Easter Blessings

It has been a little quiet over here, just not a lot of news to report, I guess.  Tax season is almost over.  Jeff worked over 68 hours last week.  The rest of us are on spring break, which is a much-needed vacation.  We are enjoying a simpler week.

Yesterday's Easter celebration was wonderful.  Our church was packed and God was honored.  Afterwards, we were blessed to spend time with extended family.  Here are a few photos.

A Happy Thanksgiving

Ah, Thanksgiving!  Who doesn't love getting together with extended family and feasting?  No presents to buy, no extensive decorating, just delegate the menu, clean the house, fix broken chairs, break your foot in the process... Yes, I broke my foot gluing our old chairs together in preparation for Thanksgiving.  It just made for a more interesting day.  My family jumped in and carried out my every order to finish the work on my list.  God bless them.  We did have a lovely time.  After our feasting, I went to the urgent care and got a boot.  I will be good to go, er hobble, until Christmas.  Online shopping, delegating the baking, ordering groceries for pick-up will be just the life-line I need. I am thankful for all the modern conveniences and that I can still drive with my good right foot!  How was your Thanksgiving?

Fall Break 2015

For my birthday and our fall break, we headed up to see Grandma who lives in Northwestern Indiana.  We rented our favorite cabin and enjoyed some great walks, three apple orchards, an antique mall, and lots of family time. It is hard to believe that the next time we are up it will be winter, as we were blessed with wonderful weather, temperatures in the upper 70's even. Now it is time to finish the semester and prepare for the winter holiday season.  I will miss my lake!

A Lovely Vacation

That old saying is true.  Ten days off really fly by when you are having fun.

Our vacation this year was part stay-cation, a camping cabin at Lake Michigan for a couple nights, all book-ended by two 10 mile bike rides with my parents, and a professional soccer game. I think we made the most of our time off!

The cabin was tiny, but very cozy, and kept us dry, because it rained a bit each day.

Here we are with coats on the beach.  It was so windy.  I felt like I was being sand-blasted.

It was easier to walk behind the dunes, and so pretty.

No kidding.  So glad no one was trying to swim in those waves.

This week is dedicated to serving at VBS for my younger two while spending the week at grandparents, and a first week of band camp for the oldest.  Me, well, I am catching up on things around the place, getting ready for school to start in a few weeks.  Jeff is back to his work.  

This life is lived mostly in the middles, between the highs of vacation.  It's the ordinary days that count most.  And, we have been blessed.  

Changing Seasons

This last week has been a busy one, and we are finding ourselves in a season of change.  I suppose this was bound to happen as our children grow,and find themselves needing, wanting different things.  Thankfully, the Lord has been protecting my tender mama's heart from too much change.  I am not sure I could handle a lot more!

The change is in several forms.  The first is that we are finding it more difficult to go camping as a family. Already, our oldest had stopped going a few years ago.  Now that he is 17, he is able to stay by himself and cat sit.  And his involvement in marching band makes our camping trips less frequent, as we are trying to be supportive band parents.

The other two still enjoy camping, though not as much as they once did.  And frankly, Jeff and I are finding it a lot more work than fun, even with the teen's willing help.  So, we had the unusual experience of coming home from a camping trip and deciding to cancel two upcoming trips!  It is usually the opposite.  Nothing bad happened.  We all just said that day trips would be as nice, and we love our home!  Perhaps that is one of the precipitates.  We love being closer to home as there is so much to do around here.  We did schedule a trip up to our beloved lake in July, but we will stay at a hotel.  We will see how it goes.  We don't plan to sell the camper just yet, but it is an idea on the table.  We spend $40 a month to store it.  We still have one camping trip left on the books.

The other change has to do with our schooling.  Our youngest had already declared himself ready to try the local public school.  With our oldest doing well there, we were considering it, however, they are two very different boys, and I was not totally on board.  Grace has mostly finished the Sonlight offerings for high school, as she started the high school cores when she was in middle school with an older brother going through them.  So she was also looking for a new school plan.  So, it has been decided that they will be enrolled in an accredited online school.  They will still be at home, which I like, but they will have outside accountability. Then if Trevor comes up with a compelling reason to try the public high school the following year, he will have accredited records that our local school will require.  He may not go.  He may like this online school well enough.  We shall see.  We have two friends who are enjoying this online school, so that gives us hope.

And as I mentioned last week, Jeff starts a new job this coming Monday.  I am praying it is a good fit.  I am so thankful that it is close to home. (Another reason to love our home!)  It is ironic though.  If he had not taken the job so far away, we never would have moved here.  God knew though!

A Birthday Hike

Each January, as long as the weather cooperates, we try to take a hike the weekend before Jeff's birthday. This year we were fortunate to be able to afford a hotel room near the lake and our local family.  The weather did not only cooperate, but blessed us.  It was partly cloudy and in the 40's, a beautiful day.  We walked for an hour along the shore looking at the shelf ice.  Some years you can't see over it.  This year it was lower and there were icebergs.  I don't think I remember seeing icebergs before.

We also got to have a full day with Jeff's mom and her special friend.  She made Jeff a birthday cake.  The only thing we did not get to do was swim at the hotel pool, because we were all too tired from our hike earlier in the day.  Next day we were on our way back home with a stop for lunch and a meander through one antique mall.

Tax season is here and we won't see much of Jeff until April 15th, so this weekend was something to treasure!  If the Lord allows, we will go back in April.

Christmas Memories

Christmas has come and gone.  I personally felt kind of sad and numb, but tried to make an effort so that my family would still have a good Christmas.

Christmas Eve was spent with my parents.  We sang carols with the kids leading us with their guitars.  We had appetizers and desserts galore.  We were all spoiled with lots of presents, too.  Best of all, the weather cooperated.  It was supposed to snow, but never did.

Christmas day, we had to wake the kids up to open presents,which is a change from when they were younger!  If we were not in a hurry to get to Grandma three hours away, we would have let them sleep as long as they wanted!  We opened presents, and then got ready to go north.

We had an uneventful trip up to Grandma's, another praise.  She served us a big ham dinner.  It was a lovely afternoon with extended family.  We made a side trip to see Jeff's dad and his side of the family, too, which was really nice.  And then, we went back to Grandma's for more food and conversation.

That night, we had reserved a hotel room, so that we did not have to make the long drive back home.  The hotel was near our favorite park, too.  In the morning, we took a short hike and visited the beach, too.  Then it was another uneventful trip home, for which we were very grateful.

Monday is the memorial service for my grandma.  I am hoping that will help with closure.  It still doesn't seem real.  It all happened too fast.

A Happy Thanksgiving

We hosted Thanksgiving this year. Typically I stress out about hosting. Thankfully this year was different.  I started praying for a peaceful heart several days in advance. I prayed over my menu. I prayed over my housekeeping plan. I hired my kids at $5 an hour to help with little projects that were out of the ordinary,  like vacuuming the stairs, washing cabinets,  and dusting baseboards. It ended up that I only needed one man hour.  I had a great plan, and started the Monday before Thanksgiving,  each day after lessons. By Thursday, only a few things had to be done.  And the day went pretty well, too!