Montrose Writer's Conference

We arrived around 4 o'clock and got registered.

Here are Dave and Torry Martin messing around at the faculty "getgether" at Patti Souder's home Sunday night.

As you can see They made up! We have seen Torry before at other conferences but have had some time here to get to know him and pray with him. He is the voice of Wooten on Odessey and actually created the character. He is a talented guy, having won many awards for his drama scripts, & acting. He loves to network and connect people to other people who he thinks could work well together. He is a comedian, originally from Washington and lived for a while in a cabin in Alaska. He has kept us in stitches but also has some very meaningful things to teach us.

Torry has amazing taste in shoes. He color coordinates them with his outfits.

Hearalds of Hope is the theme here. An uplifting theme for these trying times.

Here is our display table at the conference. Within a day we were almost out of catalogs. There has been great interest in CLC here at Montrose. We are praying for God appointments.

This is a new friend-Deb. Dave and I were racking our brain to think of who she reminded us of and we finally figured it out! Our 12 year old friend and my sewing buddy Carisa Pitman. We are covinced that this is what Carisa will look like when she is grown up. Do you that know her see the resemblance? Deb has some great ideas on how to do prayer retreats.

This is on the WEC International property at the top of our hill. When we don't drive to the park we walk here. We call this the Carbunkle tree.

This is also part of WEC. The main office on the left, the water tower(really holds water!) and an apartment building.

This is "the castle". WECers live and dine in this building. It was once the summer home of Sarah Drexel and her husband. He died and she remarried a Van Renselier. They made it their permanant home and added a ballroom. They went on to build several other castles for their children as wedding presents. Sweet! It is gorgeous inside.

Getting Exercise

This is a local park we like to go to to walk. It is a mile around the outside and nice and flat!

Dave is a little blurry because he is walking!

This is me walking!

Dave is bushed. This is the quarter mile mark:) Don't tell him I told you!

And a sunset.

Productive

My friend Dianne and I have been busy decorating our community building auditorium. These are the valances we made out of fabric I had in my "stash". It was quite a chore to figure out the shape and measurements. We worked on it over several weeks and are quite pleased with the result. CLC is having our annual conference and we always do some sprucing up-a few more changes every year.

On The Road

Our vacation at the end of June began with heading to Wolcott, NY to see Dave's mother and to transport our van to Dave's sister-in-law and brother. We needed to downsize and they needed a vehicle. Works for me. Rick and Teri operate an organic dairy farm and work extremely hard. They are an inspiration to us. While we were there Rick had a suprise **th birthday party for her. We were also able to see her son, Dan, home from Germany and their grandson, Zack, visiting from NJ. It was a good family time.

June 30h we headed to Delta Lake Bible Conferance (near Rome, NY) for family camp. We have started to go there again after taking about 15 years off from camping. We rent the camp- owned tents and attach a dining tent which is a bear to put up. This year we were smart and put it up at home so we knew what we were doing. Monday's supper got a little delayed due to our 30 year old cookstove (which we originally got secondhand) dying. Thankfully there was Walmart and after spending $20 we were back in business. We had a great, relaxing time(after the set up). The schedule at camp is pretty loose but you are expected to attend most of the services which we wanted to do anyway. There are missions and Bible themed meetings in the morning and a service at night. Afternoons are freetime. One afternoon we went to Ft Stanwix which is a National park and free!

Another afternoon we went on a Delta Cruise which took us on a pontoon boat tour of the perimeter of the Lake. We learned that there used to be a town of Delta and the authorities came along and flooded it to make the lake. Other days we just sat at the tent and read or napped or worked on a puzzle.

The picture above is looking from our campsite toward the other campsites along Lakeside Dr. The other shot is of Dave doing what he does best! It is looking from the back of our dining tent toward the Tab (tabernacle in camp talk). We had to go thru there and around the back of the Tab to the bathrooms! The shirt Dave has on says Been Burned? It is advertising the new book CLC has coming out in conjuction with the movie Fireproof http://www.fireproofthemovie.com/). Our book is called Fireproof Your Life and is about having a faith that survives the flames of life. You can check it out at http://www.fireproofyourlife.com/.

We finished our vacation on July 5th with a leisurely drive through the backroads of the Fingerlakes of NY. Before we left on that Saturday we attended one last seminar on ministry sustainablility. How to stay in the game as long as possible and avoid burn out. The idea is to neither rust out nor burn out for Jesus because either way you are out! We learned how to take a sabbath and really rest. How to work better and refresh regularly. Good thoughts to come home on.

God Showed Up

Pennsylvania landscape taken by my friend Becky.

I saw some answers to prayer today! In our mission devotional time we talked about the need for more funds to pay bills for the mission as well as personal needs. Then I went to work and there was a large order for books from a store that hasn't ordered in years & another store called out of the blue and paid their bill. God reminded another individual that he hadn't ordered from us in a long time and hecalled to order. In answer to prayer, someone made a donation to our prison ministry and we were able to send to about five inmates and still have money for more.

Dogwood here at CLC also taken by Becky.

Life in the Fast Lane

Life sure seems to speed by, thus the lack of posts. We were childless on Mother's Day (saw both of our sons, and one daughter-in-love the previous week, recieved appropriate cards and gifts). Our neighbors were also childless so we decided to put together a no work (necessitating a trip to Wawa) picnic and we went to Ft. Washington State Park. We had a wonderful, albiet chilly afternoon hiking, trying to avoid the poison ivy. So far none. I think we are safe. This picture was taken there.

We are leaving in a minute to go to one of our CLC stores to have a Right Hand of Fellowship ceremony for the manager of that store who is becoming a member of CLC. It's like becoming a member of a church.

We've been busy reevaluating things like car and renter's insurance and AAA membership. All will be cheaper now that it's just the two of us. We are actually switching from Geico to State Farm because they gave us such a great rate-sorry Gekko! We have this nice family run agency right down the road. They seem like "good neighbors"!

We're starting to think about vacation. Our first thought was that we would go to Delta Lake Bible Camp where we went last year. We had a good time and left spiritually refreshed but it is 6-7 hours away. We're concerned about the gas situation. I'd be interested in knowing if anyone else is altering their vacation plans because of gas prices or prices period.

Guess I'll be getting out those "live on nothing" and "tightwad" books to get us through these tough economic times all the reporters are talking about. I'm glad our trust is ultimately in the Lord and His provision. We live in a very expensive area but our mission is given free bread and bagels and occasionally other kinds of food. For fruits and veggies we go to one of several markets near us. The grocery stores are way too expensive. Mostly we shop at Aldi's. Anyone have any tips for saving money? Check out Money Saving Mom for some great freebies and frugal living tips.

Well, it's getting late and I need to wind some things up.