The Cahill's

Not quite a week ago I had a chance to re-live some of the “best of times” and share new memories with my spirited adventurer, Ivy. I was invited to speak at STEP – a girl’s summer adventure camp I attended and staffed for 5 years.

We drove up as a family and spent the night so I could get up at 5:00am and guest lead a round of P.T. for the girls! Call me crazy, but it sure was fun to work out in the gym once again. I even managed to keep up with the girls despite being 12 weeks pregnant.

After a quick breakfast I lead a devotional using ice cream to illustrate points in all four chapters of Philippians, the book the girls study and memorize while at the camp.

We joined the girls on the rappelling tower for the morning. After watching a while, Ivy decided she would like to give it a try. I got her geared up and over the edge before she realized just how scary things could be. However, she continued on bravely, just a few tears, and as we neared the ground she gained confidence.

By the time her feet touched ground she had a huge smile on her face and felt very pleased with her accomplishment.

Flora wanted to try too but we were afraid she was too small. So we set up on the 5 ft. obstacle course wall. Sure enough, she didn’t have enough weight to overcome the friction of the rope through her equipment, but Daddy fed the rope through and got her to the ground, bringing big smiles.

Lance thought this endeavor looked safe enough and bravely went over the wall too. A future ALERT man in the making?

Brian and the kids left after lunch while Ivy stayed with me to continue the fun.

We watched the advanced group build a stretcher to transport a “wounded hiker” as part of their wilderness survival training.

Then we joined the girls at the lake for some swimming and canoeing. Ivy boated with me and began to learn paddling basics. Then she played pirate with the instructors, swamping canoes at the end of a race and swimming the boats to shore.

Ivy loved her time here and all the attention from the girls. We also enjoyed getting to see Aunt Katie and watch her work.

I had opportunity to talk with several of the STEP girls, as well as some of the staff I knew from other years. That evening I gave a testimony on loving God with all our soul and how He has taught me to battle for control of my thoughts. It was a long, full, fun day and I’m so grateful for the opportunity.

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We just finished reading through Exodus and thought you would enjoy seeing a few things we did along the way.

Making bricks out of mud.

See how many!?

Ivy plays task master with the whip.

Gathering “manna” in the wilderness. (oyster crackers) They thought this great fun!

Lance remembered that those who saved theirs to the next day got worms in it! Our fuzzy caterpillar pet played the part beautifully.

Then, as a celebration for finishing the book, we set up a tabernacle…of sorts.

It had blue, purple, scarlet and “fine twined linen” along with badger skin and ram’s skin dyed red.

Inside was the table with the Shew bread, candlesticks…

…and the Ark of the Covenant with manna, Ten Commandments and Aaron’s rod.

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The priests were consecrated with “blood” on the right ear lobe, right thumb and right big toe.

The laver with water for washing (a big hit with the babies)

And the alter with a perfect lamb for a sacrifice.

A walk through with the children.

And just for extra – here is my final set of verses for Romans chapter 1. Just a video of the kittens and chickens as I quote God’s word. I’m so ready to switch focus from sin to redemption as I start on chapter 8!

Our oldest turned five a few weeks ago!

I made these cupcakes to take to Cubbies on his birthday – he loves seahorses.

With moving in our new house and getting things ready for a big workday, his birthday had a way of sneaking up on me and I wasn’t ready so we celebrated the following Monday.

We started with an ocean theme and as I looked for ideas I ended up doing activities that went along with fish Bible stories.

First was creation – On the 5th day, God made everything in the water, including seahorses!

Made this cute little seahorse craft, which was also “S” for seahorse, but I think that was lost on the crowd.

Next was Jonah and the whale – the boat was the Mayflower my mom made last Thanksgiving, the whale was fashioned by Brian out of our refrigerator box. We acted out the story and then everyone and everything was swallowed by the whale.

A fishing party game was converted to a Bible story too. We made little paper plate fish and then like Peter, we went fishing ….

….and found a gold coin in our fish!! However, no one had to pay tax with their find.

Then there was the miracle of catching a net full of fish after nothing all night. I told the story then we watched a “miracle” happen as little capsules that looked like nothing changed into fish sponges right before our very eyes!

Finally was the miracle of feeding a crowd with 5 loaves and 2 (bags) of fishes. I calculated that the food pictured above would have to feed our party crowd 3 meals a day for 3 months to equal 5,000.

Lance loves his new seahorse dad and babies. He also received several other creative seahorse/fish type gifts. Thanks to the moms and aunts that helped pull everything off, make food and clean up. It was such fun to celebrate my little man!