Friday Favorites, April Fool's day edition

 

Happy Friday, friends! I'm linking up with Erika and Andrea for this weekly blog post. How has your week been? I don't know if it's because I've been tired and needed to catch up on sleep from Saturday- Monday or what, but for me it has flown by. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I know it'll be the same next week, because I'm leaving town for a few days. 

That being said, here are some favorites from my week.

My first favorite was this beautiful retreat center that I was at last weekend with friends from church. 

I can't get over how nice this place was. It really felt like you were at a very luxurious hotel, or even a boutique hotel. The beds were the best I've ever slept in while away from home, along with the sheets. I am telling you, it was a little slice of heaven. I slept so good each night, for the few hours of sleep I actually got. My roomie and I had so much fun being together and were up until the wee hours of the morning talking about anything and everything.

Monday night was a favorite night.

It was nice enough to sit outside and read, even if I did have to go back in for a blanket. Our sons were out there as well, so I alternated between talking to them and reading my book. I love this time of year when it's mild enough to be on the deck, before the humidity sets in and the bugs come out.

Celebrating Dad was a favorite this week as well. His 91st birthday was Tuesday! 

All of us met at his house for dinner and a party for him. It was a fun night! Doesn't he look great? I have said here before what good genes are in my family. He is in excellent health! He is legally blind, because his pinpoint vision is gone, so that prohibits him from driving, but you can bet that he sure does still drive his riding mower and the bigger tractor. He does hire others to do the yardwork for him now, but my sister Trish and I were talking about how living on his ten acres has kept him so young. Even though he doesn't do the work, he is always thinking about it and making plans for what to do next and he loves it. I'm glad he has that to do. He also has minor aches and pains and walks with a cane, but that's all for his age. Isn't that incredible? 

It was a fun night to celebrate him. 

You all know that getting my nails done is one of my favorite things. 

Mom and I went and did that together yesterday, along with having lunch and running an errand for her. It was a spontaneous and fun day AND bonus, we ate lunch at our favorite local Mexican place. She had their tortilla soup and I had the lunch chicken fajitas.

I'll end with this one, but my quiet time lately has been my favorite.

Just yesterday morning, I read one of my favorite and most sad passages in the Bible from Judges. It's right after Joshua died, and the passage said that after that generation died, another one rose that did not know the Lord or the things He had done for them. It's so sad, because the Lord had delivered them from one thing after another—slavery, the angry Egyptians, hunger, thirst—and the ones who'd survived that did not pass it down to their children, so it stopped with them. I posted about this yesterday on Instagram and said that it reminds me of why church attendance is so important. Attending won't gain you salvation, but it helps supplement and fill in the gaps of what the parents teach at home. And it's not the responsibility of the church to teach the kids, it's the job of the parents. That's what is lacking so vastly in today's society. Church is unimportant in the eyes of most people and it's replaced with sports, weekends at the lake, fill in the blank. Not that those things are bad, they're just not supposed to take over your life, or the lives of your kids. 

We have such a small window of time with our kids, when they actually want to go to church. It's important to take them, because for lots of them, they will keep on going even after moving out. The culture we live in is so blatantly different from the ways of God. It's important to know the truth and it's important to have godly fellowship! I don't know what I'd do without that in my life. 

Well, I'll wrap this post up with that last thought. I hope you've had a great week and that your weekend is the same. Thanks for reading my blog, friends! Love to all.