Time for Our Children

Time for Our Children Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell

When we hear the word investment, most of us think of investing our money in hopes that it will grow and yield a large return. Some of us feel lucky to have enough money to meet our daily basic needs, let alone to invest any. But in one way, we are all equally rich: We all wake up with 24 hours in each new day. How will we spend those hours? How can we get the largest return on our investment?

The story is told of a boy whose father once gave him a box with a note inside promising the boy one hour of time every day, right after dinner. And it was good for a whole year. For 365 hours, the boy could spend time with his father playing, talking together, whatever the boy chose. And every year, the father renewed that promise. Now a successful attorney, the son looks back on that as the greatest gift he has ever been given—the gift of time from his father.

The wealthiest people in the world cannot buy a gift as valuable as that. But everyone, no matter how wealthy, can make such a wise investment of time. When a parent spends time with a child, together they forge a bond of love that transcends anything that could be purchased. The toys and other things parents buy for their children eventually break down, wear out, and are forgotten. But those precious moments spent together will live forever.

When we invest time in our relationships, we are building a legacy beyond description, a treasure that will outlast all material gifts. Time is truly the best investment—in our children and in everyone we love. Nothing else even comes close.

Kitty Hawk

Kitty Hawk was alot of fun and very inspiring. It is so amazing to travel and see and hear all the amazing history of some amazing people. We also got stuck in the sand in Kitty Hawk! It was a moment to realize how sometimes and probably the majority of the time our hassles can become some of our great moments. Let me explain what I mean by that. We spent the day at Kitty Hawk and we had a ways to travel a head of us. Our R.V got stuck in the sandy parking lot. There were quite a few people who cruised by us but we had a family stop and ask to help us. They were in a R.V too that they had rented for the weekend. They were traveling with a big group of Kids and some family. When I saw them earlier in the day I thought they were a church group or something. They tried to help us out of the sand but it wasn't working. While we were waiting they got our story and invited us to dinner at there rental home.  We eventually got pulled out of the sand. We were so grateful and it ended up being our boy's favorite night. They had so much fun! While we were driving away from there place the boys made the comment," see, if we wouldn't have got stuck we never would have met them." So next time your being hassled with a very irritating situation, hang tight you never know what good can come of it.
Thank you so much Ronny and Jay! We had a great time and hope to be lifetime friends.

Monticello

I am so amazed at how breathtakingly beautiful the East Coast is! I fell in love with it and if I didn't have such a strong connection to the West I would move in a heart beat!  Monticello was inspiring with it's beauty and Thomas Jefferson's History. I was inspired by his talent as an architect, he was truly a man ahead of his time. Being able to go to a persons home speaks volumes about them. It brings them more to life.

                        This is the boys castle. They were also inspired by Jefferson's home. 

Atlanta Georgia and Raleigh (Tornado)

We have been through some rough weather! When we stayed in Atlanta Georgia we lived through our first and hopefully last tornado. It was quite a scare. It had been raining harder than I have ever experienced in my life from early afternoon until it was time to go to bed with a tornado watch throughout. We finally retired to bed around 11:00 p.m. At about 1:00 am I heard a really loud siren that woke me up from a light sleep. I didn't know what to make of it. My gut instinct was this can't be good. I woke Corey up and we quickly turned on the news. They told us what to expect and when! It also kept flashing on the bottom of the screen a warning for trailers and about how that was the worst possible thing to be in, there was nothing we could change about our condition. We thought about what to do if needed. We watched the news for about another hour and 1/2 waiting for it to come through the town we were staying in. Eventually it passed and we were safe and a little shook up. The next morning when I went to check out I talked to the owner of our resort about last nights experience. She proceeded to tell me how lucky the resort was  and that the tornado went right around us. I felt weak in the knees and extremely grateful for the protection of our family. 

We  unfortunately have witnessed others who have not been as lucky! The same tornado that went around us continued on to Raleigh and did some horrific damage there. The hardest story reported was of a young mom and her 3 children who were living in a trailer park. She put herself and them in the bath tub and a tree fell at that exact spot killing all 3 of her little children. I was so sad, I had a hard time shaking my sadness and concern for her.
We had a great opportunity to stop on our way through and see first hand what devastation they had encountered. We were able to help in the efforts to clean up all the debris. It was quite overwhelming.  We were so glad to actually be able to do something to help. And those we helped were so grateful.