Caramel Pecan Ice Cream Dessert

Since we are in the middle of a heat wave I thought I'd share one of my favorite summertime desserts. It's perfect for hot days such as these.






1 3/4 c. flour
1 c. chopped pecans
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. oats
1 c. melted butter

Mix together and spread on baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Stir mixture when it comes out of oven to break up into little pieces. Cool. Spread half of mixture evenly into a 9x13 pan and pour half a can of butterscotch ice cream syrup over crumbs. Add a layer of softened vanilla ice cream. Top with remaining crumbs and then the rest of the butterscotch sauce. Freeze.

The Happiest Place on Earth

I know that they say that Disneyland is the "Happiest Place on Earth", but I know a couple of kids who would disagree... Truely the Happiest Place on Earth is Papa and Grandma's house!

The Cause Driven Church

This is an article by Erwin McManus that I came across several years ago - I can't seem to get it out of my head. I believe he's hit the nail on the head with this one.


The Cause Driven Church
by Erwin Raphael McManus

The early church existed with a dynamic tension: it was both expanding and consolidating - growing and unifying. The Bible tells us that first century believers “shared everything in common” and that “the church was being added to day by day.” We want our church to live in this same tension.
This tension is illustrated by two biblical images - the body of Christ and the army of God. The body of Christ is centered on community; the army of God is centered on cause.
Healthy community flows out of a unified cause - not the other way around. Jesus called his disciples and said, “Follow me. I’ll make you fishers of men.” This was not an offer of community. “Follow me and I will give you something worthy of giving your life to” is a statement of cause. But the neat thing is, when they came to the cause, they found community like they never knew could exist. That’s the power of the church.
One danger of the American church is that we often try to offer people community without cause. Without cause, you’re just another civic organization. You don’t have life transformation.
Jesus said, “I have come to the world to seek and to save that which is lost.” The cause of Christ is accomplished by expanding the kingdom of God.
Communicating the gospel in a postmodern context can make us feel forced to compete with the entertainment industry. You might be able to compete if you have millions of dollars and that level of expertise. Most of us don’t. We have only one advantage that neither Hollywood nor MTV has. We have the presence and power of the living God!
Why in the world would we eliminate God’s power from our core strategy and actually move to a deficit rather than to an advantage?

Hubby's Hobby

Jeremy's favorite thing to do in the summer is to go to the lake and get behind a boat.

And the secret to being a successful skier...

Birchwood Dairy

Birchwood Dairy is one of our favorite summertime outings. The ice cream is amazing and the kids love running around and looking at all the farm animals. We met some friends there the other day.

When we arrived Sam got out of the car and noticed the gravel parking lot. His comment was "It's rock-o-lee here". Where does he come up with this stuff? We then went to get ice cream - he noticed the cotton candy flavor (gross) and said "I want the pink one". We did the sneaky parent thing and ordered him raspberry (which is also pink and way more tasty) instead. Good thing we did since we had to eat it... he had about two licks and then announced he was done and wanted to go play on the tractors!

Care Group BBQ

You know it's time to go home when:

Would You Like Fries With That?