Say It Ain't So!!!

From this:


To this:


Please, please tell me we are not having snow!

Update: Alas, we did have snow all day long!!! At times it was like a blizzard coming down. One could hardly see in front of them while driving. Thankfully, not much stuck around our home, but in other parts of the valley you would have thought it was Christmas!

Cabo San Lucas

We had a fabulous vacation in Cabo San Lucas. In fact, it was quite difficult to return to life in Utah. From the wonderfully warm and sunny weather we were jolted back into reality when we heard SNOW was being predicted for our area tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. Just let me assure you, dear friends, I am in no way ready for cold weather, much less snow. We need more fall, in my opinion. This was the view from our suite when we first arrived. We could not swim on the beach at our resort because the rip tides are so deadly. They post warnings all over, along with flying a black flag, which means "death." So on Saturday we took a taxi into Cabo San Lucas and spent the day shopping, taking a boat taxi from the shopping district to one of the public beaches, rescuing Jim after he got bit by a blue jelly fish, and bartering with the vendors who roam the public beaches like ants at a picnic. What a great beginning we had (other than the jelly fish) on our first full day! It was so unplanned, spur of the moment, there just wasn't any way it could have been a better day even if we had tried to plan it out! Then we noticed the wind had picked up which caused all the sand to blow, which in turn caused our pics to be kind of "dusty." We began to hear news about hurricane Rick which was headed south of us. We would experience some residual rain as a result. Then Carla came into our room and asked if we had heard the latest on Rick. I, who was on V.A.C.A.T.I.O.N glibly responded about him going south of us. She informed us Rick was headed for a direct hit on Cabo. News alerts were sent out every half hour it seemed, keeping us abreast of the progress, what we needed to do if we decided to stay, etc. I immediately went and got on Facebook, and my email and sent out a massive prayer request requesting that God would downgrade Rick from a Catagory 5 to a tropical storm. Soon we began hearing that it would be a Catagory 2 or 1 by the time it would hit land. But if you will notice in the pics, land for us was not many yards away from the water! Waves got to be 15 feet! The song which kept returning to my mind was "It Is Well With My Soul."

"When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.

Our great and awesome God is indeed in the business of answering prayers. Thank you to each one of you who took time out to go before His throne of grace on our behalf. And especially thank you to those who were already praying before my prayer request had even gone forth! Rick did turn into a tropical storm, and went so far as to turn away from Cabo and head back out over the Pacific. :) We did have a day of rain, which was then followed by beautiful days of perfect sunshiny weather!


After Rick we played in San Jose Cabo which is much more fun and interesting than Cabo San Lucas itself. It was also only 10 minutes away from our resort. It has an art district, a shopping district, a ton of jewelry stores and loads of excellent little restaurants to choose from.






The rest of our time was spent by the pool, playing frisbee, learning how to make our own mixed drinks *snicker*, and just being perfectly lazy.







Here is just one of the spectacular sunsets we enjoyed!


Finally, the morning before we left for the airport horseback riding on the beach was scheduled.



All in all, a perfect ending to a great week! Ahhhh.....

Same Kind of Different As Me...

I have just finished reading a book which has had a most profound affect on me. There are a few books which I have read that have had touched significant nerves within me. I can probably list them on one hand. This book is one. I highly recommend it as a "Must Read" by everyone!

It is an amazing true story written by the two men it involves, Ron Hall, who is an international art dealer, and Denver Moore who could be likened to a modern-day slave, in every sense of the word. And, it also involves Ron's wife, Deborah, who brings these two unlikely men together. :)

Denver was a homeless man who Miss Deborah "latched" on to. Finally, Mr. Ron, gets Denver to go out for breakfast with him. As Denver finished his breakfast, he asked Mr. Ron a pointed question: "What you want from me?"

A direct hit, I thought, and decided to give him a completely unvarnished answer: "I just want to be your friend."

He raised his eyebrows in curious disbelief and a long mmoment of silence strecthed between us.

"Let me think about it, " he finally said.
I didn't feel rejected, which surprised me. Then again, I had never formally asked anyone to be my friend.

Fast forward a week....

"...He [Denver] stared down at the steam rolling up from his coffee cup. "I been
thinkin a lot about what you asked me."
I had no idea what he was talking about. "What did I ask you?"
"'Bout bein your friend."

My jaw dropped an inch. I'd forgotten that when I told him at the Cactus Flower Cafe that all I wanted from him was his friendship, he'd said he'd think about it. Now, I was shocked that anyone would spend a week pondering such a question. While the whole conversastion had slipped my mind, Denver had clearly spent serious time preparing his answer.

He looked up from his coffee, fixing me with one eye, the other squinted like Clint Eastwood. "There's somethin I heard 'bout white folks that bothers me, and it has to do with fishin."

He was serious and I didn't dare laugh, but I did try to lighten the mood a bit. "I don't know if I'll be able to help you," I said, smiling. "I don't even own a tackle box."
Denver scowled, not amused. "I think you can."
He spoke slowly and deliberately, keeping me pinned with that eyeball,
ignoring the Starbucks groupies coming and going on the patio around us. "I
heard that when white folks go fishin they do somethin called 'catch and
release.'"
Catch and release? I nodded solemnly, suddenly nervous and
curious at the same time.

"That really bothers me," Denver went on. "I just can't figure it out. 'Cause when colored folks go fishin, we really proud of what we catch, and we take it and show it off to everybody that'll look. Then we eat what we catch...in other words, we use it to sustain us. So it really bothers me that white folks would go to all that trouble to catch a fish, then when they done caught it, just throw it back in the water."
He paused again, and the silence between us stretched a full minute. Then: "Did you hear what I said?"

I nodded, afraid to speak, afraid to offend.

Denver looked away, searching the blue autumn sky, then locked onto me again with that drill-bit stare. "So, Mr. Ron, it occurred to me: If you is fishin for a friend
you just gon' catch and release, then I ain't got no desire to be your friend."

The world seemed to halt in midstride and fall silent around us like one
of those freeze-frame scenes on TV. I could hear my heart pounding and imagined
Denver could see it popping my breast pocket up and down. I returned Denver's
gaze with what I hoped was a receptive expression and hung on.

Suddenly his eyes gentled and he spoke more softly than before: "But if you is lookin for a real friend, then I'll be one. Forever."

This is just a very small example what the book is about. I really don't want to share any more because I don't want to take away from your experience of reading it, if you decide to do so. Oh, I hope you DO decide to read it. It is so worth it!!!

A Stark Warning

A WARNING TO ALL AMERICANS From Naval Aviator, Commander Jerry Wilson

We lived in California during the winters of 2007 and 2008. We became addicted to Fox News and watched O'Reilly and Hannity and Colmes every night.. When we got back home, we upgraded our cable to get Fox. I watched the Presidential campaign very closely. Initially because I thought the Democrats would nominate Hillary Clinton and then in astonishment when they chose an even more hard-left candidate. All of last year I told everyone I could that Obama was not a Democrat, he was a Marxist. He is far to the left of any European leader and even our far left party, the NDP.

I read Saul Alinsky when I was in University. I studied him and his writing carefully. When Bill Ayers and his idiot wife were bombing and killing people at random in the Weather Underground. Weather Underground and the Black Panthers were closely allied. I read David Horowitz's account of changing from a Marxist to a conservative after seeing that the government was afraid to prosecute members of the Panthers for murdering his personal assistant. He suddenly understood the evil that Marxism really was.

After the student radicals failed in creating a Marxist revolution in the United States by violent means, they embraced Alinsky. You would be wise to read "Rules for Radicals" because it outlines how Hillary and Obama planned to get into power, and what they intended to do when they got it.

Socialism is not the correct descriptor for what Obama and the Democrats are doing. They are going to be much more far reaching than anything Sweden has ever been able to do. Obama is following Alinsky's plans, those set out in "Rules for Radicals" and his other writing. The Democrats are attempting to create one party rule in the U. S. and in achieving that, will create crisis after crisis by their own actions and use those crisis to nationalize the means of production in the U. S. You are in the middle of a communist revolution and few in the U. S. can actually see it for what it truly is.

The U. S. . is now on the path of financial destruction. The Constitution has been shredded and individual human rights are being trampled. In less than 8 months. Obama has used a recession to take over the two largest industries in the U. S. He will debase the Dollar and is on the road to creating an incredible energy shortage that will allow him and Congress to take over the energy industry..

But by and large I think that by the 2010 elections, the Democrats will have gerrymandered electoral districts to the point that it will be impossible for them to lose control of both houses of Congress. The incredible increase in the money supply is going to create Zimbabwe and Venezuela style inflation, and with it, controls on the currency and the amount of money that can be taken out of the country.

I love America , I cannot believe how the ignorance of the American public has created a situation whereby they are going to lose their Republic and slip into an age of repression and tyranny.

I may be nuts, but so far I have been 100% in my predictions of what Obama was going to do, because I merely had to look at "Rules for Radicals" to see what was coming next.

I read Glenn Beck's book, "Common Sense" and in it re-read Thomas Paines pamphlet with the same name. I recommend the book.

When the storm finally hits (and it will), those of you who supported the Obama administration will be affected as well. It won't just be us gun owners or Flat-Taxers, or Pro-Lifers that get hit. You'll be right there next to us.

You all thought the Conservatives were nut cases. You know, all of us who believe in God, small government, the Second Amendment, etc. You thought you could just go back to sleep after the election was over. In your world, America will continue as before. You'll still have the same rights, the same nice house, the same big screen television. After all, your high school football team won and the other team lost - go team! Even if you have bothered to look up from the daily grind since Nov 4th, you dismissed everything that has occurred as "politics as usual-the same old stuff".

In the end, it'll all be OK won't it? Not this time.

There are a growing number of citizens in the US that are ready to fight to shut down the government's grab of personal freedom, it's blatant abuse of the constitution, and it's attempt to replace the American way of life with socialism. You have to listen carefully to hear them, but they are there. I won't start that fight, but when it goes down I will join it.

As for you, why, you'll be shocked because you didn't see it coming. And eventually you'll be saddened when you see that we have truly lost the way of life with which you grew up. You'll be saddened that your children and grandchildren live in a socialist, government-controlled gulag where their every movement from cradle to grave is tracked by the government. But most of all, you'll be saddened by the death of friends and relatives who are brave enough to fight and die for something they believe in.

You know, McCain wasn't much of a candidate. I'll give you that. He was the lesser of two evils for most of us. I don't blame you for not voting for him since, at the time, you didn't know what we all know now. But at least John McCain was an American. He was a supporter of the American way of life and he understood that you can't negotiate with terrorists. He understood and appreciated the sacrifice made by my father and other members of the Greatest Generation.

Mark my words friends. All across America groups are forming. They are forming out of anger and out of desperation at the thought of losing America . They're not militia groups, terrorists as the Department of Homeland security would have you believe; they are Americans, loyal to the constitution. They are mothers and fathers and grandparents. They belong to groups like the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, the Peaceful Resistance, the Constitution Party, the Young Conservatives, the 9/12 Project, and Grassfire. Right now they are fragmented, each focused on their own cause. But sometime in the next two years, our government is going to do something really stupid and these groups will come together. Watch for it, wait for it-get ready. It will happen.

When that event happens, whatever "it" is, our great country is going to plunge into chaos for a while. I pray to God that we make it through that time and emerge a stronger, smarter country.

Naval Aviator, Commander Jerry Wilson,

Live Free or Die Fighting

To see the front page article of the Canadian Newspaper click on the link below.
http://biggovernment.com/2009/09/25/sarkozy-mocks-obama-at-un-security-council-hello-big-media/

For reasons yet to be determined, the National Post appears to have de-linked their own front page story on their website. Mr. Spillius reported a similar (albeit watered-down) version in the UK’s Telegraph.

Obama: “We must never stop until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the earth.”

Sarkozy: “We live in the real world, not the virtual world. And the real world expects us to take decisions.”

The rest of Sarkozy’s remarks were, well, remarkable:

“President Obama dreams of a world without weapons … but right in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite.

“Iran since 2005 has flouted five security council resolutions. North Korea has been defying council resolutions since 1993.

“I support the extended hand of the Americans, but what good has proposals for dialogue brought the international community? More uranium enrichment and declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe a UN member state off the map,” he continued, referring to Israel.

The sharp-tongued French leader even implied that Mr Obama’s resolution 1887 had used up valuable diplomatic energy.
“If we have courage to impose sanctions together it will lend viability to our commitment to reduce our own weapons and to making a world without nuke weapons,” he said.

Mr Sarkozy has previously called the US president’s disarmament crusade “naive.”

No American newspapers seem to have featured Sarkozy’s justifiably derisive remarks about Obama’s naivete regarding the realities of nuclear technology. Still we can be grateful for the freedom of the press, as embodied and celebrated by the Newseum — including the chilling reconstruction of segments of the Berlin Wall. These serve as a reminder that however oppressive or myopic the powers-that-be, news cannot be stifled.

Home!

I did make it home late yesterday afternoon! Thank you to each and every one of you who have been praying for my recovery. There is no greater privilege than to go before His throne of grace in prayer and lay our requests before Him. He then takes them, one by one, and gives His undivided attention to each request. For that, I am eternally grateful!

I am better, but I still have a long way to go. Now, I still am requesting prayer because I desire to have my "long way to go" to be shortened big time. You see, I have a plane ticket, already purchased, for me to fly back to Colorado Springs to hook up with 2 of my dearest friends from 10th grade. They moved the summer after 10th grade, each going in a different direction. We have not seen each other since then but have reconnected through Facebook. :) Since then, we have kept the phone lines and email busy as we have communicated a ton since reconnecting. My goal is to still be able to attend. I am supposed to leave 9/9/09 (next Wednesday) and return on the following Sunday.

It will be really laid back because the main thing we want to do is talk...and talk...and talk some more. Did I mention talking?! ;) So really that is the only thing on our agenda, other than driving through our old neighborhoods to see what our homes look like today.

This will be my first time to return to Colorado Springs without seeing my best friend, Chris, who was tragically killed in a car accident. The last time I saw her and her 90+ yr old mother was at my mom's memorial service in Feb. 2007. We talked about how her mother would most likely be the next one that we would meeting up for. And that is correct. Her mother passed away in June of 2007, and Chris was killed, almost to the day her mother died, in June 2008. Our families had just built new homes next door to each other and we were inseperable from 6th grade on. Oh how I rejoice for I know where she is! But, I miss her, and think of her often.

Anyway, thank you again for all your prayers!!! May He rain down a ton of blessings on you all today!!

Update

I'm going home this afternoon!!! I'll be home for dinner. :D I am a happy camper!!!