Field Day Part 2: Crazy Legs

After Josie's field day events, Josh, Ben, Addie and I went for lunch and came back for the afternoon events when Emma's class would compete. I have all these great pictures thanks to Josh and Ben, as I wasn't feeling very well at all, and really not in the mood for picture taking.

Emma "crazy legs" Mathew is

the nickname she wanted us to use. We do call her that a lot. :)

Her sponge toss buddy was not really getting the point of the game...or maybe he just wanted to get soaked with the sponge each time.

Emma stepping up to the plate to soak a fellow classmate.

She did it!!! Good shot Emma!

Field Day 2011

We had the great privilege to go to the girls' field day this year, and cheer them on.

They were so excited about it this year. We made t-shirts with them for the big day, and enjoyed a warm day.

Josie did an awesome job!

She is such a fast runner! She outran all the kids in her class.

Here she is playing a wet sponge toss game.

Check out the back of her shirt sportin' her nickname "Josie Fro-zie" :)

Whatcha Got Cookin' This Independence Day?

Summer has been flying by so far! I finally have just uploaded the pictures from the end of school. I will be posting soon about field day, and Josie's kindergarten celebration, but first I was wondering what your plans were for the holiday weekend?

We are going to a friend's home tonight for a BBQ and boat ride, and tomorrow we will be watching the parade and fireworks up with my family. Should be a good time, with good food and good fun.

So, whatcha cookin' up for the weekend?

What IS that on your forehead?

"It's Jesus!"

Um. Okay. I love you my strange child. :)

Saying Goodbye to our Grandpa

I haven't blogged in a while. Josh's sweet Grandpa has passed away.

Death of someone who trusts in the Lord is such a complicated thing. Complicated in that we are rejoicing that Grandpa is in no more pain, and sits at the feet of Jesus. Grieving that he is gone from us. It is also so hard to see someone loose a parent. Josh's mom lost her mother six years earlier, and now her dad.

What an amazing life he had. Friend after friend came to the funeral home and shared stories of Grandpa. He was such a hard worker. This farmer had a fun side too, and it was neat to hear the stories of him when he was young.

We will miss him.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Grandpa that I took two years ago at his farm.

Memorial Day Merry Making

Memorial day weekend was one for the books. We had a wonderful time at Johnny and Susie's wedding!

The girls had a four day weekend, and we decided to make a trip out of it. I made more money at the yard sale than I expected, so we decided to get a hotel room with a pool to stay at, for a little vacation with the girls. With Josh's deal savvy skilz, he was able to get us booked for two nights at a place for cheaper than one night usually is. Go Babe!

The girls had an amazing time swimming until they could swim no more!

We also had the BEST visit with a few former students (who have become like dear family to us) and it was SO good to see them again!

David and Kristi came from North Carolina. Kristi did all the hair for the wedding, and also sang. She is multi-talented. David tried to help me with my camera, and tried (to no avail) to help me fix it.

Lizzy and her baby Jamin came all the way from Colorado. It was so great to see them again, but we missed her hubby Michael a lot!

We were able to hang out with them for a good long evening. It was the greatest. I am so thankful that the Lord allows things like that to happen. When you think you just may never see everyone together again, and then out of the blue, here we were, eating Mexican food and laughing and talking like old times.

I wish I had amazing pictures for you, but I am having some camera trouble as of late. Here are a couple of pics though.

Mr. and Mrs. Benz

The girls all together again! (my three were sleeping after a LONG day of swimming. :) )

The boys. Jamin was more interested in the floor apparently. :)

Goin' to the Chapel...

Two weeks ago we were able to witness two dear friends of ours become one in marriage. Josh had the distinct privilege of marrying them!

We met Kayla as she was a student here at New Tribes Bible Institute. She quickly became part of our family. When she met Lee, we got to know him too, as his visits from out of state made our guestroom his new weekend home. :)

It was such a special thing to see there love for each other grow, and then to take part on their wedding day. We look forward to their return from their honeymoon so we can have some fun this summer with them!

Here they are saying their vows to each other.

I had to include a "kissy" picture! :)

Our Little Shining Star!

Last Sunday was our little Adelaide's first ballet recital! Following in both her sisters' footsteps, Addie took ballet classes this past year.

I was so proud to see my little girl on stage! She worked very hard at learning the routine, and she did great!

Daddy giving his little ballerina a kiss as she gets ready.

She cracks me up! I did not tell her to pose like this!

Doing some stretching before we go.

It was hard to get any good shots of her on stage, but I have a few okay ones.

Don't mind the heads in the picture! :)

Such a Purdy Girl!

We have a new member to our family, of the furry variety. Her name is Purdy. The girls named her that from the movie 101 Dalmatians.

We adopted her two weeks ago. She has been such a good dog! We can hardly believe she has only been with us for two weeks!

Purdy is a dalmatian mix. She is about two years old. She is really mild mannered, hardly ever barks, and thinks she is a lap dog, although she is roughly 40lbs!

Come by and meet her sometime!

"I can't believe you told them my weight."

A New Look

Josie wanted to get her hair cut to have bangs. I couldn't believe this as I hated having bangs all growing up.

She really wanted them though, so we thought, why not? I think they look really cute, but make her look a little older. What do you think?

Before

After

Bahama Mama

I could not believe how beautiful the Bahamas were. I guess I never really thought there could be water so clear, and sand so white! It was truly a tropical paradise!

The resort that we got to stay at was simply fabulous. :) I kept thinking that it wasn't real, and that this trip must be a dream. I mean, who gets free trips to the Bahamas?

We are so thankful for God blessing us this way through very generous friends! What a great time together we had.

I wish I had taken more pictures, but when I was there, I didn't really feel like taking pictures. I just wanted to take it all in. Here are a couple from our time on Grand Bahama Island.

This was the view from our room. If you want to hear a funny story sometime, ask us how we got such a nice room. :)

The morning sun.

This was when an insane rain storm came in. Look at how it seems to just be hanging over us!

This was the view at night of the resort's lobby. It was so pretty!

This is inside. Couldn't you just see James Bond walk through the door at a place like this?

Here is some proof that we were there together. Not the best picture, but we weren't very happy. This was right before we left the Bahamas.

Road Trips and Cruise Ships

Our dear friends Clint and Keisa were given a gift from Keisa's grandmother of a fabulous vacation on a cruise to the Bahamas for four...and they invited us!

This was a trip of a lifetime, and what a gift from God it was! To have ten days to road trip and cruise, and relax with good friends doesn't happen for many people, and we got to go for free?!? Wow!

While Clint's parents watched their kids, and Josh's parents watched ours, the four of us made the drive down to Florida. Keis and I really had it easy...riding around in the back of their Suburban, while the guys drove the whole way. :)

We stopped in North Carolina to visit our friends David and Kristi, and had a quick meal with them. Soon we were in warm and sunny Florida!

We stayed there for a couple of days, laying by the pool, site seeing, and finding incredible little places to eat. On the third day we boarded our ship bound to the Bahamas...

We were so excited to be driving with our windows down!

The guys were excited to see all the big, shiny boats in Miami. (Check out the bridge in the back!)

Josh and I aboard the Bahama Celebration.

Here is our ship. It was smaller than a lot of cruise ships, but it was perfect for us. We had nothing to compare it to! :)

This was our room on the ship. It was bigger than I had imagined.

Vacation Holiday!

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. Josh and I were invited as guests to go on a cruise to the Bahamas with some dear friends of ours. Who could pass up a free vacation, let alone one to the Bahamas?

I can't wait to tell you about it, but it is a little late to start that sort of post tonight. Let me just show you this:

Yeah, that isn't even in the Bahamas. I took that picture in Miami. The whole trip was fabulous!

Goodbye Sonny

Monday we had to put our Sonny down. Even though he hasn't been with us that long (it would have been three years this May) he has become a big part of our children's lives. Hey, when you are only four years old, three years is a long time to have a dog!

I am sad. It's not so much about the dog (don't get me wrong, I do miss Sonny. He was a constant companion. My walking buddy. My greeter when I came home. My foot warmer when I would watch tv, or read, or blog). The thing I am most sad about is that I can't protect my kids from hurt. I can't make this sinful world unbroken. There are going to be many times that they will be hurt deeply in life. I wish it wasn't the case, but there is no way around that. I will say this; I am very thankful for the hurt. They can learn from hurt. I can learn from hurt too.

Sonny's death is the first real time Josie and Addie have had to deal with that in life. We have had some great conversations since Sonny has gone. Conversations about life before sin, and life now after. Conversations of life after death. Conversations on how painful it must have been for God to give His only son, Jesus. (We just lost a pet. Imagine loosing your son?)

So, farewell Sonny. You were a good pet. You brought more to our family than one could have imagined when getting a dog. You are helping Adelaide see.

Always smiling... not just an underbite.:)

Here he is, just a puppy at the lake. He always looked like an old dog, even as a puppy.

Spring Fling 2011

Last weekend the Campus Life group put on their annual "Spring Fling".They put a lot of work into setting up the event, and it showed!

The theme was Hollywood, and everyone was to come dressed as their favorite movie character. After a yummy dinner in the beautifully decorated dining hall, we went to watch the talent show.

This year I decided to take the girls along. They performed in last years show, but we just watched this time. They are getting a little older, and can handle events like this,and late nights. It was a fun evening.

There was 900 balloons on the ceiling!!!

This is one of the acts from the talent night. They were so good! Who knew there was so much talent at New Tribes? :)

Josie went as Cinderella. It was kind of funny that her shoes kept falling off. This was not on purpose, they were just too big. We made it work though!

Addie was Sleeping Beauty. This is pretty accurate as I didn't take their pictures until we came home. They were all sleepy!

Emma went as Wendy Darling from Peter Pan.

It was fun to have the girls participate in the evening. They got to go to church the next day telling their friends they were up all night at a college party. Just kidding... they were in bed by ten. :)

Icy Road Trip

Our trip back was an interesting one. It was delayed for two days because of the snow and ice storms that lower Michigan got hit with!

We took our time. We wanted to be safe on the roads, and the views were spectacular. Everywhere I looked, I could not help but be in awe of God.

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." Psalm 19:1

We stopped at the welcome center on the Michigan boarder. It was as if the storm decided to only go from the boarder to south of highway 94.

My view the whole way back. (Don't worry, I slowed to about twenty to take this pic, and there wasn't a car on the road!)

I pulled over in a little town called Homer because the sun shining off the ice covered trees was simply gorgeous.

My girls are good travelers. We had a great time!

Where I Have Been All Your Life...

...No that is not some mixed up pick-up line, but more of an explanation to my lack of blogging. You see, the girls and I took a road trip down to see my sister Tomesia and her family. When we arrived, we had a crazy fun time catching up, and hanging out. I went to come home on Sunday (almost two weeks ago) but as I was loading the kiddos in the van, Josh called. "You can't come home" he said. There was a terrible snow storm coming, and he didn't want me to drive through it. Monday he called again. We would have to wait yet another day because an ice storm was coming. We came home on Tuesday evening, played catch up with the rest of the week, and then I got very sick on Saturday. I got the flu, and then strep. That was for about a week, and then Josh got the flu, and Josie got strep. They are still sick, and we are praying Addie and Emma don't get it. It is NO fun.

Now that I am feeling a little better, I wanted to blog a little about our trip down to Indy. We were able to take this trip because the girls had Friday and Monday off of school (and Tuesday, because of the ice storm! We didn't know that yet though.) We went down Thursday after school. The girls had so much fun playing with their cousins, and I had a fun time going to antique shops with my sister, eating Chick-fil-a with her, Joe and the kids (hey, we don't have Chick-fil-a up here!) and just chillin out at their house.

The highlight of my visit though would have to be seeing Tomesia and Joe's band, Somewhere Familiar, play in concert. I knew these guys were good. I have their cd, and have heard Joe and Tomesia play for upwards of 12 years with little jam sessions at my parents house, but nothing could prepare me for their live show. They are SO talented. It was a very special thing to see my sister up on stage. I loved it!

My sister, the rock star.

Somewhere familiar is great. Let me know if you'd like a cd. I am their biggest fan! :)

Alex, Emma and Solomon loved playing Batman all weekend.

Pretty sure these two would be inseparable if we lived closer. Ivy and Josie were attached at the hip all weekend.