Highschool Graduation

13 years ago...
Christa and I were just starting kindergarten in the Bridges Home Institute, playing for the first time what we thought was an incredibly exciting new game (also known to the world at large as "school")
13 years ago...
Christa and I were sitting at our kitchen table with Mom, trying to remember what letter comes after "B".
13 years ago...
We learned that 1 + 1 = 2.
And 13 years later...
We are celebrating the end of our formal schooling - a few years older, with a few more pieces of information stored in our brains, but still the same eager girls excited to see what God has in store for us next! :)

We started out the New Year with a highschool graduation celebration for the first ever graduates of the Bridges Home Institute! (BTW - in case you're wondering, we graduated # 1 and 2 in our class :)) Here are a few pictures from the evening:

Dad was our emcee, keeping us all laughing for the night's activities!

Christa and I read a poem we wrote as a surprise for Mom and Dad.

Then I shared my testimony of God's incredible goodness in my life!

No time with the Bridges is complete without music, so of course we had several numbers to share...

"They shall express the memory of Your great goodness, and they shall sing of Your righteousness." ~ Ps 145:7

Mom and Dad and 2 other godly men in our lives gave us verbal blessings to close out the night.

And of course the highlight for us was being able to connect with so many sweet friends!


The Bridges family with Mom's dad. :)

We are so grateful for all God has done in our lives during our growing up years! He is good!

News Flash

Big news from Dallas to you:

We the Texans - who forget that the word snow is in the dictionary, who wouldn't be surprised to celebrate Christmas in a t-shirt and shorts, who pull out our parkas when it hits 50 degrees, who order iced tea in December, who have rarely seen snow deep enough to cover the tops of the blades of grass, and who definitely don't have 4 wheel drive - we have just experienced a real northern winter.

For 4 solid days.



From our experience, I have learned 4 things:
1. Professional sledding gear in TX consists of a piece of cardboard and/or a cookie sheet
2. Cardboard and cookie sheets do not make good sledding gear
3. Texans are not used to being cooped up indoors for 4 days and a lot of us got a bit stir crazy (the proof of this would be found in the lines at the stores the day the ice/snow melted. :) )
4. Snow definitely brings out the little kid in all of us. :)

With that being said, I would not have traded "that much" snow (approx 6 inches of powdery beauty) for anything!

here are a few pictures from our snow days:

Look at how beautifully, perfectly white everything is! Isn't it amazing to remember that God has promised us: "Come now, let us reason together...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." (Is 1:18)

On day 4, we headed to the store to see if we could find some nice, inexpensive boots. Finding nothing that met that description, and not wanting to pay the price for a pair of shoes we would use once - maybe twice - a year, we came up with a creative, ingenious, highly professional alternative.

Very nice...
Then we headed out to hit the slopes with dry, toasty feet!





Yes, snow ball fights with friends were in order too!

Can you read it?? :)

May the Lord bless us with such beauty and fun every year!