The Heymann Family Journal

Senator John McCain has an exemplary voting record against abortion. He has cast 31 pro-life votes since 1997. This includes voting for a bill that would prevent minor daughters from being taken across state lines for secret abortions without parental notice or consent, voting against taxpayer funding for abortion, and voting for a ban on the brutal partial-birth abortion procedure. He voted to confirm Justices Alito and Roberts. He has also voted against endorsing Roe v. Wade and believes it should be overturned. National Right to Life is very grateful for Senator McCain's pro-life votes. In contrast, the Democratic nominee, Senator Barack Obama, has an extreme position and voting record in favor of abortion on demand. He strongly supports the appointment of only U.S. Supreme Court Justices who support abortion on demand. During the next presidency, one to three U.S. Supreme Court justices may retire, which will determine the direction of the Court for generations to come. Senato...

I was having trouble falling asleep. I made a new blog header for Sarah's blog. Actually, I'm working on scrap books for all the kids. I put all of Sarah's photo's in a file and all of Thomas' photo's in another file. I'll have the best photos printed this week. The pictures got me thinking, and that's why I can not sleep. It is so amazing to me to think of how these two kids have grown. It's totally remarkable how healthy and happy they have become. Today Thomas asked Juergen how he could become a Christian. I guess he had prayed to become a Christian at camp but he still had questions. He prayed again tonight with Juergen. Since all of heaven is having a party, I thought I could tell you. He is going to be turning 11 years old in just a few weeks. It will be such a big blessing to see how God works in his young life from here on. I prayed a prayer to ask Jesus to come into my life and be my Savior when I was 11 (almost 12). I've never been the ...

just because it's so funny!

One of the things we always do on vacation is eat out. Today we took a short trip to Thailand (one of my very favorite vacation spots). We ate Thai food for lunch. We went to the restaurant and ordered the food to go. Then we went to the garden/ pet center to buy fish food and some end of the season plants. I got a beautiful low growing yellow and orange striped rose for 60% off the normal price. I also bought some new plants for my Fall/Winter window boxes. By the time we were done shopping our food was ready to pick up. The kids had wonton soup, and chicken sticks with peanut sauce. I had a really good duck curry. Oh I wish I was in Thailand! Still, my stomach is really happy. So are the kids! I'm taking a nap while the kids watch Mr. Bean takes a Holiday!

One of the benefits of working for a large company is the company car. Juergen just got our new car today. It's a Mercedes Viano . I thought I would take a few pictures of it before it gets all scratched up. It is so big (8 adult passengers plus luggage room). I'm not too anxious to drive it! In fact, I think I'll let Juergen drive it until it has it's first scratch or dent. It is so big it should only take a day or two before it's broken in!!! I get my 18 year old Mazda back from the shop tomorrow. Now that's a car a girl can take risks with! A Demolition Derby...no problem!!! Oh, Sarah just spilled a liter of soda on the back seat...no problem!!! Who cares if the kids trash my car...my car is trash!!!

I read this on CNN today... Life can get a little lonely for bachelors in the Australian Outback mining town of Mount Isa. So the mayor has offered up a solution: recruit ugly women...."May I suggest if there are five blokes to every girl, we should find out where there are beauty-disadvantaged women and ask them to proceed to Mount Isa." This has been done before! I love the movie "Sarah plain and tall". This is about a "plain" women who could not find a husband in the city so she moved to the new "west" to be the mail order bride of a farmer. The reality is even beautiful women have a hard time finding a good man in the city. I have so many wonderful, beautiful older friends that would love to be married but can not find a good man. I'm not saying they should all move to the Australian outback... I do see many lonely people. As we get rid of all our old connections (family, church, clubs, organizations) it gets even harder for people t...

We are home and so I'm wondering what to do with the kids. The weather has gotten nice. Philip, Thomas, and Sarah are spending a good number of hours riding their new bikes. I also find it a good time to help strengthen their academic skill. I bought these place mats you can write on. Philip's has addition problems, Thomas has multiplication problems, and Sarah has ABC's to write. I have Philip doing his Fast for words computer program everyday, and Thomas is watching science DVDs (he got a pretty bad grade in science). Home schooling is not legal in Germany. They are really cracking down on parents who teach their kids at home. The parents must pay large fines, and even risk losing their kids and going to jail. I would love to home school Philip. I can not do it...except during vacations! So part of our stay cation includes home work!

I asked God for revelation about healing. This is what I got today. I remembered my time in LA waiting for prayer from Reinhart Bonnke. There was a very long book signing line. I stood there with Jessica for an hour, maybe longer. Jessica was very good waiting. Many pastors and their wives cut in line in front of us. It made me kind of mad. I had to pray for forgiveness. I didn’t want my anger to stand in the way of Jessica’s healing. I’m sure they were all a little “star struck” and didn’t realize what they were doing. I did not have a book for him to sign. I only had this piece of paper I received from Bonnke’s ministry. It says, "The Church of our Lord Jesus Christ is not a pleasure boat, but a life boat for saving souls! And every hand is needed on deck”. . This is one of my favorite sayings of Bonnke’s. When I received this in the mail I knew I wanted him to sign it. Any way, after waiting an hour we got to the end of the line. The helpers told me t...

I stayed up to watch the pastor's forum last night. It wasn't at midnight but from 2am until 4am (Oh my). It was good! Both men were very likeable. Obama answered very well. His answers were more academic and not very personal. McCain was very personal and gave very personal life stories (Obama quoted verse). Obama was not wrong, he just was not personal. You could not shut McCain up, he had story after story. You could see the depth of experience he has. I personally see this as the big difference between the two men. I think Obama is too young and academic about things. It's all theory to him. He does not have the experience to back up his plan for change. McCain brings more experience to the table then almost anyone could. He was great and I hope people could actually see that last night. They also have very different views on abortion and on judges. Since the new president will probably need to nominate new judges to the Supreme Court, I think Christian’...

Thousands of Christians were in Washington DC today at The Call. They were calling for Washington to address issues close to their hearts. Mike Huckabee , former GOP presidential candidate, former Arkansas governor and an ordained Baptist minister, made an appearance, telling the crowd he was appearing as a pastor, not a politician. "It is easy to point fingers at the people who work and serve in this place, and to blame them for the problems that we face in this country, but the problems that this country has are with us, who claim we know the Lord but have not lived it, and we've not been as faithful," Huckabee told the crowd. "So, repentance and revival cannot start in the building behind me until it starts in the temple inside me,". I'm staying up late to see what McCain and Obama have to say about their faith and values. It will be shown on CNN at midnight my time. Rick Warren will be interviewing them. I can not wait!

I heard the term stay cation when I was visiting my parents a few weeks ago. I guess because gas prices are so high for Americans people are staying closer to home this summer. German's pay nearly 2 times as much for gas as Americans but our country isn't as big. Our family had thought to take a vacation at the end of the summer. Now we are planing on staying home. I went out and bought some new DVDs to help us pass some of the hours home. I got the 4Th season of Monk (I have not seen it yet), the collection of the comedy series The Monsters (remember that from when you were a kid?), and the I-MAX series about space (6 DVDs). I have pop corn and we are watching a movie tonight. I have more ideas for our stay cation. I'll write more soon!

The kids of course have summer vacation right now. My car is in the shop. We decide to fix the car and try to get two more years from the poor old thing (it's a 18 year old Mazda). I don't really drive that much. Juergen gets his new company car next week. It's a Mercedes van. Trying to be nice (and missing the mark) Juergen said I could drive our old car until Wednesday when we need to return it. I'm surprised he did not say, "if you clean it out". He gets to drive the new car!!! I guess I talked Juergen into staying home a week and doing some work around the house. It was another vacation or a covered porch. The porch won. I am almost sad about that. I found a really nice vacation house in Italy. I'll hopefully be taking my parents there next Spring. It's just 12 miles from these thermal hot springs. They look heavenly. I wouldn't mind taking a soak in that hot spring now! Isn't that just the cutest Italian kitchen!!!

Click Here to see a carpet of flowers.

OK, I finally got her to sit down and say a few words about her trip. She actually had a great time but she's shy so it's hard to get her to talk about it.

I'm always trying to get a good picture of Jessica. She just does not cooperate with the paparazzi!

These photo's are from my dads garden in Oregon. It was such a gift to be home. Gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. ~Lou Erickson Plants give us oxygen for the lungs and for the soul. ~Linda Solegato

I'm hoping Mike is the next VP!!! This 2nd video is on marriage

Today is Nicole's 15Th birthday. She is nearly 6 feet tall and 12 feet wonderful!!! We celebrated her birthday with a family breakfast. Tonight she will celebrate with her friends. They are going to see a movie and have dinner in the old town of Heidelberg. The years have gone by too fast. Do I realize it will not be long until she goes away to College? Why yes I do...and it freaks me out!!!! But I'm not thinking about 3 years from now, I'm trying to enjoy today. Today I am so blessed to have this child! All she could wish for was to go back to Mexico next year. As a gift, Juergen and I gave her some seed money towards her trip. This time Juergen plans to take her. Hopefully we can take some other kids from our youth group to Mexico next summer. When she finds the time I hope Nicole will write down some of her thoughts about her trip. For now I wish my baby a very happy 15Th birthday. I could not be more blessed, you truly are a gift from God!

I'm very sick. Juergen had to take me to the after hours Dr to get antibiotics. My throat is very infected. I feel really awful!!! The boys got back from summer camp yesterday. At first they said they had a terrible time. Poor Thomas is lactose intolerant and drank some normal milk. I will not go into details, but he messed his pants because the diarrhea was so bad. The other kids were not very nice about it. Imagine how embarrassing that could be. He really has to be more careful. He knows he can not handle real milk. But as time goes by, we begin to hear the good stories...the fun things they did. I hope the memories of the embarrassing stuff will fade. I hope they will want to go to camp again next summer!