Eric and Leslie’s Family Blog

The Highlights of the year for the Varnon Family:

Mountains. Noah and I joined Eric this summer when he took the Junior High kids to San Isabel, Colorado for summer camp. We all enjoyed a week in the mountains, the fresh air and the majestic views that God has created. The Varnon clan all went as well so it was good family time too.

Eric has been at Westminster Presbyterian Church for just over a year now. He is serving as the Director of Christian Education and Youth Ministry.

Richard. Yep, Eric’s younger brother moved in with us in October as he gets adjusted to life in fort worth.

Return to Spearman. In August we went back to Spearman for a few days for more family time. We were also able to be a part of Taylor’s (Eric’s niece) back to school events and attend her Open House.

Youth. Eric has stayed very busy with the Youth activities this year. Along with the 3 camps this summer, he has taken them on many weekend adventures. One of his favorite trips this year was the Mystery Trip where he took a group of kids to Kansas for a Christian music concert.

Camping. We took our family vacation in November and headed down to Jellystone Park for 5 days (just north of San Antonio) . Noah learned all about Yogi Bear and fell in love with him! We took some day trips into San Antonio and went to the River Walk and The Alamo.

Horned Frogs, Go TCU! We attended a few of the TCU home football games this year. Noah went too and loved all the action and entertainment.

Random stuff: Noah has mastered the WII. He LOVES ‘feet jammies’…hence the picture! Noah transitioned to a ‘Big Boy’ bed this summer. Noah is talking so well that I can carry on a more intelligent conversation with him than with Eric.

In July we went to Georgetown to spend some time with the Biesheuvel Family. All the siblings were home at the same time over the 4^th. It doesn’t happen often so it was nice to all be together for a short time.

School. Noah started ‘school’ at the Early Learning Place Preschool at our church. He loves playing with the other kids and doing art. He can say his ABC’s (forgetting the Z) and count to 10 (without the #2).

Toddler. Noah turned 2 years old in October. We had a party at the house for him with both sets of Grandparents here and his buddy Reese from church. Backyard Bash with Bubbles, Balls and Balloons was the theme.

Me. I continue working at Cook Children’s Medical Center on the Post Surgical/Endocrine Floor. I work as Charge nurse most days but do still enjoy the sporadic times that I get to work as a staff nurse and actually interact with the patients and families versus being the problem solver and conflict negotiator all day.

A new addition. My sister, Carmen, had her second child, Nathan, in February. I was able to go to Virginia and spend a couple days with the Law family and get to see the precious little guy.

Seasons Greetings and a Happy New Year to all!!< >< >< >< ><–>

I lived through the same teenage years that we all face. I did everything I could to annoy my parents and, of course, they were the absolutely most embarrassing and intrusive parents of them all! I had more than my share of public “I love you’s” and “ah, man, my-friends-are-watching-hugs.” I also got a few of those “you’ll understand one day” speeches that more often than not were received with a smug roll of the eyes or a shoulder-shrug and disdain filled response of “whatever, mom.”

And then, all of a sudden, you get smacked upside the head with an “oh, wow, today is that day. She was right, I do get it…finally!” So, mom and dad, if you happen to read this – thanks – and sorry for the “whatevers”.

One of those days was definitely the day Noah was born. I finally started to understand what my mom was feeling when she asked for hugs. Leslie has to keep the baby lotion nearby to keep Noah’s cheeks from getting raw from all the daddy kisses. It’s especially bad when I haven’t shaved in a couple of days. He’s pretty good at letting me mess with him – he has, however, dealt with it from day one. He pretty much just ignores me or greets me with a wave of the hand and a barrage of ‘no daddy no daddy no daddy nooooo daddyyyyyy!’

You really don’t understand how much your family loves you until you have children of your own. You really do lose a sense of self preservation and you focus on that child’s needs 100%. I, like all of you who have children, will die before I let anything harm my child. Our love for our children is stronger than anything. Our greatest fear is of losing that beloved child, and we would do anything to prevent it.

If the love for our children makes us self-sacrificial we have to believe that this is the nature of love in general. So our love for our brothers, sisters, parents, spouse and friends should drive us to the same instinctual self-sacrifice, right? It makes sense to me – and it definitely is easier said than done!

And what of our love for Jesus Christ? Do we have a love so deep for Jesus Christ that we give up our lives to live as He calls us? It sure is what we are asked to do. Again, it’s easier said than done, and it’s probably even more difficult than loving your siblings. Why? I don’t think it’s because God isn’t physically present or because our siblings are easier to love – I think it has a lot to do with the fact that God promises to love us no matter what we think, say, or do.

In fact, I think we sometimes lean on God’s promise to unconditionally love us too much – and we believe it so strongly that we take advantage of it. Dietrich Bonheoffer (theologian from WWII time period) called it ‘cheap grace.’ He didn’t mean to say that God’s grace is cheap, but that we sometimes treat it as though it’s so cheap we can use it as an excuse to live our lives as we want instead of how God intends and, more specifically, how God has called us.

Isn’t this the daily battle we face? When it comes to our children, our greatest fear is losing them. This drives us to sacrifice ourselves out of love to make sure that never happens. When it comes to our God, we are given a promise that we can never fall out of God’s favor! There is absolutely no way we can lose God’s love.

So does God’s promise make it easy to cheapen grace? Maybe it does – but maybe it also gives us a much deeper reason to become what God desires!

blessings,

Eric

We finally got the Christmas tree out.  Eric and I decided that it would be better if we got the tree out and lights strung while Noah was asleep, then have him help decorate it the next day.  So 10:00 Thursday night we started getting everything together.  No problems with the tree…but the lights on the other hand.   We had so many problems with the ones we had last year, we ditched those and bought new ones.  The problem with those you might ask?  There were 2 strands of motion lights that were the exact same brand and bought at the same time.  However they didn’t do the same motion, so trying to get the tree to look somewhat uniform was a pain in the behind.  Half of the tree would be blinking, while the other half was on the chasing setting.  So got new ones last year, no problem.  Well Tuesday night the drama of the Christmas lights continued.  Plugged in the first set and every 3rd light wasn’t working.  So began the process of finding the burnt out bulb.  Found that one without a problem, got it replaced and moved on to the next strand.  Plugged that one in and everyother light was out.   The feeling of frustration continues!  Eric went through the whole strand and couldn’t find the problem bulb.  As he was doing that, I hung the first strand of lights.  Oh well we were thinking…the bottom half of the tree will just have every other light out.  Got all the lights on and plugged it in…you wouldn’t believe what happened…the first strand started acting up again.  So now our tree had every other light all the way down not working.  The lighting is alittle pathetic but there was no way I was going to take them all off and string the lights again!

It’s nice and decorated now and can hardly tell the light situation…except those of us that know the drama of the lights   Noah surprisingly did great helping put the ornaments on.  He kept hanging everything on the same branch, but oh well…mommy moved them as he put them on

Noah also found some bell ornaments, began shaking them and singing jingle bells.   Tried to catch it on video, but can’t figure out how to put a video on here.  Check out the picture gallery for Christmas related pictures!