One Christ, Won City

The pastors of various churches around Venice have come together to brainstorm how to win the city for Christ recently and out of that, One Christ, Won City was born. A few months ago, the churches got together for worship on the beach followed by each church performing their baptisms together. Over 40 people were baptized and the band was made up of singers and musicians from 4 churches. We then had a time of fellowship with watermelon. Many families from our church and school were there. It was neat to see those 2 worlds colliding. There were over 1,000 people there in all. It was amazing. It went so well that there was a second event planned. This was a prayer meeting. We went to the beach again to gather. The pastors each got up and shared what was on their hearts and led us in praying in groups for specific requests including the lost, our government, our churches, etc. It was amazing AGAIN! Here are some pictures from the second event.

I had to stand on the corner of the boardwalk railing to get up high enough to get all the people in the picture, and I am still not sure that was all of them! It was something to behold!

The kids had a safe place to play and enjoyed seeing school friends. This is Holden's friend Garrett who is being home schooled this year and he doesn't get to see him very often. They were thrilled with the unexpected play date!
I took the opportunity to brush up on the skills I learned when I took the photography class (that I never finished because I went back to Iowa this summer). Unfortunately, I didn't remember much but got a few fun pictures:

Boys will be boys. Here are Robby, Josh and Holden digging for puffer fish (they found several tiny ones), clams and sand fleas (GROSS):

Alayna didn't notice I was taking her picture for a minute:

...or maybe it was less than that, because then this started:

Heaven help us!

Not Me Monday! Working Woman Edition (yes, I know its Tuesday)

What did you expect?? I could do it all and do it all well AND on time??? Yeah, not so much!! I have not missed this little "Not Me" tradition of mine SevEreLy since returning to work. No, I have had no need to post any of the embarrassing things I have not done. Since I am back to work, I behave perfectly, have had no trouble adjusting from my world of all things Cardiology into this world of discharge (and I'll leave it at that), fevers, sore throats, back pain, abdominal pain, shoulder pain, knee pain...I think you get the idea! I certainly did NOT get secretly very excited when a patient mentioned he had chest pain! I was certainly not excited to look at a 12 lead EKG, or adjust his medications to help him feel better. I was not relieved to realize some of the things I learned were still in my brain (okay, they were a bit buried, but I found them!)


I am so glad that I did not accidentally flip my script pad out of my pocket into the toilet AFTER I was finished using it. Boy, oh boy, was I glad I didn't have to put my hand into the toilet and retrieve the practically brand new script pad. I was even more relieved that I didn't have to ask anyone what to do with it, since I knew of the proper way to dispose of a urine soaked prescription pad so that no one could misuse it. I was not practically on my knees thanking God that the shredder was recently (like just a few days before this incident) replaced with a storage bin and I could place it in the bin and not have to pull it apart to feed into the shredder bit by bit.


I did not thoroughly enjoy lancing an infected skin cyst yesterday. It was not only fun for the first part and I did not start to feel ill watching all the drainage (which I will not spare you the description of) come out of the wound. I was so grateful that was not right before lunch! I did not manage to scarf down my entire lunch in spite of it.

I did not feel so excited when I saw 20 patients in one day. I do not measure my usefulness by the number of patients I see in one day, that would be goofy! I am not so excited for a day off tomorrow (yeah Veteran's day--just another reason to be so thankful for our vets) though. I am not spending my day off helping one of the offices I work at to pack up for a move across the street to have the current building remodeled. No, that would be ridiculous!

Oh, I almost forgot how freeing it is to laugh at yourself! What have you been hiding???

Some fun in a box...

Many thanks to Grammy and Papa Prachar for the fun box of goodies that arrived this weekend! As you can see, the t-shirts fit everyone perfectly and they donned them right away. As soon as we learned the Iowa game was on as we were opening our box, we turned on the game. We were treated to Iowa's first loss this season :o( Paul is convinced we can't watch another one because they will lose again! He is not a football fan!

Of course after every group picture, we have to do a silly one...when will they grow up??? Too quickly, I am sure!!

The box of goodies also included some fall colors in the form of a new dish towel! It brought some fall to the kitchen quite nicely! Thanks!

And of course the kids were SUPER excited about all the treats in the box! The chocolate covered Twizlers are my personal favorite, but it was all great! The cute snowman pops (marshmallows dipped in white chocolate an decorated) will be the closest thing to winter we will have here too! Paul will get his fill on his next trip to Colorado Springs in December...I am cold just thinking about it! He will finish up his training on this next trip (YIPEE!) and is also attending training for financial counseling with Dave Ramsey upcoming! Pray for him and his travels if you think of it!

We are doing well. We are staying busy with sports and kids' activities. I also am so excited to have finally gotten some accountability to my running. I am meeting some ladies in the morning...or should I say dead of night (we meet at 4:50 AM), and we are running 5 miles three days a week. The other 2 days are my later work days (I go in one day at 9 AM and the other one at 10 AM), so I get to sleep in and go to the YMCA to do the circuit and run about 1 mile or more if I have time. I am amazed at the energy I have! I had to quit running with Paul because it was bothering his knees, and I couldn't run outside at night or in the early morning (still dark) by myself. I was getting really bored with the treadmill. Now, 5 miles flies by and I am off to shower and attack my day! I am also amazed at the fact that I can no longer manage to stay awake much past 9 PM! No, by the way, there will probably be no pictures of my running group since we all roll out of bed and head to our meeting place! Its funny, its still dark when we finish our run, so I am not sure any of them would recognize me on the street except Kristin who I ran once with last fall and whose husband is a pilot at Agape. She let me into her group, THANKS Kristin!