Catching Up...

As usual, things have been very busy for the family. I had hoped to update my blog more frequently while doing the B90X reading program, but to be quite honest; it's taken a lot of energy just to stay caught up with the readings. I am thrilled to say, though, that I have completed the Pentateuch (that's the first five books of the Bible, ya'll...However, I can take no credit for knowing that word....my pastor threw out that term and I had to google it)...I've also finished Joshua and am starting on Judges....Right now, I feel like I'm treading water with my daily readings..tough stuff for sure, but I'll keep you posted on my progress.

As is the norm for us, the Doak family has been doing lots of celebrating. In the past two weekends we have been to three birthday parties!!! My niece Adyson turned two, my mother-in-law did NOT turn two (haha), and the girls' friend Parker turned six. Lots of birthday cakes, presents, and celebrating!

Church has been keeping us all very busy and we continue to get more involved on a weekly basis! I am really excited about my new involvement with our youth program. AND I just signed up and paid the deposit to go on a mission trip to Mexico this summer! It is something that I have been very passionate about for quite some time. We (me as an individual and the church) are doing a number of things to fund raise for the trip, so I will keep you posted on ways you can help me out if you're interested! I'm scared, but thrilled with the opportunity God has given me. So check back soon as I post more info about my trip!

Homeschool continues to be challenging and fun for us all! Stella is loving Science this year. Ashlyn's favorite subject is Math and she really seems to have a talent for it. Quinn just wants to be like his big sisters and he enjoys keeping them company while they work....I hope everyone is doing well...here are a few recent pics of everyone...enjoy:

The kids and Grams celebrating her birthday

Thie girls with our friend Melissa's pomeranians Clooney and Hattie...

Stella getting ready for the Nick Jonas concert...

Stella @ the Museum of Nautal History in D.C.

It's been a dry, "staticky" month...

Days 4, 5, 6....Exodus...It Aint Just a Bob Marley Song Ya'll

Finished up Genesis on Monday....I was actually a little surprised to learn that I have read all of Genesis in the past...Waaay more familiar with that book than I thought. Genesis ends quietly with the deaths of Jacob and later Joseph.

Exodus, oh Exodus...the rules are getting layed out....Moses, the burning bush, bricks without straw, plagues, more plagues, and a couple more plagues, the origin of Passover, THE ten commandments, instructions on how to build an arc of the covenant not to mention a fairly ornate lampstand, and priestly garments (which begs to question why Aaron got the orders to wear the turban and not Moses....hmmmmm)..lots of RULES...I'm particularly grateful for Jesus after reading Exodus....

Bit of bible trivia for you....what passage of Exodus contains Jay's new favorite line in the Bible...."By the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up." anyone? I'll buy you lunch if you can name the passage and/or context without looking it up.....

Take care ya'll the B90x continues...

B90X--Day 3...How Real Life and Passion Collide

Have you ever wanted to be a part of something soo bad that it hurt?

That it consumed your thoughts?

Your days spent thinking, planning, daydreaming of ways to make your dream happen?

I think most of us get that spark of all-consuming drive when we are kids... we fall in love with something and we live "it." For me "it" was music. I loved music. I loved listening to music...pouring over album liner notes, listening every week to the Weekly Top 40 and wondering who would be number one, rushing out to the record store when the new U2 album came out and racing home to listen until I had memorized every lyric...As I got older I forced my dad to teach me to play guitar. I would spend hours alone in my bedroom practicing the few chords my dad had taught me...struggling to work out the melody to the songs that I passionately loved. Most of my girlfriends were getting crushes on musicians. I wanted to be one! I wanted to hang out with the boys in bands, but not to flirt--to play! Somewhere along the way I lost my passion for that. I convinced myself that writing about music would be just as fulfilling as playing music. I abandoned my guitar and became a journalism major in college. I started flirting with the musicians rather than talking shop, and well, real life stepped in and before I knew it my dream of becoming a songwriter got cast aside for other goals, and the flirting must of worked; because I did marry a guitar player.

There are things in my life that bring me immense joy on a daily basis. I have a fantastic husband who loves me and three children who touch my heart daily. Life for me has turned out really well and if nothing else ever came of my life than being a good wife and mother I would be ok with that. Though a weird thing started happening to me this summer when I started going to church (well, I should clarify: when I started going to ONE church on a regular basis...You could say once again that Real Life (rather literally) stepped in)...I started feeling a strong passionate desire to be a part of something. A passion that I had not felt since I was a teenage girl sitting alone in my bedroom trying to work out chords to Beatles songs... And wow, did God lead me to a church where things are happening, where people are passionate. I began making a nuisance of myself. I started volunteering for anything and everything at my church. I even started volunteering Jason...I was a complete lunatic. I said yes to every opportunity that came my way involving my church. And over the course of the several months I've been attending Real Life, I have discovered a passionate side to myself that I thought had been abandoned a long time ago. The question for me now is what to do with that passion. I've always been great at feeling passionate, but never so great on the execution and follow through.

I asked my pastor today why he was doing this whole B90X thing...Certainly, he's read the Bible all the way through (gosh, I hope he has...haha) and he said for a better understanding. Well, I'm certainly hoping for a little understanding, but even more than that, I'm reading the Bible in 90 days because that's what I do when I get excited about something. I completely, and totally, immerse myself in whatever it is that I'm passionate about. I've been around long enough to know that the feeling of all-consuming passion is fleeting. I'm hoping to grab on tight to this one and not let it go, but I'm not naive. I'm definitely going to make the most of it while I have it and if it means being a little (ok maybe a LOT) obnoxious and annoying in my enthusiasm (sorry Mike Johnson)...well, I'm willing to do that for the greater good which to me, is serving an awesome God.

Day 3 of B90X mostly centered around the life of Jacob and his offspring. Not too much witty commentary to be offered, but I will say that I'm in it now, for sure. I will definitely finish the Bible in 90 days....something that a few years ago was never in my realm of interest and/or possibility. Funny how our passions change, but the fervor behind them thankfully, does not....Take care.

B90X--Day 2..."She's My Sister."

ok...things are getting fairly interesting in Day 2's passage of the B90X plan (Genesis 17:1-28:19)...Who needs rated R movies people? Just read the Old Testament. Things are crazy!!!!!...I like how both Abraham and later on his son Isaac tell people that their wives are not really their wives, but in fact, their sisters...self preservation @ it's finest! What a brutal world back then...when you couldn't even say that your hot wife was your wife for fear of being killed! Crazy stuff!!
Days 2's passage also catches Abraham's wife Sarah laughing @ God who totally calls her on it! Sodom and Gomorrah is reduced to a sulfurous heap as is poor Lot's wife who doesn't even get named in the Bible, but whose fate is immortalized by her final formation: a pillar of salt...(God told her not to look back!!!!)

But don't take my word for any of this stuff; read it yourself! Looking forward to tomorrows' passage..This is a lot more interesting than I thought it would be......

B90X Day 1

OK.... first installment of reading the Bible in 90 days is done...Genesis 1-16 is complete... creation, lots of begat-ing and a preview to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. I can't help but wonder if reading the Bible at such a break-neck pace will bring about any further understanding of this book or just further confuse me, but I'm willing to give it a shot. At the very least, in 90 days, I'll be able to say I have read the entire Bible. Not many people can say that. I've started out with the NIV version for those of you who are curious, but am prob. switching to The Message for the New Testament. Check back daily I'll let you know my progress...take care ya'll and Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!