Closed for the Season

I have jokingly told people our "inn" is closed for the season. We don't really have an inn, but our line of weekend guests has come to an end for the year. Our "inn" had 14 sets of weekend guests, so that is 14 weekends out of 2010 for overnight guests. We figured that on average, each guest stayed at least 3 days, making that 42 days of company. It was a lot of fun and we are thankful to each person who took the time out of their busy schedule to come visit us. Our thanks goes out to: First, my parents, who made several trips out here. Also, my wonderful mother and father-in-law, who also came several times. Thanks to Aunt Ina and cousin Jordan for coming this year. Thank you to my Aunt Jan, who came for a weekend, and dropped by another day to see my new house. Thank you to my cousins T.J., Amy, Adley, Jaylyn, and Leighton who came to see us for a weekend. Also, my Uncle Terry and friends, who enjoyed the fishing up here. Thank you to our friends Ron and Angela, and daughters, who came 2 weeks ago for a visit. We also had other friends from F.W. drop by for an afternoon, as well as my Uncle Clancey who came to see our house. Hopefully I haven't forgotten anyone!! Thank you all for making our 2010 a good year!!

Season of Thanks

It has been a while since I had time to post, but I am hoping I can start with a renewed commitment over the next few weeks. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I thought I would spend some time reflecting on the past year of our lives.
The past year has been full of spiritual ups and downs for our family. We struggled with the whys of moving again, yet being thankful we had a job and a place to live. We realize several things: 1). God is in control, and I have no choice but to believe He will meet my needs, because that is what he promises in His word. I am not in control, period!! 2). You realize how much you don't need, and there is so much you can do without. We learned that we wasted a lot of our money. That is a lesson I hope we never forget. 3). It gives you a heart to help others facing the same thing. You know the fears they have of losing everything. You will do whatever you can do to help them out, specifically lifting them up in prayer.
Many people have asked if we are involved in a church here. I hope people would know our family well enough to realize church is an integral part of who we are. We have a great church family. They took us in immediately and when we aren't there, someone never fails to let us know they missed us. They made sure we got involved. Colby and I worked in VBS this summer, we have served in Children's Church and Terry and I work in Awana. We were also just asked to be involved on the Missions Committee. Terry and Colby were involved in helping on a project at our parsonage. Colby is an active part of the youth group. He takes guitar lessons on Wednesday night from our youth pastor, and Dalayna received her first lesson this past Wednesday. Dalayna is in Awana, too. There are always things going on at church. We have been attending there a year now. I remember how hard it was to think about getting to know yet another church family, yet we made it through the first year just fine, by God's grace. My advice to anyone facing that situation is to GET INVOLVED, don't sit on the sidelines, be a part of the action.
In my mind I have kicked and screamed about being in a place where I don't really want to be, yet despite my complaining, God has continued to be so good to us. Life here is different. Terry and I have decided we must have been living in different world before. There are so many people who have had tragedies happen in their lives. I have NEVER seen so much tragedy. There are so many people with needs. At first, I thought, "Get me out of this place!", and maybe someday God will, but for now, what a wonderful opportunity to minister to someone. Please pray that God will use our family in some way for however long we are here.
I have also met a lot of wonderful homeschooling moms. They have been very helpful in telling me what is available for homeschoolers around here, especially the ones that have been in my prayer groups at co-op. None of them read my blog, so I can say, honestly, they are wonderful ladies. One of them is from St. Louis!! There are a lot of neat kids in the group, too, so I don't have to worry about who my kids friends are.
One of the other blessings we have received is more time as a family. My husband has the first job since our marriage began where he is home in time to eat dinner and never works weekends. The 70-80 hour weeks are a thing of the past. We have enjoyed it so much. Would we ever take another job where we would have more money but see him less? Not by choice, because we have come to realize the money is not worth the sacrifice. The company he works for is so good to their employees, too. They give rewards for safety, gift cards for birthdays, parties for the employees. You just don't see that much these days.
I am more content with where I am. It has taken a long time to get there. My friend Betsy was very blunt when she said that we were supposed to be content with where God has put us. I cried, because I knew what she said was true. In this season of thanks, I have much to be thankful for, as God continues to grow and stretch me. May I never forget all I have to be thankful for!!

Fall is Here

Ah, the colors of fall... brown, yellow, orange, red; all in brilliant array. I also love the rustle of crunchy leaves, and for the most part, don't mind raking them. We have plenty to rake in this yard. So, yesterday afternoon we started on the side yard. The kids were having fun running and hiding in them of course. So they decided Ranger needed a little fun, too.

One pile of leaves, which serves as a good hiding spot. All these leaves are from this one tree. As you can see, we only raked up half. It is hard to believe this is all from one tree. Also, notice our privacy fence. We could not afford to fence the whole yard this year, so our friend put up this one section for us. It gives us plenty of privacy from the street pictured here. It is a very busy street.

There are no colors here, but this was just a neat picture as the sun began to set last night. This flagpole is in our sideyard next to the driveway.

Our maple tree just turned yellow in the past day or so, and it's leaves are falling fast. One of my favorite trees is the blue spruce next to the maple.

This tree is amazing to see. It is totally split in color right down the middle, and the colors get brighter every day. Have you ever seen a tree with a green side and a side turning colors? By the way, this is my neighbor's tree, but I just had to take a picture because it is so unusual.

Bowling Fun

Last Sunday we went bowling as a family. The last time we went bowling was over a year ago. It was an event for homeschool families. The bowling alley was smoke-free(thankfully), and they gave us a treat by playing Christian music as we bowled. This event was sponsored by the 2nd group I am now a part of. The other group is for the co-op classes, this group is mostly for field trips and events like this one. A good majority of the people in our co-op classes are a part of this group as well, so the kids get to see many of their friends. This should also fill our calendar pretty well, too. And as a side note, Colby joined our group's 4-H club last week. I always thought it was for people who had a farm, but it is for anyone. In March, Dalayna will join Mini 4-H, and will have the opportunity to do sewing projects, etc. I will keep you up to date on how that is going!! Busy, busy, busy!! Here Terry is trying to get Dalayna to put her fingers in the correct holes on the ball, but she wasn't interested. Instead she did the "granny bowl" ,as I like to call it!!

They also put the bumpers up for all of us, which made it so much easier for the younger kids.

Colby chose to bowl with some of his friends.

I just noticed that her shoes match her outfit!!

Some tips from big brother. When Colby was finished with his 2 games, he came over and tried to help Dalayna bowl. We had a great time, and I beat Terry at both games!! I tried to take a picture of the scores on the screen, but it didn't work, so you will have to take my word for it. This group is supposed to do more bowling events, so we will look forward to those!!

Thanks to My Kids

A special thanks to my children, who worked together on the computer in designing this month's blog header. Now they need to teach me a few things about the "paint" feature on the computer.

For the Birds

While Colby was at the football game, Dalayna got some one-on-one time with Daddy. One of the things they enjoy doing together is feeding the birds. They put up all the bird feeders. (It's only taken us 4 months to do that.) One of the bird feeders they hung up Terry made several years ago. It is very simple with holes for food, and a small peg for the birds feet. It is pictured below. So Dalayna and Terry mixed peanut butter and bird seed and filled the holes with it. It was a messy job, but the birds ate it right up!!! I was kind enough to contribute my Reese's peanut butter. I didn't really want to share it with the birds, but didn't want to ruin my daughter's special time with Daddy either.

Prepare to get messy!!

Dalayna got very messy mixing the seeds and peanut butter, but you can tell she enjoyed it by the smile on her face.

I think Terry got even messier filling the holes. The good news is it was easy to clean up. I took a bowl of warm soapy water outside, they scrubbed off, dumped the water in the yard and it was all taken care of. I hope the birds enjoyed their work!!

Colby Goes to College(for a football game)

Colby had the privelege to go to college for the 2nd time a week ago. He traveled to the University of Michigan to watch the Wolverines play the University of Massachusetts. He had a great time and saw a good game. He is pictured here with his friends J.C.(left) and Larry(right). J.C. is our pastor's son, and he saved his own money so he could pay for his friends tickets to the game. That was kind, wasn't it? Our pastor is the one that took them to the game and took this picture. You know I didn't take this picture because it is just too good!! The final score!! I wanted to post more pictures, but we weren't sure if we could do that. They took over 60 pictures and our pastor was very thoughtful and made sure Colby had his own copies. Terry plans on accompanying them next time.

Pioneer Fun

This week the kids and I were able to experience pioneer life for a few hours. I have to say it was one of the best field trips we have ever taken. It was also a bonus that I didn't have to drive very far. We experienced life in a log cabin, the barn and farm equipment, a blacksmith shop, and Dalayna's favorite, a one-room schoolhouse. As we read books she has had many questions about what it was like to go to school in those days, and she got to experience i firsthand. My favorite part of the day was simply watching my children sitting side by side learning together. Here is the windmill in the pioneer garden. I think windmills are neat, so I just had to take a picture. In the garden were tomatoes, peppers, and lots of herbs. They reminded us a lot during our visit that there were no Wal-Marts back then, so the pioneers had to grow and make everything themselves. I know it was all for the benefit of the kids, but if we all admit it, none of us would know what to do without a Wal-Mart nearby!! That was one of my biggest concerns in the past moves!!

There was even a blacksmith shop, and the man actually did things with metal while we were there.
One of the neatest things for the kids was during our lunch break. They provided the kids with toys that would have been played with by pioneer children. Even the parents took part in this, including me. Here is Dalayna with the metal hoops they used to roll down the street. Dalayna and I tried to get ours to roll down the street, but it just didn't work.

These walking blocks were fun.

This is of course the only picture I could get of Colby, since he pretends to be camera shy most of the time. He is playing a mental tug-of-war game. Your opponent stands on one block and you on the other. You tug and pull at the rope until one of you gets too much slack and falls off the block. It looks simple, but playing it really does require some thinking. I wanted to be Colby's opponent, but lunchtime was over much too soon. He is sure he would have beat me. Maybe he would have??????

Vacation Bible School

In July, we participated in VBS at our church. One of Colby's jobs was to help our youth/assistant pastor, Ryon, lead the music. Ryon gave him the name of "Colby Cheese" for the week, and I am still hearing kids call him that on Sundays and Wednesdays. The kids really liked Colby. He can relate to kids of any age since he has a much younger sister. That is one of the blessings of having kids several years apart. We did miss the last day because Colby was extremely ill with his asthma. Ryon told the kids Colby had eaten some bad cheese!!

Dalayna in front of one of the many murals in the hallway. We had an island theme, and on that island were "dangers. " Through those dangers, the kids were encouraged to trust Christ when they feared something, like David when he faced Goliath, etc.
Here are some pictures of game time. Notice Dalayna is in the front, but when it came time to be pulled into the pool of water, she let go and stepped out of the way quickly. She is not one for getting messy, so the obvious choice was to let someone else get all wet!! Colby and I were able to work with her age group several days, so that was fun.

You see she finally learned that being in the back is better.

One of the cute little snacks they had : cheesy hands and crackers.

Here the challenge was to put a water balloon between you and your partner and walk a certain distance without either of you popping it on your backs or dropping it. I didn't get a picture, but Colby and I actually did this without popping a balloon!

We had a great time. We were sad to miss the last day due to Colby's illness, but we look forward to next year's VBS.

First Day of School Pics

Yes, this is last year's 1st day of school picture. I just wanted everyone to see how much my beloved children have grown right before my very eyes. My wonderful son is now a young man, taller than me, with a deep voice. My little girl has grown, lost some teeth but yet continues to be my baby. It happens much too quickly. I am so thankful I can be with them each day watching them learn and grow. This year. A year of pre-algebra(YIKES!!) with Colby and learning about the 50 states with Dalayna. So far so good. We are trying a different math this year and they both love it. It is hard for me to get used to since I taught another curriculum for so many years, but if they enjoy it, I will deal with it, gladly. Dalayna's study was all about Texas where we learned about the Alamo, that Fritos and Dr. Pepper originated in Texas, 2 things my mother could live on!! On to Montana next week.

What a difference a year can make!! The more he grows and matures, he becomes more of a helper around here. We are thankful for his servant heart.

Dalayna is pictured here with her very favorite object in the whole world: her baby doll who she named "Caillou." Caillou was a gift to Dalayna at our baby shower from dear friends, and she goes everywhere with us. She goes to church on Sunday night, the grocery store and waits in the van, even on vacation. She and Dalayna have many matching outfits and someday I will do a blog about it. Caillou even comes to school every day. What fun to be a little girl!! Even more fun for mom and Grandma Judy to shop for matching outfits for these two!!

100th post

Hurray for the 100th post!! I feel like I have done something...not sure what, but 100 posts shows perserverance, determination, sticking with something, or maybe just that I should have more than that by now. In 100 posts we have:
1. Found a job by God's grace
2. Started 2 new school years.
3. Moved 2 times.
4. Had 3 different addresses.
5. Sold a house and bought a new one.
6. Had to learn yet another new phone #. Just don't ask me what it is because I will freeze up and not remember!!
7. Unpacked and packed over 100+ boxes.
8. Seen God work in our lives.
9. Had lots of visitors to post about, but can always use more!!
10. Cried at leaving old friends, yet rejoicing God has provided new friends.
11. Learned the meaning of lake-effect snow.. it's no joke!!
12. Shoveled so much snow I feel professional about it!!
13. Learned that I am no good at taking pictures.
14. driven my children crazy with my need to blog about stuff, therefore needing to take lots of pictures.
15. joined a homeschool group.
16. learned that though we don't always understand God's plan for our lives, He is always faithful. He will provide for us in situations we have such a hard time understanding.
17. been provided with yet another wonderful church family.
18. Started this school year with no plans for any moves... what a stress reliever that is!!
I guess I could go on and on, but the point is that almost a year has gone by since my 1st post. God has grown our family in ways that have brought us much closer together. I hope that in 100 posts, our family has brought Him much glory!!

Toothless Wonder

Dalayna's top teeth have been loose for quite a while. One of them finally loosened up enough to come out. She worked worked for that tooth to come out. She requested I take a picture of her trying to pull it and post it on my blog. So here it is. With a little help from her daddy, it came right out. Little is the key word, because she was determined to do it herself. Then she came into the living room and told me she decided to give up for the night because it just wasn't going to come out. Then she smiled and laughed and there was the hole in the mouth.

We can't get over how different it makes her look with one tooth missing. She also had to adjust to talking with her tooth missing. She had a little trouble for a day or two, and she said it took longer to read books!! Now she is fine and talking normally again. Too cute!!

I am always coming up with nicknames for my kids. So we thought we could call Dalayna "Toothless Wonder" until it grows back. The new tooth is nowhere in sight, so that could be her nickname for awhile!!

Night at the Beach-Part 1

The 2nd weekend of July, there is a fireworks display along the beach. The couple from our church who has the home on the lake invites the youth to come for a cookout and to watch the fireworks. Colby wasn't too terribly dismayed that we decided to tag along, so we tagged along!! It was fun. As the fireworks display was winding down it started to rain. Hearing the thunder roll across the lake was a great display of God's power, that's all I can say. It was the loudest thunder I have ever heard in my life. Here is Dalayna in the lake before it started lightning. It looks like it was completely dark when she was in the water, but it wasn't.

By the time we ate, it was completely dark. It was good food!!
One of our recent high school graduates, Matt. Matt has been a good friend to Colby. We pray he will do well as he goes away to college.

One halfway decent picture of the fireworks.

Dalayna loves playing in the sand.

Abby and Zac digging a hole.

Jadon and one of the youth girls, Hannah. She is so good with the kids!!

Colby and some of the other youth playing football. How you can see the ball in the dark I am not sure, but they managed. My friend Lisa took these pictures for me. I knew if I got anywhere near my son with the camera I would embarass him to pieces, so I sent someone else instead!! He had no idea Lisa had taken pictures for me until we got home.