Wednesday morning, breakfast is over and people are slowly taking showers and getting presentable. The plan this morning is to take pictures of the families before people start heading back home. Steph, Chris, and Caden are heading back to Oklahoma today. They have to be in Oklahoma on Friday because Chris has an important business deal he has to be home for. It has been wonderful having them here with the family. It is the first time that Chris and John ahave met each other and they have found out that they like each other and have a lot in coming to talk about.

We've been eating some fabulous food around here and have more leftover that we could ever possible eat. I'm hoping that Chris and Steph will take a cooler full of food home with them today. I know we have another three full days here but there are still meals planned and ingredients bought to do them. This morning Julie made Fritattas for breakfast and there is at least one skillet full left. Yesterday Lisa made eggs, hash brown casserole, milk gravy and bisquits. Monday morning Ms. Kate and I made pancakes and sausage. Monday night Chris did steaks on the grill and Steph made home made macaroni & cheese, and we made a six quart freezer of butter pecan ice cream. Last night we went out to a favorite restaurant called the Apple Barn and stuffed ourselves like oinkers. So, yeh, there is a lot of food around here.

Yesterday we went to Dollywood for the day. We've been there before and it is a fun place to go. Dolly Parton has done so much to make this area profitable by building that theme park. Prior to Dollywood there just wasn't much on a tourist industry here except foro there being an entrance to the Great Smokey National Park. Dollywood has provided hundreds of jobs for this area and frankly, from what I see, the people are extremely grateful to have those jobs. The park is clean, the employees go out of their way to assist you in what ever manner they can and there are smiles everywhere.

Tomorrow, my sister-in-law Karen and two of our nieces are coming to stay with us for a couple of night. They will head back home of Saturday. But it will give those two nieces a chance to meet cousins that they didn't know before.

As I sit here looking out over the rails of the porch, all I see is beauty and all I feel is peace. It is very easy to imagine this place looking just the same when Christ was walking the earth. God's planet is such a marvelous and intricate place. How anyone could think this creation was just an undersigned explosion is just beyond me. All praise to the Creator; all praise to our God. Peace.