Your Icecream Flavour is...Neopolitan!

You aren't satisfied with just one flavor. They say variety is the spice of life and this shines through in your Ice cream of choice! Just don't eat all the chocolate and leave the strawberry and vanilla behind!

What is your Icecream Flavour?

Find out at Go Quiz

Our family message to you....

MELE KALIKIMAKA!

with all our love from our home to yours ~

From Washington to Fanning Island and everything in between ~ may your days be Merry & Bright...

and may the SON shine in your life!

Merry Christmas

Scott, Trayc, Caleb & Micah Foskett

pictures from Hawaii...these are on Maui (day three of the cruise)

This lady in the wheelchair is a special part of our trip ~ Scott & Steve had to go back to the ship to get car seats and on the tender on the way back to Maui Scott sat next to her. As she was talking to the people around her, she kept pointing to and holding Scott's arm saying "he's my boyfriend!" :) It was classic and we had to get a picture of the kinds of girls Scott attracts these days! (should I be worried? ;)

These next three are three of my absolute favorites from the whole trip! Caleb was given snorkel gear before we left and he was so excited about it...until we got to the beach and the vastness of the ocean freaked him out. However.....when it came time to leave we couldn't get him away from the water. He loved it and I snapped these pictures to capture the spirit of childhood.

these pictures are from Day 2 of the cruise ~ the first one is of Caleb and I at a steamhole at Mount Kilauea. The second is the boys and I right before we headed into to a lava tube ~ also on Mount Kilauea. Did you know that Mt. Kilauea (kill-a-way-uh) has been erupting since 1983??! yup ~ since that time it has added hundreds of square miles of real estate to the big Island. It's amazing!! And the lava tube (literally a tube made out of lava...completely naturally) was astounding. We have similar things up here, but we call them "bat caves." We were going to go up earlier in the Fall, but I said I didn't want to go see any bats! DUH!! :)

The next picture of the boys is taken again at Mt. Kilauea ~ it's just a cute picture of my kids! ;)





















Ah ~ then we head to Maui for the largest Banyon tree in the US. Leaning on one of the multiple branches is Caleb, Micah, and their cousin, Peyton.
















There are many more ~ this is just the beginning, but some of my favorites.... I'll be sharing my absolute favorites from Fanning Island next.... :) Have a great day!

An Instant World

I wish we lived in an instant world where everything we had to do was able to be done like e-mail. Imagine with me...

"I have to mail this package to Sophie! It's been two weeks (how'd that happen?) since I told her I'd mail it and it's still here!
"I think I'll bring it to the post office and have them package it all up and everything...and is Caleb done with his picture for her yet?
(enter INSTA-MAN!)
"Hello there! Did I hear correctly that you've been meaning to send something across the United States but hate going to the post office so you procrastinate?"
"Ummm, who are you?"
"Don't mind that ~ I asked you a question!"
"O-kaaaaay....yes, that's pretty much it in a nutshell."
"Don't worry m'lady! Here ~ put your package in this opening in my back."
"Ummm, who are you?"
"Don't mind that ~ I told you to do something!"
"O-kaaaaay...pull here?"
"No, not my finger...my back! Lift up on that handle that says "lift" on it."
"this is weird."
"You think you have to tell ME that?"
"Okay. I'm lifting....HEY! What happened to you? You're a tall skinny man with very little meat on your bones ~ if you turn sideways you disappear, but when I lift up on this handle it looks as if you go on forever! Who ARE you?"
"I'm INSTA-MAN!"
"Insta-man? Your name is "Insta-man?" That's kind of weird."
"I know, but everyone loves me so it doesn't matter how weird my name is! Now, do you want me to help you or not?"
"Oh! Yes! Please help me!!"
"Put your package on that little conveyor belt inside and enter the address of the person you're sending your package to on the little computer keyboard next to it."
"It's little alright...just a second. Oh! I pushed NW instead of NE...these keys are tiny!"
"Are you finished?"
"Yes"
"Now push that green button that says SEND"
"Here goes nothing...are you sure it's going to get to her? I mean, some of these things are one of a kind and I won't be able to re-do them."
"Do I look like the kind of man to steal your packages?"
"you don't look like anything I've ever seen before."
"So do you trust me or not?"
"Well, I suppose. Here ya go...." (I push send and an unbelievable noise comes out the man's backside. Oh. that's not supposed to sound like it does...I mean his BACK. :) An unbelievable noise came out the man's BACK. Like a tornado, or a hurricane or a combination of the two. He jerked forward and then he jumped back and he bent from side to side as if he were a ragdoll. Then, all of the sudden....)
"Well, it's delivered. She says thank you."
"huh?"
"Sophie. She received your package and she says thank you and don't worry about it."
"you're kidding. She already got it?"
"yup ~ and she opened it, too. That one thing was pretty cool. She liked it."
"uhhhhhh, o-kaaaaaay. Thanks. Um, how'd you do that?"
"That's what I'm here for ~ that's why *I* am INSTA-MAN!" (he said it in the most annoyingly bogus fake-radio-announcer voice I couldn't help but be amazed to be in his presence....and I swear it reverberated when he talked!)
"Um, thank you Insta-Man! You're the BEST!"
"Nothin' to it, M'Lady ~ instant packages is what I do best. Well, I'm off to save another person who has been kicking themselves for about an hour now wishing they could get their daughter's Twin Bings to Washington before they melt or the chocolate goes bad. You know how those Twin Bings can be."
"Oh, do I! Have a safe trip!"
"Thank Yooooooooooouuuuu!"
And he was gone. The packages were sent and the weight was lifted from my shoulders. Ah, life in an instant world ~ what bliss!


Okay, so that's not really going to happen, but I really wish it could. I have Tooley mugs sitting here along with Arbonne orders that need to be returned and a very important Birthday package that needs to be sent...make that packages...to 4 very important people.

I guess it's time to make "That's good enough!" more of my vocabulary than "Oh! I can do this and this and this to this to make it even more perfect!" is. I'd get a lot more done if it were.....so I guess it's time to do a reprogram on my brain!

have a good day ~ and if I owe you a package.......it's "in the mail." ;) (or it will be...)

Celebrating Life Today

Over the last few weeks the topic of adoption vs abortion has weighed heavily on my mind. I know personally why the topic is there ~ Sophie came into this world 10 years ago on September 18th. Her adoption placement was three weeks later on October 7th.

However, politically, geographically and intellectually the topics are there for very different reasons. Most of you who read this blog know I hail from South Dakota. I love having grown up in South Dakota ~ I had a great education, wonderful neighbors and churches and a culture that, at the time, was focused on the stereotypical Midwestern Hospitality. I owe a lot of who I am because of where I came from. Many of you probably know (unless you're living in some Christian World News hole or something) that South Dakota is a very controversial state right now. WOO HOO!! (sorry...I'm not supposed to be that excited about controversy. :) ) Anyway, I digress....South Dakota has on it's ballot for November a possibility that abortion would become illegal in the entire state...no matter the circumstances. Ooooooohhh! Con-tro-VER-see!

I am prouder than ever to be from South Dakota. I am the product of a state that is now saying, "we care about our future ~ we care about our present ~ we care about the young people who are growing up in this state today and we care about the future they are bringing to our state in the days, months and years ahead." Many states say the care about their children. Some of them even go so far to say that the education and care of their young people is THE most important responsibility they have. So why do they tell those same kids that if they had come along at any other time ~ a less convenient time ~ that it would have been okay to kill them?

I can hear some of you now...."oh, Trayc, don't use that 'k' word! That's a little harsh, isn't it? Let's try something a little more PC...maybe "take their life" or "terminate their pregnancy" but please don't say they're killing their baby. Oh, and while we're on that topic...let's not make them feel any more guilt over the decision....let's not call it a baby. They have simply decided to terminate an unplanned, unwanted, pregnancy." Read on.

I know it's not PC...and I know it hurts. I have someone in mind right now that I know reads this blog and I know he's wanting desperately to stop reading but he can't ~ he knows the truth, too. My heart breaks for him and it's the conversations I had with him after he paid for his girlfriend's abortion that make me even MORE adamant over the topic of abortion versus life. I saw the pain in his eyes ~ I saw the desire to crawl under the table and hide from the pain of knowing he would not see his child this side of heaven. Even now, years later, I cry over that conversation and the pain I saw in him. Abortion doesn't end a pregnancy...it ends a life. If you don't believe that conception is the beginning of a life then let me tell you this: abortion doesn't only end the life of the child in the womb...in many ways it ends the life of the mother and the father, if he's even given the opportunity to be a part of the decision.

I know the pain of that decision making process. When I discovered I was pregnant in January of 1996 I was terrified of what lay ahead. My baby's father didn't want me to go through with it, and I did call Planned Parenthood to "discover" what my options were. I guess I always have been one to make sure all my bases are covered...to find out if there isn't a better, more efficient way to handle something. But to be honest when she said that the only option for me was to terminate the pregnancy and I could make the appointment for that day if I needed to my heart, which was already cracked in pieces over the place I found myself, shattered. I quickly said I would have to think about it and hung up.

I went to my school's nurse and she encouraged me to go to a friend of hers who ran a Pregnancy Resource Center (the PC version of "Crisis Pregnancy Center" which I believe states it more clearly since most of the women who really want to visit the Planned Parenthood building do so because they see this pregnancy as a crisis, not a pregnancy...but again, I digress...)

By the grace of God I started having problems in my pregnancy and I had to visit an OB doctor right away. I had my first ultrasound at 8 weeks...the time you have to wait until to have an abortion so they can make sure they "get all the parts" during the procedure. I saw my baby ~ she didn't look like a baby. In fact, she looked like a little lump of oatmeal, but there was something that made all the difference in the world between a baby and a blob ~ she had a beating heart. It was amazing! When a doctor is operating on someone and they flatline, that is their heart stops, the patient is considered dead...or near dead...and they do all they can to resucitate them. However, if a baby is "in the way" or "inconvenient" or "the product of an act of violence" then the beating heart isn't really a beating heart. No. It's just a nuisance that must be taken care of. Oh, how my heart breaks to think that people really think that way!!!!!!! I applaude and cheer for those young women who found themselves (or find themselves) in a place I was in 10 short years ago and have chosen to give their baby life! THANK YOU!!!

There's something else, though, and it is as much an epidemic to be dealt with as abortion is....it's my own personal controversy that I'm sure will not sit well with many people. The topic is: abortion vs. adoption vs. single parenting.......ooooooh! I'm not going to continue now, but check back...I'll be posting it soon. (I really want to make sure I get the wording, the heart and the message right on this one............it's much too important to flippantly post some inner rambling.)