Basil, One Of Our Favorite Herbs

Our basil story goes back to 2002 when a Korean friend of mine invited us to a Vietnamese restaurant after church one Sunday in San Diego CA, we tried a special kind of soup that is served there called "Pho" which is made of Rice noodles in a beef or chicken broth and has wonderful seasoning, at the time of serving you get side dish filled with fresh Basil, lots of bean sprouts, Slices of lime and hot peppers. our friend showed us how to mix all those ingredients together the Vietnamese way and eat it with chop sticks, my husband fell in love with this soup called "Pho" so it became one of our favorite things to do is to find every Vietnamese restaurant in the areas we moved to and try their Pho to see which one is the best, after a while my husband in his kind and sweet way asked me if I could learn how to make Pho so we can have it more often, so I did but every time I made it I had to run to many different store to find Basil and when I found it, it was so expensive I would stand back and just feel awful for paying up to $4 for a few leaves that were only enough for one serving, beside it was not fresh most of the time, see basil is what gives Pho that special taste and makes it different than all other soups.
About a year and a half ago as I was shopping at Fresh and Easy store one day I saw they had Organic Basil plants that were weathered and dying marked very cheap I think it was 50 cents, I bought one and brought it home and nursed it to life a few days and planted it in the ground, that one plant grow so big and produced so many seeds and as some of these seeds fell to the ground GOD grew them into many many beautiful plants so now I have over 100 plants and more are coming up as I type, that first plant is still alive and producing more it looks like a little tree now.

here it is behind Nellie still filled with many many seeds.

A while ago we got to learn about Pesto, so with all the basil we have it was easy just to step out side and pick as much as we needed to make fresh pesto, we even made pesto pizza, we use basil in salads soups, and even on Garlic bread it is good, there are many health benefits to basil, I encourage you to grow it and use it at your home.

There was an article a few months ago about Pho on Yahoo saying that Pho has become the #1 best soup world wide, no kidding.....we do not believe much from Yahoo but this one we did.

The earth is the LORD'S, and the fullness thereof...Psalm 24:1

Just Want To Brag On My GOD

God is always good.........There is so much going on in my mind that I want to put down here for you my dear reader to read about my ALMIGHTY GOD and there are many many thoughts that are jumping in front of each other to be typed here about him so I an going to start with the biggest and the most resent one,

Yesterday David called me from work saying that someone is transferring to Texas in the group where he works and his boss decided that David will be the best worker to replace him.
Praise be to GOD.

We had another baby snake exactly the same as the one we I blogged about right in front of our dogs but they did not get bit, Praise be to GOD.

I had a big box of groceries 2 days ago and it only cost me $2, blueberries, strawberries,blackberries,tomatoes,grapes, peaches plums and much much more, we made 3 pies and an apple bake. Praise be to GOD.

Just found out our goats are the best breed for milk. Praise be to GOD.

Found a lot of great fencing for very reasonable price to rearrange our little farm animals. Praise be to GOD.
We got to host a missionary from India and learned about the wonderful work that is going on spreading the Gospel of our LORD JESUS CHRIST in India. Praise be to GOD.
Now if you are feeling down and depressed just start thinking of all the blessing GOD has brought around you......
Psalm136:1
O Give thanks unto the LORD; FOR HE IS GOOD; for his mercy endureth for ever.

Just as I was finishing this post this is the hymn started playing on the radio station www.fbnradio.com

Great Is Thy Faithfulness

morning by morning new mercies I see, all I have needed thy hands hath provided

great is thy faithfulness

LORD unto me.

Our First Rattle Snake In Apache Junction

Mojave rattlesnake

It was about 10 pm last night when I got out to turn off the water from watering our citrus trees in the front of our house, as I was walking back I was looking at some squash plants I have planted to see if they got watered, I saw a stick like something in the dirt and as I shined the flash light at it, it sure was a snake about 2 feet long I backed up and examined it , it sure was a baby rattle snake, so I walked slowly and grabbed a little shovel that was about 20 feet a way and came and held that rattler down. Then David came out looking concerned about me so I told him what I was doing so he came and took care of it, we showed the girls how to recognise rattlesnakes and learn about them, after that we got all the information on the computer found out it was a Mojave rattlesnake and taught the girls how to deal with snake the safe way, it was a science lesson after 10pm!!!!!
We are going to print some rattlesnakes pictures for Nellie to color and talk to her some more about them as she colors, I believe the lesson about snakes Will stay with her for a very long time.
This was the forth snake we have seen so far this summer, I love to see the reaction on my children's faces as they see and learn about all kind GOD'S creations around us, well we made another memory for someday in the future when we can say to our kids hey do you remember..........that night, until the next snake I hope you have a nice summer.

Love your Enemies!

Jesus said in Matt.5:44

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate

you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

Lately this verse keep coming to my mind...now I am not writing this post to preach to anyone or say, look at me I am holier than thou, the only reason I am writing it is to let others know that God's word is true and HE is faithful to work with our weaknesses and infirmities even though while in the process we feel so defeated, confused and just down right mad,

Phil 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

So I started thinking to myself and asking this question,

Who are my enemies?

Well from God's word I know that the World, the Devil, & The Flesh, ARE OUR BIGGEST ENEMIES, but in the verse above Jesus is talking about people that are my enemies, so who are they??????... immediately one woman came to my mind..
Now I started thinking what make that woman an enemy?
This is one of the definition from Merriam Webster dictionary,

Date: 13th century:

1 : one that is antagonistic to another; especially : one seeking to injure, overthrow, or confound an opponent.

Wikipedia definitions:
An enemy is a person who hates or dislikes another person, or is nasty or mean to the person he is an enemy to.

Now as I was searching for the meaning of this word many many painful, sad and hurtful memories came to my mind that were done to my family and me by that woman, but by the Grace of GOD I have learned to rise above them and just let them be where GOD can reach and take care of them....AND HE HAS... ALL GLORY AND PRAISE BE TO HIM.
NOW this is why I am writing this post to let you know my reader that GOD taught me to pray for that woman, and if you are thinking right now in the back of your mind that evil person that hurt me so much and some names or situations are coming to your mind reminding you of your enemy... please just stop and ask THE LORD JESUS TO TEACH YOU TO PRAY FOR THEM right now, you might say oh but you have no idea what they have done to me..... yes you are right... I do not know, but THESE TWO THINGS I HAD TO LEARN:
1.The ENMITY, HURT, PAIN AND SUFFERING came from the WOMAN and NOT FROM JESUS.
2. What she did to my family and Friends was nothing compare to what MY sin did to JESUS.

If you are a Born Again Christian and committed to serve THE LORD dear reader, I promise you that the biggest dart from the Devil at you and your family will come through someone in church who is gladly serving the Devil, filled with hate and have no compassion, there are at least 10 brothers and sisters that were almost destroyed because of that women in one incident alone that she put us through, many of those people have no desire to enter another church ever.....all because of the deeds of that woman, BUT GLORY BE TO GOD NOW AND FOREVER, HE IS A FRIEND THAT STICKETH CLOSER THAN A BROTHER, do not give up, keep trusting HIM.
HE taught me through the whole ordeal to pray for my enemy (that woman) and ask GOD to bless her and if some day HE wants me to love her and do good to her, I do not know what it will take, but I believe that HIS GRACE is available and freely given to each one of us when we are determined to obey AND DO HIS WORD, until then I will be praying for her as she comes to my mind, and I will go on my way singing...and praising him

Oh victory in JESUS my Savior forever.....

A Dream Come True

Iris's horse Pumpkin peaking in the house through the window just got caught!!!!!!!!!

Nellie could not help but give her a hug

This was always something that Iris saw in her dreams growing up, a horse's head coming through the window in the house.

love those funny memories........

GOD IS ALWAYS GOOD........

Blessings, Blessings And More Blessings

Just a beautiful sun set view from our back yard

God has been so good to us this summer, we had so many new blessings, one of the big once was that we learned about Grape Fruit Juicing and really love it, we were able to get boxes and boxes of them every month and make lots of juice every day, it was the best tasting juice we have ever had, we all fell in love with it to the point we were addicted to it, we even shared some with our neighbors and they liked it too, I wish I had taken some pictures of the many many boxes of grape fruits we got so I can share here.

The other big blessing is that my husband is still employed and taking care of all our financial demands, Iris is doing so good at her horse back riding adventures she even learned how to stay on a bucking horse, thanks to her teacher Mrs. Rose and her daughter Tiffanie and

Nellie is so eager to learn reading, she is going to turn 5 in Sept/14.

I had to go to San Diego CA a couple of times to help my mom and dad, I even went by and got to visit with some of my dear old Friends at my old church and some of my costumers from my hair Solon business, went to the beach and enjoyed the waters a few times.

We went to Benson last weekend and had a good time at our house in J-6, we have a mobile home that is on a piece of land situated in a very beautiful spot that has breath taking mountains and sunset views, it is a lot greener down there, there were so many pretty blooming flowers the same as we saw in the spring time here in Apache Junction AZ.

As we drove and visited some of the places we used to go to down there it reminded us with the good and bad memories of our time that we lived there, I think it is just good to go back if possible and revisit our past every once in a while and learn from our past experience achievements, memories , people and places to help us improve our lives and make better choices in the future, and this is another big blessing that God has giving us this summer ability and finances to go and not be tied down by anything.all this reminds me of a verse that God wrote in his word for us

Deut. 28:6

Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out..