I Am Blessed

My heart has been longing to write for the past few days.  When something troubles me, it is my therapy.  I love to listen to instrumental music, specifically piano music, while I write.  It is soothing to my soul.  God also seems to show up when my fingers are dancing across the keys.  But I have tried to quiet that longing so that I wasn't writing out of the emotion of hurt.

As this past week has played out, there has been some moments that I want to remember and cherish.  I don't want to get into the nitty gritty, but this is the place where I store my memories, and these memories although were created from hurt, they are beautiful to me.

I am a blessed women.  I have written many times about how blessed I am.  But as I go through my life that is where I want to keep my focus.  On the blessings that have been pouring from the heavens down upon me.

My three beautiful children are worth more than life itself.  They are worth going into battle for, they are worth protecting, they are worth people thinking we are a bit crazy for the way we feel God has called us to school and shelter them from all the sin in this world.  I will never apologize for the decisions we have made to keep them in that place of safety.  God gave them to us on loan, and I want to stand before God someday knowing I did all that I could to keep them pure for Him.  They are a blessing.

My husband is worth more than the air I breath.  That he comes along side of me to fight the battles that leave me weary and wounded.  That he was created to complete me, and he does so willingly.  That he appreciates when I take a stand for our family.  That he willingly goes into battle for our family and doesn't compromise on his convictions.  He is my strength when I am week, he holds me when I am wounded and prays over me when I am broken.  He is a blessing.

I am blessed to have three best friends.  Each one plays a different role in my life, but each one is uniquely special to me.  One of my friends often tells me that I don't let people see the real me.  She is so right.  My heart is well protected and not many are allowed close enough to see it.  But she is one who knows me well.  She understands me probably better than I understand myself.  She has a very special way of explaining me to me.  Many times I don't even need to speak, because she already knows what I would say.  She loves me enough to speak truth to me in love.  She has my back when there are battles that need to be fought, I trust her completely.  I am so thankful God brought her into my life several years ago.

Then there is my friend who came into my life not that long ago.  I will always remember the first time I saw her.  We have become fast friends.  We are so different.  She is so strong where I just crash and burn.  And I am strong where she struggles, but we have a connection that I don't have with very many.  Even though we are so different we have so many things in common.  Not many understand my love for freighters, camping, the UP, campfires, and smores.  But she does.  I can tell her when I am struggling and she loves me through it.  As I was going through this week, the light at the end of the tunnel was knowing that I could escape to my sanctuary and she would be there.  She rearranged her entire schedule, took a day off of work to make sure she would be along side me this weekend.

My longest friendship has been with an amazing women that I don't think I could do life without.  Our friendship started when we were both young women.  She was a baby Christian and I had the pleasure of watching her mature in her faith over the years.  She is a women I can call when I am broken and she will pray over me.  She has so much Godly wisdom, I find myself turning to her advice more and more.  She and I have walked over many mountains together we have struggled through many valleys, it is the kind of friendship that has stood the test of time.  She comes along side of me in so many ways that I could never mention them all.  She has walked me through and prayed me through some of my most darkest moments.

All of these ladies are such a blessing to me.  I am humbled by their love for me and their willingness to love me despite all my ugliness and sin.  I feel as if I receive so much more from them then I could ever give back to them in a lifetime.

Yesterday I was in a very low place, struggling with questions I didn't know the answers to.  As Satan was trying to speak lies to me, my earthly Father came, listened to my heart, held me, and then prayed truth over me.  I can not even begin to tell you the peace that surrounded me as he prayed.  He affirmed me (& Kevin) and the stand we take for our family.  I am so blessed to have amazing Godly parents.  Parents that have opened their hearts to God and have allowed Him to work in their lives to make them more like Him.  They learned to get uncomfortable for Christ and because of that, He uses them in so many different ways.  I know the prayers of my parents have made a huge difference in my life and the life of my family.

Even though, I have yet to figure out all the answers, and I have much I need to wrestle with God about, I know that I am blessed.  I know that I am loved by some pretty amazing people.  They have stood beside me this week, they have listened when I needed to talk and talked when I just wanted to listen.  They have prayed for me and with me.  Two have even stood on the front lines battling with me.  I am learning some important truths about God in all of this.  I am examining my heart to make sure my motives are pure and I am so grateful to God for placing these beautiful people around me to walk down the pathway of life together.

I am blessed.

Celebration

It's a perfect morning to blog.  The rain is falling softly outside on our carpet of grass.  Not everyone in my house has awoken for the day yet.  Things are still quiet and dark.. I love these comfortable, cozy, quiet mornings.  I so appreciate the fact that I don't have race by these moments in order to cart my kids off to school at an ungodly time in the morning.  I get to enjoy the quiet, before the craziness of the day sets in.

So I kind of have been wondering what I should blog about next.  I could bore you all with historical facts that I have recently discovered.  Or the fact that I have located a 1870 map with the names and locations of all the property owners in Overisel, Mich (this map shows the property that Kevin's family owned).  Or how about I found out that Kevin's Gr-Gr-Gr-Grandmother (who I just found yesterday) couldn't read or write.  I can't imagine not having the world of words open for me to explore.  I am sure however, she was too busy churning butter, beating rugs, or killing chickens to really care about it.  But how sad that she couldn't herself open the Word of God and have it come alive for her... Not sure how alive the King James version in Dutch would be....  Hmm... maybe I just discovered the reason Dutch people can't cut loose and have a good time...

I also have a few pictures left from some random happenings in DC which I need to share and then from there I better jump back in time and work hard at getting caught up, because there are some exciting happenings taking place this summer that I am going to want to blog right away about.  So hopefully you all can handle my ADD way of blogging and maybe in a few months I will have this blog under control again ( I think I have said that before...).

I have a confession to make.  The night of Tim's graduation the whole herd of family walked our way down to a quaint little gourmet pizza shop to celebrate and I DIDN'T BRING MY CAMERA!  How horrible is that!  Thankfully my sister was on the ball and had her camera.  So she captured a few of the moments, otherwise I wouldn't have anything to share with you.

Oh and I forgot to share this picture on the last DC post.  My sister again snapped a photo that my camera didn't capture.  The dress that Jilli is wearing was a special gift from her Uncle Paul and Aunt Nadia for this trip.  Uncle Paul saw it in a store and had to buy it for Jilli.... There are perks to being the only girl in the family!

Aunt Melissa just asked Micah a question... he is obviously thinking of the answer...

 Tim, as always looking handsome...

 Tyler, as always being Tyler...

 Tim and Melissa's Brother-In-Law who has the patients of a saint!

Tim and Melissa's Step-Sister, who has such an amazing sweetness to her.  Her Step-Dad was messing with her here.

 Tyler showing off a gift he received from Uncle Timmy and Aunt Melissa.

 And last but not least, Jilli's new special friend, Sissy, Melissa's sister.  Sissy and Jilli became fast friends and the list of family that we need to visit when going out East just became longer.  Thank goodness she lives only a few blocks from Tim and Melissa, so the girls can hang out all they want when we go.  Jilli cried and cried when she had to say good-bye to Sissy the next day...

I just remembered that I have some pictures of the White House that I might attempt to share... I told you I am ADD (my mother tells me it's called MOTHERHOOD), the pictures are on my phone (not a great camera at all) and I will have to try and get them off of it.

Have a Great Day!!

Genealogy

I have to apologize for not blogging as of late.  I have been preoccupied with the research of my ancestors and the ancestors of Kevin.

I have always loved history except my Civil War History class in high school that I failed.  That class was a joke as was Mr. Green who taught it.  I always look back on that class and wish that I had had a different teacher for that subject, I think I would have done so much better.  I love the Civil War years and the stories that abound from them.  I look forward to teaching my kids all about it, and learning right along with them everything that I should have learned back in High School.

So back to my research, I kind of hit a brick wall as far as my side of the family, just because they haven't been in the States that long.  It was my Great Grandparents that arrived here, but Kevin's family has been here over a hundred years longer than mine and there is so much more information out there that I can discover.  The exciting thing is that the paternal side has lived in Michigan, in this area, since they arrived so there are cemeteries with old tombstones, you know the ones that I love to photograph in hopes of learning about a little piece of history, except these tombstones actually have meaning to the family.

I also get to find death certificates, that are really cool to see.  I know that some would think I am weird, but discovering that Kevin's Gr-Gr Grandmother died of Diabetes and that Kevin shares her birthday.  And that Tyler shares his birthday with his Gr-Gr Grandmother (and that she was a twin) is just totally awesome to me.

It is also very evident that life was so much harder and more dangerous.  That something that we take a pill to cure, was a death sentence back then.  Birth was a very dangerous time in a women's life.  I can't tell you how many young women's names I saw that died while giving birth.  How sad for their young husbands and young children.  Such a happy time that ended so tragically.  Now a days, if a women dies in childbirth, it makes the news.  Not so back then.

Oh and having under 4 children was pretty much never seen.  Kev's Gr-Gr Grandmother had (at last count) 13 children, 10 of which were living.  Amazing.  I get more excited the more I delve into it.

I have yet to discover if any of his family fought in the Civil War.  But I am on the hunt for that since I know they were living in Michigan during the war.  I also have found evidence that they were very supportive of Abraham Lincoln and that they (if registered) voted for him.  How cool is that!  Now that is a president that I can be proud my (by marriage) family voted for!!

Here is a copy of the 1900 Census.  The second name is Kevin's Gr-Gr Grandfather and all the names underneath his are those that are in his household at the time.  Sadly the last name for his family is Miles who died 3 months later.  He was 1 year 10 months old, his death cert said he died from a perforation of the bowel.  Kevin's Gr-Gr Grandmother had her second set of twins 3 months after his death.  Nothing like a new set of twins to keep your mind off your grief.

Anyway I now know of the names of Kev's Gr-Gr-Gr-Gr Grandparents (1700s).  I am interested to find out more information, but it gets harder because that is when the family was living in the Netherlands.  A lot of records are in Dutch and although that was my family's native tongue I only know a few words.  Like 'skeet in the brook' (said with a dutch brogue...please ignore the spelling, I only know how to say it).

Blessings!!

Graduation Part 3

The weather had been beautiful the entire trip to DC except the day of Graduation.  It was cold and rainy that morning.  That was kind of disappointing because after Graduation we were allowed to have a tour of the facility where Tim had trained and lived.

There was a an opened courtyard that held a memorial to 9/11.

Two towers that is encompassed by a pentagon, in front on the ground laid three pieces from each of the plane crash sites. 

 Flight 93, Pentagon, Twin Towers

 We got to see Tim's classrooms, where he spent his academic time.  We got to see the gym where he sweated away every last ounce of fluff (like he had any to begin with) to be at peak performance.   We heard a lot of gunfire from the shooting range.  Then we got into our cars for a tour of the tactical training facility that is designed to provide a realistic urban setting, for training.

It looks and acts like a real working town.  Throughout his training we would hear stories of what he had to do and descriptions were given as to what the places looked like, so it was really special to be able to actually see the "town".  As we were driving around Tim would keep hopping out of his car and going from car to car giving explanations as to what he did in each location.  Keep in mind it was cold and raining.... poor guy.  I think there was a car train of at least 5 vehicles.

It was bittersweet as we left that little town.  Our tour was done, we started our way back to the hotel where we all were staying at.  Leaving behind a chapter in the life of Tim & Melissa.  A chapter that I am sure they loved seeing in their rearview mirror...

Graduation Part 2

Disclaimer.....
For safety reasons I can not show certain people and places.  Please excuse weirdly cropped pictures, blurred areas, and bodies without heads :) 


Before we were escorted to the auditorium for the Graduation, we could take pictures with Tim.  So I thought that I would share the one of our family.  I also labeled my siblings.  I know most who read this know who my brothers and sister are, but some of you don't.  It is sometimes nice to put a name and face together for future or past reference. 

 **We are missing Paul's wife and his two boys along with Kevin. They were not able to make it to Tim's Graduation.

The graduation ceremony was really quite beautiful (although I don't think Tim would use that word to describe it).  I loved in the beginning they announced that if there is a baby crying or a child being loud that it was OK, that the the graduates had missed those sounds of home for 6 months and they were a welcomed noise to hear, so please don't leave the auditorium.  It kind of took the seriousness of the event away and added a lot of warmth (at least for me).  


I know you all can guess what my eyes were doing during the whole graduation.  My mind always wanders back in time when Tim was called Timmy or Buddy, a time when he was much shorter, a lot less muscle, but the same sweet face.  I blink back the tears and here he is a grown man, walking across the stage to shake a very important man's hand.  And in that one moment in time, the long road, the hard work both physically and mentally was accomplished.  He had achieved what he set out to do years before.

It was funny, I found a kindred spirit in Tim's Mother-In-law, for as we both exited the auditorium, our eyes were both red, our cheeks were both tear stained and we both had smiles on our faces.  There was a group of 21 of us that had all traveled for this momentous event and I think we were the only two that looked like a hot mess.  The rest of the group all wore these huge smiles without tears.

Here is "Tim's group". There was 3 people that didn't go on stage for this picture.  2 were Tim's friends from Evanston (one of them used my camera to take this picture) and the other person was our cousin.  So this group represents (most) of Tim and Melissa's immediate family.  There is a lot of love represented here....

Later that night as I was laying in bed, listening to my children's soft breathing.  I thought about how my parents raised a little boy into manhood and how amazing it is to see where God has him at this time in his life and how proud they are of him.  And how I have three little people that Kev and I are trying to raise and wondering what God has planned for their lives.  It's humbling to think of, an overwhelming sense of responsibility for sure.  Comforting to know that God has their lives in his hands regardless of me and Kevin and all the mistakes we make along the way.  Curious as to what roads they are going to take... maybe even a little scared...

Graduation Part 1

Ok, so here we go.  The reason we went to DC in the first place was to be at my brothers graduation.  I am a little proud of his accomplishments and could brag about him until the cows jumped over the moon, but I am sure he would roll his eyes and blush and get all embarrassed.  So.. I will control my boasting and just stick to the facts... at least the facts that I can share...

There are times when were are "in the moment" that we really question what the "plan" for our life is.  There are times that we wonder why we are going through what we are going through.  There are times that we wished big decisions would just be made for us instead of us struggling to make them ourselves.  There are times that even once the decision is made we question ourselves.  Question if this is really the right change for our life.  Well, several years ago my brother started a process that took him down that road of uncertainty, a road that I think he and his wife just got off of a few short months ago.  Honestly, looking back over Tim's life I can say that... God has been preparing him for this time and place in his life.

I don't even know when my brother applied for this position.  I remember hearing about it in passing conversations.  I remember hearing that there is like 75,000 applicants for this certain job (in one year) and only 3% get called back for "interviews" and of those 3% only a few are selected.  The process took (I think) 2 years until Tim received word that he was accepted.

Then the waiting for his training began.  He would have to move away from his beautiful wife for 6 months, go through unbelievable physical and mental training, and IF he passed could end up anywhere in the US.  There were other factors, like leaving his secure job, dealing with their house that they own, packing up 10 years of life, the uncertainty of the new job in a new location.

Then he got his training date.  Then his training date was cancelled due to the idiots people that work in DC.  He was told that it could be two years before he got a new date.  All the questions of if this was the right decision probably reared it's ugly head.  Basically you put your life on hold for two years waiting for a training that you might not even be able to pass.  Why go through all of that.  He had almost 10 years at his current job, a house, a life.  But looking back, God was waiting for the perfect time.  It only took a few months before word was received that a new class was starting and he was in it.  But those few months cleared up some questions with his current job, and gave some extra time to prepare for the move from their house.

The long 6 months of brutal physical and mental training began.  But I think that the worst part of those 6 months was the separation of husband and wife.  I have written about it before, but it was emotionally very difficult for both of them.  I can't even imagine...

But as the months went past and tests were passed, it started to become clear that outside a debilitating injury (which other people had experienced) Tim would pass (and with flying colors.... I am allowed to brag a little right?!)  We were given his graduation date and the planning for the trip began.

A side note... for this trip I had to give out my full name (& those of my children) along with my social security number for background checks more times than I can count on both hands.  If background checks are anything like credit checks, I'm in trouble... my name has too many hits on it from this little trip!  Oh yeah, and radiation from going through all the check point scanners going in and out of all the DC buildings.  We didn't even fly there!  We got so used to removing belts, keys, wallets, cameras... standing with legs spread and arms out for the scan to go over you that it was difficult not to disrobe when entering any building!

Well, the big day finally arrived and with it, smiles from all who traveled to witness this once in a lifetime occasion.  Especially from Tim's wife, who after 6 months was FINALLY getting her husband back...