Mountain Musings

Hiking on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Spring must be around the corner...all of us wanted to get outside for some fresh air this weekend and decided to ride up to the Blue Ridge Parkway for some hiking.

Even in winter with the barren trees and hardly a car in sight, the Parkway is a beautiful drive. However, everyone else must have had spring fever, too, as we found some of the hiking parking lots full.

So we bypassed the more popular Humpback Rocks area and continued on to a hiking trail that Jonathan had scouted out for us.

Here's the gang just before the hike...yes, excited doggies love hiking, too! Since I'm not a hiker, I stayed in the van knitting away on the kitchen towel I posted about last week--lots accomplished.

After the hike we drove down the road a bit to find a turning around spot and happened upon this beautiful view of the Valley.

Rock Point Overlook seemed very familiar to me...I thought I remembered it from years ago when we didn't live in this area but vacationed here instead because we loved the Valley so much. So I came home and scouted around in some scrapbooks to find the picture I was remembering. 

This picture was dated 1991 ~ 20 years ago! Oh, my! What a bunch of little cunnings! Where has the time gone?

Okay...enough reminiscing...on with the rest of the post.

Earlier on Sunday for our morning worship, old friends who were in the area stopped by for church with us and for lunch. What an enjoyable time getting to visit with them.

Hannah kept company with the six children at the nook table and enjoyed catching up with them. 

And here are the parents of this delightful crew! We posted at Thanksgiving when we visited their beautiful home.

What an enjoyable Lord's Day. We always love having friends here!

** The family has let me know that they think this blog is turning into a "quilting blog." So I'm trying to remedy that situation with this post! However...all those quilters who do enjoy the quilting posts...stay tuned. :)

~Deb

As For Me & My House...

"Choose you this day whom you will serve; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."  ~ Joshua 24:15

When we visited friends at Thanksgiving, I really loved the Scripture on their walls. Sarah picked up on that idea and gave me some of the vinyl lettering for Christmas. Yesterday the girls worked on peeling and sticking (definitely easier said than done!) and succeeded in getting the Scripture attached to the wall before the church meeting at our house today.

Old friends and new friends that we met for the first time this morning arrived to worship with us for an impromptu Sunday gathering since all of our paths were crossing this weekend. Here are some scenes from our day.

The men getting acquainted after the meal...

Young men searching the scriptures after the meal...

The ladies enjoyed some fun conversations along with delicious food...

It was a wonderful day, and we'd love to enjoy more Sundays like it. Opening our home for hospitality is one of our favorite things to do.

~Deb

Sunday Hymn

Abide With Me

Words: Henry F. Lyte, 1847/Music: William H. Monk, 1861

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

~Deb

* Photo: Sunday morning fog near Rockfish Gap...taken this morning from the car window coming down Afton Mountain on our way to visit a home church in Dillwyn.

High Spots and Low Spots

Yesterday was definitely a high spot on the calendar for us...it was the long awaited day that Tom and I would meet our long-time friends, Fred and Chris, in Richmond for lunch.

We try and plan a get-together as a twosome (just us girls) once a year and a foursome once a year to renew old friendships and to catch up on what's happening in our lives. With 14 children between us, there's a lot of information to pass along, lots of grandbabies' pictures to show off, and lots of quilt talk!

Maggiano's, located at Short Pump Town Center, was a fun new place for us to visit. The food was delicious, although we opted for the soup and salad and didn't experiment with some of the more exotic Italian dishes.

Our personable waiter gladly took a picture of the four of us together. What a good day it was! Thanks, friends!

On another note...since I've mentioned our home church on the blog many times before and posted pictures of some of our activities, I would like to mention that this Sunday was the last gathering of our home fellowship...it was a low spot for us today.

In the past months some families have moved away from our area, and others who were driving long distances (like 2 hours each way) have (understandably) decided that it was too much to drive each Sunday. Another family decided that they needed a fellowship with a larger cross-section of families. So a decision was made to acknowledge the end of our home fellowship and pursue whatever else the Lord might have for us.

Would you pray for wisdom and discernment for us to know what to do next, where to find fellowship of like-minded families, and for encouragement for all of our family during this season of our lives. Thank you so much!

~Deb

Continuing On

"And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And all that believed were together, and had all things common."  ~ Acts 2: 42,44

* photo taken at Sherbrooke Village, Nova Scotia

~ Deb

Sunday Afternoon Practice

The date for the April Hymn Sing in Northern Virginia is quickly approaching, so the Mountain Musings Musicians have been diligently practicing, both during the week and on Sunday afternoons, along with two members of a family in our church.

Instruments: one violin, two flutes, one harp, a mountain dulcimer, and a guitar.

Musical Selection: a special arrangement of There is A Fountain and The Cleansing Wave.

This Sunday's practice was the best yet! They even practiced how they would stand when they are called to play. I've enjoyed listening to all the practices, and I'm looking forward to hearing the real performance.

~Deb

A Different Sunday

Here's what our main living area looks like on a typical Sunday morning before guests arrive. Clean-up, setup, and cooking begin on Saturday.

The chairs are brought out and arranged around the room and behind the sofa for our church family and any guests. A box of songbooks is available for families to grab several as they walk in.

This past Sunday some of the families in our fellowship were planning to be out of town. So what happens when a very small fellowship dwindles down to the host family?

Well, we took advantage of that fact, researched a bit, and planned a visit to a family-integrated church about two hours away. We loaded up Pepper in the back of the van and headed out bright and early...allowing time for a doggie walk, of course, before we arrived.

Our main goal was to possibly meet some like-minded families, to hear the Word of God taught, and really just for a fun weekend excursion. As it turned out, the family who sat in front of us was a family of eight who has an older daughter who writes a blog that Hannah and Sarah read. They felt like they knew Amber already!

If you want to read Amber's version of our visit, check out her blog, The Fruit of Her Hands. She writes the story from her point of view very creatively!

So that was our different Sunday. And we look forward to our own church family being together again this weekend.

~Deb

Hymn Sing X 2

We recently posted about a recent Sunday afternoon when everyone brought along and played their musical instruments. That was a fun and encouraging time.

This past Sunday we all gathered again after our main worship service and fellowship meal and began practicing singing parts for the Doxology using the Servens CD "All Glory, Laud, & Honor" as we've done for past songs learned from that CD.

Here are all four families grouped to sing parts as we listened to each track on the CD before we tried it without the recorded voices.

By the end of our practice session, we all sounded like the Servens...hmm, well, not quite! But it was fun singing, and we'll do it again another Sunday soon.

******

Later that afternoon, we headed over to visit friends for an evening meal and a hymn sing at their farm.

What a good time of fellowship we had...conversing, eating venison sandwiches (a first for most of us!), singing, and playing instruments.

Talk about singing in parts!! We think all the children in this family were born singing! Such harmony and robust singing! We all loved it and think they could definitely teach us how to sing in parts!

We sang some old hymns and also learned some songs that were new to us from their Heartland Hymns songbook.

And then the instruments came out...Hannah and Sarah on flute, Jonathan on both banjo and guitar, and the others joined in on violins, harmonica, and guitar.

As time rolled around to call it a night, our friends sang one last song to send us on our way...Echoes From The Throne from the Harmonia Sacra hymnal, one of their favorites.

Thank you so much for inviting us, Showalter Family! It was a full Sunday of musical enjoyment!

~Deb

Violins, Flutes, Guitars...and a Keyboard

After our Sunday worship service today, we enjoyed an encouraging musical afternoon. Tom had asked anyone who played a musical instrument to bring it along for a hymn sing after our fellowship meal.

The guitars, violins, flutes, and keyboard were great contributions, and the rest of us joined in and sang lots of old favorites.

 "Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous!
 For praise from the upright is beautiful.
  Praise the LORD with the harp;
 Make melody to Him with an instrument of ten strings.
 Sing to Him a new song;
 Play skillfully with a shout of joy."

Psalm 33: 1 - 3

 

What a wonderful time of music and fellowship with our church family, and hopefully we can do it again soon when another flute and a viola may be here to join in.

~Deb

Sufficiency of Scripture Conference Audio

We wanted to let our blog readers know about the new release of the conference audio set from the 2009 Sufficiency of Scripture conference, held in Cincinnati, OH this past weekend. For those of us who were not able to be there, this is the next best thing. Our family enjoyed attending a similar Uniting Church and Family conference in 2007.

Grateful hat tip to Life in a Shoe.