Pictures on the Walls...

Hello everyone!  Yesterday afternoon I had some fun digging through a couple of boxes in the garage and pulling out some pictures to hang on the walls of our condo here.  I had put up a couple already, but most of the walls were still bare.  It's amazing how much difference having stuff up on the walls makes.  Just for fun, here are some of the things I added to the walls in the last day or two...

Our friend Karen made this for Lowell and his friends for their 40th birthdays that they all celebrated last year.  It's fun to see friendships that have continued strong for 20+ years!  : )  (Can you see me in the reflection?)

 These haven't made it up on the wall yet, but are some of Lowell's favorites from his backpacking/fishing days.  We'll miss mountains like these in Peru.

This is a picture of my grandparent's house on the farm outside of Bakersfield.  The wood is from their old barn.  : )  The house and barn are gone now, but there is at least a street named after the family in the subdivision that exists there now!  I haven't seen it...  I think it would make me too sad...  but I love having a piece of their homestead in my home.

A souvenir from a trip to Colombia 10+ years ago.  Funny... that trip was one of the things that confirmed for us that we weren't supposed to go out as missionaries back then. Not because we didn't like it there...  it just wasn't time.

 My brother Brad and his wife Angel gave this to me a year ago for Christmas.  I love it.  For years growing up we had a painting with Proverbs 3:5-6 hanging in our house and it is burned into my heart and mind.  That verse came alive for me in a whole new way soon after college and I will always love this verse.  I love having stuff like this on my walls and hope it gets etched permanently in my kids' minds and hearts, too.

 Another gift from another brother and his wife...  this time Kevin & Hillary!  I loved having these photos on our wall in our old house.  It was the nicest photo arrangement we've ever had!  : )  For now they decorate the mantel and I still love having them around.

 Lowell put our MTE graduation certificates on the wall last weekend.  : )  And this calendar was made by Lowell's parents for all their kids (and them) for Christmas.  It has a page dedicated to each of their kids and grandkids.  How cute and fun is that?  I just can't get over that in some parts of the world it's already March.  Yikes!

 We collected quite a few missionary prayer cards when we were in Abbotsford.  Most of these are from people we were in training with and we love them dearly.  (The people, that is.) I was excited when I saw the empty bulletin board upstairs and realized it would be just the thing for the cards.  (The wood on this one is from Lowell's grandpa's old barn.  So cool to have such a clever hubby...  even if he does miss having all of his old tools!)  Now it's on the wall near our dining table and we can see and remember to pray for these dear faces.

 Mikaela and Timothy made this for me this weekend.  : )  It's a "homade paper quilt".  She used little pieces of paper, stamped designs on all of them and then glued them all to 2 larger pieces of construction paper and then added little accent pieces she also colored.  She is an amazingly creative young lady and I love this piece of art!  : )

 This is my favorite picture from our wedding.  I love the light shining through the cross and all of the people and that church.  I'm so glad I married that man!

 Another picture set I love...  these 3 pictures were all taken in front of the window in our hotel room in Bangkok when we went to get Timothy.  It makes me happy to remember that exciting adventure and to see those sweet faces that keep looking younger as the kids keep getting older.

For several summers in a row, we went camping with a bunch of our "old friends" from college and our families.  We had so much fun.  The kids would all play and play and we adults could visit without having to entertain or even hardly pay attention to the kids it seemed.  (Well, except to remind them to stay out of the poison oak!!!) One year we camped at Monterey and at the Montana de Oro beach I took these pictures.  I had always wanted to decorate our bedroom with a beach theme and there were such beautiful rocks there.  It was fun to stack them and pretend I was a photographer.  : )

I wasn't sure where this post was going to go when I started it.  I was going to tell you all that Lowell has uploaded a lot (really...  a LOT) of pictures from our trip to Peru so you can go check them out if you're interested in seeing where we went and some of the people we spent time with.  It was rich.  : )  The pictures online and the pictures I was hanging seemed to tie together so I thought I'd share them both.

I realize now that there is definitely a theme that weaves through all the pictures I'm hanging up.  Almost all of them bring back happy memories for me.  Whether it's memories of an event or of people or a stage of life, the things are all sweet to me for much more than aesthetic reasons.  And I'm glad I got them out and up so I can enjoy them for the remaining months we are living here.  The tough question is going to be what to do with them when we move to Peru.  I know we can't and I don't want to try to take them all with us...  but I want the memories.  (Maybe I'll just take the pictures of the pictures!)  : )

I also want to remember that as we go through life we're always making new memories and what we're living today has the potential to be a sweet memory in the future as I walk with God through it and am thankful in it and choose to look at it with hope and joy.

Lord, help me live these days so that if they were hanging on my wall someday they would bring back sweet memories of walking in faith with You...

And if you want to see our other pictures, click here.  : )