart Touching Tour." When they finish they will have traveled through 7 states and brought smiles to so many faces. During their stay with us they stopped in at a home based facility that only had 3 residents. The facility was so thrilled that someone took the time to spend time with them. What a joy it must have been to all of them. They were on their way to Memphis, TN for their next stop. How inspiring it is to meet two people who are...

This past week has been full of fun and familiar faces! We meet new people every single day--people from all walks of life, each with a unique story. While we continued that some this week, we were surrounded by many people from our lives that are familiar! Here are some of our memories with those precious people! At any given time, you could find a group of faces under our porch: laughing, plotting what to do next and chatting. And just to keep it real--you could hear the occasional argument about any random thing. Hey, that was a chance to further refine conflict resolution skills and for us adults to exercise our lung capacity as we took in deep breaths.  Adult company during the day...priceless.  Lots of river jumping happened during week.  Johnny took this crew of visitors (and John G.) on a rafting trip.  The rest of us followed them down and snapped pictures!  We visited Smiley on a daily basis. ...