For the past three years, my friends and I have taken our kids to New York City to spend a day just before Christmas. This tradition started out as a conversation with my friend Karen. Our families had all just participated in a live nativity together, and she was talking about wanting to take her kids up to see the Christmas lights. When I told her that neither I nor my kids had ever been to New York City, we began to plan immediately for a trip for the next week, just before Christmas.

That first year, we had around 24 people in our crowd. Four of those were the moms, and the rest were little kids and teenagers. We were a bit of a hot mess trying to keep everyone together, but we had a great time! As per our usual field trip agenda, everything we had planned cost little to nothing, but we were still able to see a lot of stuff and we definitely covered a LOT of ground. Something like 10 miles…

I did a lot of research for this trip, and I was having a hard time finding a place to park two 15 passenger vans that wouldn’t cost us a fortune. I finally came up with the cheap solution of parking on Staten Island which cost us $8 for the whole day and then rode the ferry over to the city. The only caveat was that we would have to walk from Whitehall Street all the way up into Manhattan. This is a 4 mile walk with no stops along the way. We had multiple points of interest, so it ended up being a few extra miles once we had our route planned out.

A few of our stops that year included Ground Zero, The American Girl store and the Lego Store. We also stopped at Washington Square Park so the kids could run around for awhile. Yes, even after walking for miles, our kids needed to run and play. While we were at the park, we discovered that there was a film crew shooting for the show Blacklist Redemption. A few months later I looked up the show and found the episode from that day. Even though you couldn’t see any of our crowd, you could definitely recognize the sound of our kids screaming in the background! After that, we walked past several store fronts to see the Christmas displays on the way to our last stops at Rockefeller Center and Times Square.

We decided that first year to pack our dinner and stop for some authentic New York pizza for lunch. The waiter was mildly horrified when I asked him if the kids could have pineapple on their pizza. How was I supposed to know that pineapple on pizza in New York is a faux pas? Well, the tables turned after dinner, and I ended up being the one mildly horrified when I got the bill for dinner. We had only ordered 3 large pizzas with one topping each. After leaving the tip, I walked away with $100 less in my pocket and a vow to never buy pizza in New York again.

Our original plan that year was to walk up to Times Square, see everything we wanted to see and then walk back to the ferry and be back to our cars in time to eat our dinner. If you’ve ever been to New York City, you probably know right away that my plan would never work. No one can cover that much ground on foot and be finished by dinner.

We made it to Times Square by 6:00 and most of us wanted to cry when we realized that we would have to walk another 4 miles back to the ferry. We didn’t have money for a bus ride for that many people, and for whatever reason, none of us considered the subway. There was a man in Times Square that told us about a free bus that would take us back to the ferry. Needless to say, we were ecstatic and rushed to catch the bus which was indeed free and did indeed shuttle people to the ferry.

When we got off the bus, we discovered that we were at the NYC Ferry, NOT the Staten Island Ferry where we needed to be. We were still 4 miles away from where we needed to be. We were exhausted and hungry and weren’t even completely sure which direction we needed to start walking.

Thankfully, we had covered our trip in prayer, and God sent us a kind security guard at the NYC ferry who heard our sad tale and hooked us up with a FREE bus ride all the way back to the Staten Island Ferry. We had the whole bus to ourselves, and the kids sang Christmas Carols for our friendly bus driver all the way back to where we got off. It was truly a Christmas miracle in our eyes!

The second year went a bit smoother as we “discovered” the subway. We still parked at the same place, took the ferry and walked up to Manhattan, but this time we had a ride back planned for when we finished the day. We added a few stops this year and left some from the previous year out. Our crowd was made up of 25 kids and 5 adults and we walked 11 miles.

One of the highlight for this trip was stopping for lunch in Washington Square Park and meeting the “pigeon man”. We all had a chance to hold some bird food and have the birds flock around us, some of which ended up sitting on some of our shoulders, arms and even some heads!

The kids also enjoyed a trip to Dylan’s Candy Store. I mean, hey, what’s a few pounds of sugar between 25 kids when they’re going to walk it all off anyway? Am I right? It was a good trip.

Last week we took our third annual NYC trip. We had a slightly smaller group with 6 adults and 16 teen and kids. We decided to change things up a bit and after riding the ferry over, we took the subway all the way up to Central Park and spent most of the daylight hours exploring this beautiful park in the middle of the city.

I had a lot of stops planned for the day, but after a bumpy start that didn’t get us off of the subway until 12:30, we had to skip most of the southern end of the park so that we could make it to Rockefeller Center and Times Square to see the lights by the time it started to get dark. We walked to the Lego Store and then rode the subway again back to the ferry. Even with riding the subway up and back, we ended up walking nearly 15 miles before getting back to our vans!

All of these trips have been amazing memory-making experiences. Each year has been a little different. We’ve seen different things, had different people join and have stayed longer and walked more miles each year than the previous. The one thing that hasn’t changed is the bags that we pack for the homeless people each year.

We pack gallon bags with things like water bottles, granola bars, raisins, hand wipes and toothbrushes. We also stick a scarf in each bag that my mother-in-law makes each year. The kids each carry a backpack to hold their lunch as well as one of these bags. When we come across a homeless person in our walk through the city, the kids give them a bag and wish them a Merry Christmas. This, more than any of our other New York traditions, is what makes these trips so amazing. To see our kids being able to bless those less fortunate and to see them being the hands and feet of Jesus is truly a blessing to be a part of.

Next year, we’ll be going to New York again. We might try something new and walk the Brooklyn Bridge and maybe we’ll see some of Central Park that we missed this year. I know that we definitely will be packing our bags for the homeless people in the city again, and we’ll be praying that our little Christmas tradition blesses many and that in doing so, we are able to point others toward Jesus as we celebrate His birth.

Merry Christmas!

Time spent with my family is one of the things that I value most in my life. Date nights with my husband, family vacations, having everyone around to participate in holiday traditions, family dinners or simply having a conversation with any one of my kids are moments that I will treasure always.

Something else that I really enjoy is going places and doing things with my kids and our friends. Even though most of our trips are educational outings, they are an absolute blast! I love our field trips and spending time with this tribe of people. Walking through New York city, going to famous places like Niagara Falls and Colonial Williamsburg, seeing historic battlefields or simply hiking through the woods – these are all wonderful times spent with great friends! We also spend a lot of time together during the summer. We take trips to the beach, hang around the pool and serve together at the facility where our kids work and go to camp.

I also really like to watch my favorite television shows. I don’t like just one particular genre. I enjoy a wide variety when it comes to being entertained this way. Doctors and hospitals, super heroes, law enforcement, music competition and even a little sci-fi. Don’t worry – I’m still over here raising and schooling my kids. Actually, I watch most of the shows on my phone while doing other things. I never watch during school hours and its usually when I am cleaning or cooking dinner. Either that or I watch at night just before going to sleep. There are some really great shows out there!

Unfortunately, another one of my favorite things in life is food. I have a love/hate relationship with delicious food. I love to eat sweets – especially chocolate – but sweets do NOT love my body. Or, maybe they love it too much, because they tend to stick around a lot longer than I would like, and in all the wrong places. On the other hand, I also love a lot of really healthy foods. One of my favorite things to do is to come up with recipes incorporating my favorite vegetables. Whether its healthy food or junk food, I love good food!

Another thing that I would say I am passionate about is music. I love to sing. I always have. Music has been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. For a time, I had to take a break from being involved in any kind of singing group due to family responsibilities. I am so excited, because I just joined the worship team at my church, and I am now able to sing with this group often. Knowing that my kids all love music and have been blessed with musical talent makes me super happy too. There’s not much in this world that can give me chills faster than hearing my kids harmonizing together. Music is ever present in our house.

There is one other aspect of my life that I absolutely must talk about when it comes to things in my life that I love. My relationship with God would be first and foremost in the order of importance. My quiet time every morning, time spent in prayer, praising God through music, being taught truths from our pastor in church and being in fellowship with other believers all play a huge part in making me who I am today.

So out of all of these things, if I were to pick one that consumes me constantly and fills my thoughts more often than not, which one would it be? I wish that I could say without missing a beat that it was my relationship with God. That is truly the desire of my heart, that God would consume all of my thoughts, my actions, my words and all that I am. If I am being completely honest, though, I struggle with letting some of these other areas crowd Him out.

There are times when being a wife and mama to my crew feels like the most important thing that I could ever have in my life. I mean, what could be more important than having a life with the man I love while raising and schooling ten beautiful children? Or how about hanging out with my friends and making amazing memories with all of our kids while encouraging each other? Sometimes, I allow selfish desires to creep in, and I find myself lost in a bowl of delicious ice cream while binge watching my favorite shows.

I don’t believe for even a second that any of these things are more important than God. I could rationalize and tell you that all of these things are gifts from God and that I am simply enjoying His gifts to me, but that wouldn’t get to the heart of my problem. I believe that, like a lot of Christians, I tend to see my relationship with God in a distorted way. I see it as me trying to keep Him in the center of my life and allowing all other aspects of my life to revolve around Him. Since the Bible says that Christ in me is the hope of glory, that’s not a bad thing, but when I think of my relationship to him in this way, it could also look like me trying to keep God in a box. The box represents my life, and that, to me, seems like I’m trying to control the relationship between me and God. With myself in control, its way too easy to allow God to be bumped out of the center by all these other areas vying for my attention.

So how do we as Christians keep God as the main focus of our life? How do we keep all these other things that we love from creeping in and taking the place of the One who created us to worship Him? Do we need to give up all the things besides God that bring us pleasure in life? I don’t think so. A lot of these things are mentioned specifically in the Bible as gifts directly from God. “Children are a gift from the Lord…” Psalm 127:3. “Break forth and sing for joy and sing praises.” Psalm 98:4. “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” Psalm 133:1. “For He satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.” Psalm 107:9.

Perhaps a better way would be to change our perspective on the way that we view our relationship with God. Rather than seeing it only as God being “in our lives”, and us needing to keep Him at the center, maybe we should think more about ourselves as being “in Him” and allowing Him to permeate every single area of our lives. That way, it will be Him controlling all the other areas of our lives that try to consume our thoughts. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” 2 Corinthians 5:17. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” Ephesians 2:10. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1. “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21.”For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.” Galatians 3:26. “In Him we live and move and have our being…”Acts 17:28

“Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5