Time has such a way of marching …faster and faster and faster.  The days go by, and the weeks and months and then the years are gone.  Memories are all that remain.  And, the fun-filled, happy ones are definitely the best!

Our extended family here in Dothan is very close.  Mom made it a point that we were together as often as possible.  Any excuse for her to fix a meal and have everyone over was always on her agenda.  My children and Joy’s children grew up together…in church, in school, at Granny and Papa’s house.  They were and still are great friends.  After Mom moved to Heaven, Joy and I discussed how we wanted to make sure this continued with the next generation.  An even though Levi and John Thomas live in different towns…they see each other enough to play together, and love each other.

But, since a day here and once a day there is not enough…BOOGALOO CAMP was formed 3 years ago.  This is a time when Joy and I take our daughters and our daughters-in-love and their children away for about 5 days.  The beach has ben our destination since we bought our beach house about the same time.  Besides…we all LOVE the beach!  It is a time of fun, food, crafts for the boys, swimming, shopping, and surprises!

We have just returned from our 3rd camp.  I want to share it with you and document it for posterity  (In our family, it seems I am the only one who tries to keep records and pictures for those who come after…it just seems quite important to me).

Joy and I arrived a few days earlier and got food together and set things up.  Then the rest of the crew arrived.  Because it was a little cloudy and hard rain forecast for the next two days, they decided to take advantage of the sunshine and hit the beach!  Of course, the beach and the sand was off limits to me with my bum knee.  But, a little quiet time with a good book is always a treat!

John Thomas after a quick dip in the ocean!

We ended our last day together back in the  water again.  This time at a PCB water park.  The boys love it.  The park has a pool that’s about 3 feet deep and all kinds of equipment to play on, climb on, and slide on!  Then, also 2 large Olympic size pools also!  It’s so nice and clean.  Here are a few shots from there…

John Thomas passed the test!

The first and last time Levi attempted the big slide.  He said, “It’s too dark in there!”  I’m with him!

It’s obvious the girls get their beauty from their mother.  Love my beautiful sister!

Just a short rest time…

More to come in Part 2…..

This has been running back and forth through my mind lately and I know why.  It’s because the people involved were all women who had an influence on me.  A good one.  All ladies in my church. These were ladies I grew to know and love from the time I started at Southside Baptist Church.  I was in the 6th grade.  These were ladies who were already adults when I was a child and so they were my teachers and my leaders and my examples.

I trained several years while I was in college at Glorietta Baptist Assembly in Glorietta, NM.  I wouldn’t expect you to know about this place unless you were a Southern Baptist.  There was another one in Ridgecrest, NC.  In those years, people would travel for a week or two to one of these assemblies and stay on the grounds.  Then they would go to classes in their area of service during the day.  Every evening there were services with the visiting pastor for the week.  Each night was like a good ole Baptist Revival.  The best preachers were there…the best singers were there.  And, helping to run it all was college students from around the country.   Most were employed to clean cabins during the day, or work on the grounds, or serve in the kitchen…cooking and cleaning.  Some were used in the recreation for the visiting children.  And, a few…just 5 or 6…were selected to work in the preschool department.

I was one of those.  Now, I didn’t realize just how fortunate I was at first, but anything was better than cleaning and making beds or washing 600 dirty breakfast plates!  Thus began my training and subsequent love of preschool education in the church.  The leaders in each of these areas were the tops in their field.  These were the people who wrote the literature.  They wrote the books on how to teach.  The wrote study course books outlining how to set up a preschool department and why.  These people were amazing.  They wrote children’s books and children’s music.  They did it all.  And, for 2 summers, I was directly under their direction and leadership and teaching.

This is the way it worked.  We all got a crash course in teaching preschoolers.  We’d watch and learn.  We’d do something wrong and learn.  We’d read and learn.  And, soon enough, we would take the whole room of children and be responsible for them.  See, the parents who came to attend classes would bring their children.  We in turn would keep them and teach them…like a Sunday School department.  There were classrooms set up.  And, all around the outside of the room were dark screened rooms with chairs.  The leaders would hold classes elsewhere for those who were interested in preschool work and then sometime each day they would quietly enter those darkened screen rooms and observe what we EXPERTS were doing.  Believe me, if we did not not handle a situation right…it was used to talk about the right thing to do…and we were made well aware of the blunder! They would sit quietly for 30 or 40 minutes and then leave.  The children never knew they were there.  (I do remember one little boy coming up to me and saying that the “that wall has coughing in it!”)

I can’t even begin to tell you how soon I began to know just how blessed I was.  This method of teaching made perfect sense to me.  A department was set up with certain areas in it….art, home living, blocks, puzzles, books, etc.  These were a constant each week.  Then an activity was prepared for the child to do in each area.  An activity that went along with the lesson.  The children made the choices as to the areas they visited…but in each one they had the opportunity to hear the Bible Story of the day.  So, by the time they got to Large group time, they had heard the story at least 3 times already!  Then all the lessons followed a rotation system in the areas of God, Jesus, Natural World, Self, Others, Family, Home.  It changed either monthly or quarterly.

This system made such sense to me and it still does, though few follow it anymore.  I began to to work in a local church while I was in college.  And, I had already taken 2 years of Early Education courses at Samford University.  Don and I married and I taught in our church in Birmingham until we moved back to Dothan.  About that time, our home church began a major building project for a new education building and a preschool building was included in that.  I was able to give some input and insight into the building…and they used consultants from Baptist State Boards to make sure it met the requirements they had set forth.  How blessed to be able to teach in a building, and have the materials to teach, all according to the proper set up!  I started my work in preschool at Southside as Preschool Director.  I stayed in this position for some 20 years.  I then passed the job to capable hands and began teaching the kindergarten class each Sunday.  This was probably another 20 years.  I worked as Director again for a few years when we remodeled again, but now I am out of it altogether.  Age and family and health…you understand.   But, I miss it every single time I am at church!

One of the things I worked on in those years is getting trained teachers for all the classrooms…babies, toddlers, threes,fours,and fives.  And I was able to do that.   I taught classes for all ages.  One of my greatest success stories was the Threes!

I don’t remember exactly, but this is my recollection.  My Mom came to me and said that she and two of her friends wanted to teach the threes.  Well, this was just as I was looking for new workers.   I told her that would be great!  So the team of Mom (Eloise Townsend), Jeanette Glover, and Rudean Newton was formed for our three year old department.  They were willing and anxious to learn the ‘right ‘ way to do everything!  They knew how important it was to have training, and spent a week at an Alabama assembly that taught classes similar to the bigger assemblies.  This was Shocco Springs.  They learned and began the work with our threes.  What a wonderful job they did!  Oh, and how thrilled I was to see things done the right way…the way for optimum teaching of little ones.  They worked together for quite a few years.  I don’t remember exactly why, but Mrs. Rudean had to bow out….and was replaced by the wonderful Betty Swicord.  She fit right in and things went on just as smoothly as before.  I had forgotten this but Jeanette told me Sunday that when Mrs. Betty had to exit, another lady stepped in.  And, through all the years, when one or another of the ladies were unable to be in attendance, Shirley Hammond was the designated fill in person.  She was as talented as all the others and could move in with ease.

This post is a thank you to this group who saw the need for  preschool education.  They didn’t think threes were too young to teach.  They understood the principle that, starting with babies, you build a foundation that church is a happy place to be.  People love me at church.  People take care of me at church. We do fun things together at church.  This foundation carries on and is built upon as the child grows.  Soon he is able to learn more about why we come to church…eventually learning to love God and surrender their lives to Him.

The saints in this group are no longer all together.  Mom and Mrs. Rudean have moved to Heaven.

Mrs. Betty is dealing with serious health issues, Mrs. Jeanette has just undergone some serious health problems, as well.    In the midst of the illness of both of these ladies, they have been faithful and continue to serve the Lord.

Shirley Hammond is no longer a member at Southside, but is doing well and serving the Lord in many ways.  She is and will always be a part of us!

I want to honor these ladies and the example they are to me!  I have watched you all for many years.  I see what you do and how you act.  I see how you suffer and continue to smile.  I see you faith in our Lord shining through adversity.  I don’t think I can ever measure up to any of you, but you are my inspiration.

My mother was wise in many ways.  She was a friend to many.  These ladies were dear to her and loved her.  And, she loved and trusted them.  At times, in church, I get a little emotional, when something reminds me of Mom.  These are the ladies I want to hug…because they loved her, too.  And, I feel almost as if I can feel her though their hugs.

Mom, Rudean Newton, Jeanette Glover, Betty Swicord, Shirley Hammond…thank you.  You have a special place in my heart of hearts.

This morning (Monday), Levi was looking for a teeny, tiny, itty, bitty gun that goes with his Star Wars creature.  Now the deal was, on Friday as he was cleaning up, I told him to put ALL the little guns in the box so he would not lose one.  Really, they are so tiny, you could easily think it was a piece of trash!  And when he wants me to find one…not fun!  When he went to the box this morning, that one particular gun was not there.  CRISIS

I asked him if he put it up on Friday.  He said that he did but he got it out again when his mother and I were talking.  He showed me where he thought it was…but, alas, no gun there.  We looked and looked…in several places.  But no gun.  TEARS

Don had come into the kitchen to fix breakfast…as he does every morning.  It is a tradition that he and Levi started long ago and no one can fix the breakfast now, but Pa!  Which is ever so fine by me.  Of course,  I do the getting dressed and combing hair and brushing teeth and driving to school part!  (And, we all know how fun it is to wrestle a pair of jeans and boots on a four year old who would rather be doing anything else!!!)

Well, my dear hubby usually has a word or two or ten to interject into how I can do life better or more efficient or faster or like him.  So, he told me that I should have gotten a specific place for Levi to keep all his Star Wars things, so they could all stay together.  It did my heart good to tell him that I did that. ( Nah! Nah! Nah-Nah! Boo-Boo!)  SMUG

Levi walked into the kitchen and I reminded him that he had the big box to put all his Star Wars things in and if he would just do that every day when he left, they would not get lost!

Don was looking at me like a goon and said, “Lulu is right, Levi.  That’s why she can always find what she’s looking for and never loses anything.”  SARCASM A MILE LONG  He did say it with a smile, but …you understand!

So, I sang, to the room at large..a strange, little silly song….”LuLu is not perfect. She loses things. She makes messes. She forgets where things are!    Oh, well, Big deal….Lulu is not perfect!”

Sweet, innocent, angelic Levi then took me by the hand and looked into my eyes with all the seriousness in the world  and said, “Why did you not tell me that before now?”

UH OH…slipped a little off that pedestal…

“Sorry, Levi.  I’m not perfect.  I mess up big time…lots of times.  But, one thing’s for sure…Messes can be fixed or cleaned up or done over.  And, I don’t mind doing that.  Believe it or not, some of the best lessons you will learn in this life come from when you really mess up bad!  We just clean it up and start over!  Besides, aren’t messes the most fun, sometimes! And, in the grand scheme of things…what’s a few messes?  I don’t put things away like I should.  I know I need to, but I get so busy.   I lose things.  And, they may stay lost for a while.  But, it’s so exciting when I find them again!  Oh, well, this is me. I love you.   I love your messes.  I love seeing you so involved in a project that everything else fades away! We can always clean up after…and we do!  And, we’ll try to do better keeping up with the Star Wars guns.  OK?   Your Not Quite Perfect Lulu”

My mother loved to sing. She sang all the time.  She sang in the car.  She sang at the kitchen sink.  She sang while dusting and vacuuming.  She had music in her and it had to come out!  I think that’s a wonderful thing, because all she ever sang was hymns or other Christian music….but hymns mostly or songs they were working on in choir.

Our family was a church going family.  Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, every revival, every associational meeting, ever Week of Prayer (twice a year), every committee meeting, every choir meeting, every Sunbeams, GA’s, Acteens, Every social, every special missionary speaker,   every winter Bible study, every VBS early bird clinic, every association wide sing, every youth meeting on Saturday night,every circle meeting, every class meeting, every BYW, every children’s choir, every Mission Friends, every Sunday night after church fellowship, every dinner on the grounds after service on Sunday morning.  Every single thing that was made available to us, we were there and on the front row!  The only exception to this  rule was the one night a year that The Wizard of Oz came on TV.  That night Daddy and Joy and I were allowed to stay home and watch the movie.  Mother fixed us snacks and settled the three of us in front of the TV…before she went on to church.  And, we watched.  And, Joy cried at the same spot every year!  Ahhh! Those monkeys were not that scary!

Now, our church attendance was not a bad thing.  Actually, it was a good thing….though I didn’t realize it at the time.  Our life existed in learning about our Lord.  Our dearest friends were right there in those meetings with us.  This is what we put our time and talent into.  And, we were very happy.  My parents had wonderful friends, and their children were our friends.  They liked to get together when we weren’t at church, and so we got together with them.  And, so at almost all times of my life I was surrounded by people who thought like us, and talked like us and worshipped like us.  My parents friends became extended family to us.  (Ours all lived far away)  They were Aunt Katherine and Uncle Allison and Aunt Eunice and Uncle Robert…and others.

My Mom always sang in the choir and occasionally would sing solos.  My Aunt Eunice Williams was my piano teacher for 12 years (,,,I’m sorry Aunt Eunice, for not practicing more…)  She was also our church organist.  And, our Youth Choir director for a while!  I can still recall an anthem she taught us in choir some 45 years ago.  Joy and I can still do a pretty good rendition of it when we are together…in the car…by ourselves.

But, though my Mom was forever singing…I could not remember a song she taught me to sing.  Now she had a couple of fun songs she always liked to sing…like Shoo Fly Pie, Gonna Dance By the Light of the Moon.  And, she had a few poems she would recite…The Moo Cow Moo.   But, as far as a song she taught me the words and how to sing, I could not remember a single one.

What brought this up is I found a file of songs I have taught to Levi.  Some you would know and some came straight out this convoluted mind of mine…and only Levi and I would understand.  We’ve been making up our own songs since he was a baby!  All along he will ask me to sing the song about the chicken or the Hands Song, etc.

Because I am such a stickler for him listening to the right kind of music, I have several CDs and DVDs that we listen to in the car.  He knows them all by heart now!  But, I purchased a new one a few weeks ago and this week, we played on the way to school.  A song came on that was vaguely familiar to me.  I knew it was a song I had learned long ago…but the words were a little different.  They were alike enough that I knew it was the song.  After Levi got out of the car at school, I sat and listened to the song a few times…rewinding and listening again.  And, then I had the most beautiful remembrance.

It was a song my Mother had taught me.  I can see us sitting together and her singing a line, then me repeating it. Then changing up the words and singing it again.  You may even know it…with slightly different words.  But this is the way Mom taught me.

OUR HEAVENLY FATHER

Our heavenly Father made the BIRDS, He showed them what to do

If God so loves the little BIRDS, I know He loves me, too.

He loves me , too.  He loves me, too.   I know He loves me, too.

If God so loves the little BIRDS,   I know He loves me, too!

Wow!  what a sweet memory I had sitting in the car, in the cold, in the parking lot at FPP.  That’s the great thing about memories, isn’t it?  They pop up out of nowhere, but take you right back to a moment in time long ago.  I just wanted to be still and revel in it!  I was thinking of that as I drove home, and to my surprise, I remembered another song Mom taught me.  I have not heard this song in forever, but there it was seared into my memory bank.

WHO CAN MAKE A FLOWER?

O who can make a FLOWER?

I’m sure I can’t, can you?

O, who can make a FLOWER?

No one but God; It’s true!

Yes, there she was singing that song and teaching me the word and motions to it!  So sweet! So comforting!  I remember it vividly…now!

Don’t ever think that the things you teach your children are for naught.  What goes in this brain of ours, is there.  And, at some time, it’ll just rise to the surface.  Perhaps at a time when we need a lift.  Or maybe at a time God just wants to give us a little wink and say “Remember this?”

Oh the responsibility it is on us as parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles,teachers, friends.  Someone… sometime… somewhere… will recall a memory of us.  Will we be pleased with what they remember?  Will we be ashamed?  Will it be a memory that is worth sharing with others?

Well those decisions are all up to you.  But as for me…I am thrilled when I can share such happiness and remembrance with you!

This was a big day in the Owens’ family….A rite of passage…A symbol of continuity.  Today, Levi got his first motorcycle.

Motorcycles have been a part of my life since I was born.  I actually have a picture of Pop holding me in his arms with one hand and driving a motorcycle in the yard with the other.  Mother, obviously, was taking a nap!  Anyway, Joy and I grew up riding, and I rode to high school some.  Don and I had a motorcycle while we were in college at Samford in Birmingham.  Then our children came along…and as soon as they could hold one up…they were riding, and loving every minute of it.  My boys and Joy’s girls both rode.  Sure, they had falls and broke bones and cuts and scrapes.  They hit trees and the backs of parked cars.  But, they learned the right way to ride. *** Never without a helmet. *** Never with a passenger.  ***Always with an adult present.  And always knowing misbehavior while riding would warrant losing the privilege.  Ask Adam if we stuck to that.

***Adam on his first motorcycle…***

They rode most often off the road or only on a quiet cul de sac where my parents lived…until my boys got older.  The motorcycles were always kept at their house.  Then Adam began to ride to school, and out to Wallace Community College…and then his Pop took him on a two week trip from Dothan through Atlanta to North Carolina and on to West Virginia.  Wow..they made some great memories.  I think Adam was 17.

Ian was also quite a rider and rode frequently in school and while he was in college in Birmingham and back and forth to Birmingham.   I would ride anywhere with those two, they are such careful, skilled operators.  But, that doesn’t mean I did not worry.  I sure did.  Not so much about their skills as the fact that cars do not respect motorcycle riders and don’t look for them on the road.

Well, Levi has been riding with his Pa for a good while, off road only.  He is already developing a love for the sport just like his dad and uncles.  We decided to get him this tiny machine for Christmas…with his parent’s blessing.  But, it’s for off road use only.  As you see in these pics, he is riding on the little lane we live on.  But, there is very, very little traffic here.  He will never be allowed to ride without his Pa or his Daddy here with him.  And most of his riding will be in our wooded lot.  And you’ll see it has training wheels on it, and it will for a while.  He’s learning to balance, but this will give him more stabilization for a while.  Since Adam was working on Christmas Day, we made the day after Christmas the day of the big reveal!

“What’s in this box, Pa? Another Christmas present?”

“Wow!  it’s a real motorcycle helmet!  A real one!  Like you wear!”

“Look! It fits!  I like it!  And, it has a face shield, too!”

Don then told Levi there may be one more package under the tree for him!  He got the paper off that thing in a hurry,  “It’s a motorcycle!  A real motorcycle!”

“It fits me! It’s my size!”

Adam had some words of wisdom for Levi…

…they both had things to tell him…

…and some more things to tell him…Like where the BRAKES are!!!

Finally, he gives it a little gas…and off he goes…down the front path.

Eyes on the road…always look ahead…

Big turn here…Pa and Daddy close beside.

A few more words from Adam…and a little reassurance.

And there he goes!  Like a pro!

Now Uncle Ian is helping watch!

And Uncle Alex is close by, too!

“I did it Pa!  By myself!  I love it!”

“Thanks, Pa.  I’m going to ride some more, now!”

“Don’t worry Mommy and Lulu.  All is well!  I’ll be careful!  I’m a big boy now!”

It was a day for family and a day for fun.  Cherishing the beautiful gift of this little boy, and his Daddy and Uncles and Grandpa and Great Grandfather in whose footsteps he follows.  And Suzanne and I along to watch over it all…and shed a few tears.  Not sad ones…just wistful ones.  Time moves so quickly……and little boys become big boys and men right before your eyes.  Way before you’re ready for it!  Oh, that we remain wise in the leading!

“But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear Him, and His righteousness with their children’s children…”   Psalm 103:17