Vacation 2009 - part III - reunited with friends

One of the greatest things about facebook is that it reconnects you with people with whom you've completely lost touch and otherwise would probably have never found again.

Tricia and I became great friends in junior high and continued our friendship through high school. This is the first time we'd seen each other in about 12 years.

Tricia's 3 kids plus my 4.

Maria, also a junior high and high school friend, always sat behind me in homeroom by virtue of our last names (Vaughn and Viscuso). This is the first time I'd seen Maria in about 14 years!

Kim used to be our neighbor when we lived in Phoenixville. We were in each other's weddings, but the last time I saw her, I was pregnant with Christopher!

Kim's girls, Kaitlyn and Kristyn, were babies and toddlers when I knew them! They are holding their newest little sister, Abbie.

Here is Dave, a good friend from college days, holding his daughter (Mai An) and my daughter, Mary Grace.

All of the kids in this picture are Asian...the two on the outside just happen to look it!

Hien and I were also in each other's weddings and have thankfully kept in touch over the years without the help of facebook.

We met up with the Yohannans at a Chuck E Cheese's in Princeton, NJ. Of all the places to meet up in Princeton!!! - but it was pouring down rain and this place was a good half-way meeting point as well as fun for the kids (albeit too loud and distracting for any meaningful conversation)! Here is Jake with his 3 oldest kids, EJ, Josephine and Jesse.

Here is Jaya with their youngest, Noah.

The mommies with the babies...

The daddies with the babies. John and Jake were good friends throughout seminary, went to Israel together, and then served together at Trinity. Jake and Jaya are now serving in northern NJ, planting an ethnically Indian PCA church.

More high school friends - from left to right, Tricia's mom, Tricia, Janetta and Denise.

This was my first girls' night out in a LONG time!!! I went so crazy that I ordered a coffee at the bar. What's funny is that we graduated from high school 16 years ago and we all got carded that night!

Hien and Dave

Yesterday we drove to see our good friends, Hien and Dave in New Jersey. Hien is my best friend from college and since Hien and Dave were college sweethearts, I've known Dave for as long as I've known her. I met them during my freshman orientation (they were juniors at the time) and we've made a concerted effort to keep in touch over the years and miles. We were in each other's weddings, they've flown down to Texas a couple times to visit us (she even drove with me when I first moved to Texas back in 2000!), and we always make a point to visit them on our PA visits.


Here is Mai An, their youngest baby girl (~10 months old) showing off her tongue.


Happy Mai An in the exersaucer.


Aunty Hien holding our happy Hannah.


Quarter Asian baby meets 100% Asian baby! (yes, that blue-eyed, strawberry-blond-haired, fair-skinned girl on the left has a 1/4 cup of Asian blood in her veins, believe it or not)...


Christopher, Dan (3 years old) and Sarah hanging out in the basement with all of the toys.


So Goldilocks sat down in Papa bear's chair, but it was toooooo big.


Dan takes his chalk drawings very seriously.


Christopher was so excited to color with the giant chalk. Sidewalk chalk is such a cheap and effective form of childhood entertainment.

Jake and Jaya

While we miss our old friends Jake and Jaya Yohannan ever since they moved to the Northeast from Texas, we are thankful that they live close enough to my mom so that we can visit them on our annual vacation trips to PA. These photos were taken on the day (May 20th) we drove to northern NJ to spend the day at their new house.


Here is John sandwiched between Jaya and Jake. When Patrick, our associate pastor, saw this picture he said, "Look, an Oreo!"


Here is EJ (that stands for Elijah Jedidiah, in case you were wondering) with his mommy.


Here are Sarah, EJ, Christopher and Jesse. I'm so bummed that by the time I thought to bring out the camera, both Josephine and Hannah were taking naps. We realized while we were there that we had kids ages 1 (Hannah), 2(Josephine), 3(Sarah), 4(Jesse), 5(Christopher), and 6(EJ)! To top it off, Jaya and I are both due within a month of each other.


Here is Uncle John with EJ.

Nutrition and Training

I want to give a big thanks and even pique a little interest among local friends in someone who has been an enormous help to me in the whole battle of weight loss, fitness and increased cardiovascular health. Michelle Kinlaw is a friend of ours, a wonderful Christian woman and a great nutrional counselor and trainer. If you live here in our area and want some help getting together a fitness or nutrition plan, we would highly recommend her. Check out her website here.

Let me show you a before and after picture. ;-)

Here is what I looked like before:


And here is what I look like now:


Amazing, huh?

Tales from the Living Room Floor

Click here to read a very exciting birth story that recently happened to some friends of mine in Scotland.

Al Groves' letter to us...

Read the letter that Al Groves wrote to those attending his memorial service.

Flossing as an Act of Hope

As my readers know, our friend and teacher Al Groves had his grand "homegoing" to heaven this week. I wanted to post this blog entry he wrote 11 months ago, just about a month after the doctors told him that his case was terminal. I am moved by the picture of remaining faithful in the little tasks of life as an expression of a living hope in Christ. My own life is filled with so many things I'd rather not do, but part of following Jesus is doing them anyway (and, with God's help, doing them with excellence!) because it's not about me. It's about Jesus. May God give me grace to keep flossing all the way to the end!

Anyway, here is what Al wrote back in March of last year:

03.16.06 Flossing as an Act of Hope

Like many of the rest of you, I have been flossing my teeth for years, more years than I can count, it seems! Notwithstanding flossing every night, I still never managed to make it a habit, because I simply never really enjoyed flossing. Perhaps it's because I try to do it last thing of the day, at a time when I'm usually tired. Who knows? Not surprisingly, any excuse that made flossing a pass for the evening, and I was all over it. Most of the time however, I had no excuse, so I dutifully flossed.

Lately it crossed my mind that flossing my teeth may not matter any more. If I'm dying, what's the point? My teeth are in good shape (one of God's providential blessings in my life is that I have never had a cavity.) Just think: going to bed without any pre-bedtime rigmarole. Bliss. But somehow I just couldn't do it. And it wasn't the guilt of abandoned habit or improper hygiene crying out to my conscience. Rather, I realized that I would be caving in (in a small way) to hopelessness. Flossing your teeth is hardly earth-shaking. But somehow, it felt like giving up. I don't know what God is going to do with this cancer. So many people are praying for me/us. God might choose to extend my life, even bring me healing for years to come. I have not given up hope, and I'm not going to start a slide down the slippery slope.

Guess what? Each night flossing my teeth has become an act of faith and hope! At least one point in every day I am reminded that until I draw my final breath, God is my hope. And he can do as he alone is able.

In truth, I still sometimes feel the bother of flossing on the occasional late night, but each time I come to that moment of flossing, I am reminded that I want to live and that God is a God in whose faithfulness I can trust. He may choose not to heal me, but my choice is to hope in Him. If I die, my hope is in his resurrection. If I live, my hope is in Christ as well.

And this has applied across the board in my day-to-day life. What joy the little things in life have become. I might even learn that taking out the garbage is blessing. Okay. That's a bit much for now.

Al Groves, 54, went to be with the Lord tonight

In Memoriam, Professor J. Alan Groves

J. Alan Groves (b. December 17, 1952) met his Savior face to face on February 5 at the age of 54. He is survived by his wife of 28 years, Elizabeth W. Davis Groves; by his four children, Alasdair and wife Lauren, Rebeckah, Eowyn, and Alden. Born in 1952, Al received his B.A. in 1975 and B.E. in 1976 from Dartmouth College, and an M.A.R. in 1981 and a Th.M. in 1983 from Westminster Theological Seminary. He also pursued graduate studies at Dropsie College of Hebrew and Cognate Learning and was a Ph.D. candidate at Vrije Universiteit, working on a doctoral thesis entitled “A Textlinguistic Analysis of Exodus 1-14.” He was a ruling elder at New Life Presbyterian Church (PCA), Glenside, Pennsylvania.

A wonderfully honest and tender blog has been kept these past 13 months. www.algroves.info is well worth reading to improve your hope of heaven.

Pray for the family of Al Groves

Pray for my friend and former OT professor Al Groves who will soon be with Jesus. Take a minute to read a blog that is filled with the hope of heaven. http://www.algroves.info/

The Three Amigos Reunited

It often takes a tragedy to reunite friends. Last Friday a very special man in our church went home to be with the Lord. He was only 49. Patrick (our associate pastor) and I were both privileged to be at his bedside and pray for him and sing hymns/songs to him as he slipped into the arms of Jesus. And our third pastor, Jake and his young bride Jaya, who left about a year ago to plant a new church in the greater metropolitan NYC area (Bergen County, NJ) came in last night so that we could all participate in Jeff's memorial service today. It was a bittersweet day. But no small part of the sweetness was spending hours tonight in our living room remembering old stories and laughing long and hard into the evening and sharing a Guinness together. Who cares how tired and cranky our kids were. Here we are back together again, The Three Amigos... Patrick Poteet, John McCracken and Jake Yohannan.