On The Move...

Anxious is a word that I would use to describe how I was feeling about our upcoming weekend. We had been given questions that we were to think about and be prepared to answer while we sat aglow in the firelight. To answer them meant that you needed to open yourself up, show a piece of the hidden you.

Kevin and I had been praying about the weekend, the questions, and what God was placing on our hearts to share. A story that most of the group didn't know. A road that we had walked, and were still walking on. A place that is most painful... and yet... it is a place of beauty. It's a place where God worked his incredible blessing on our life. As Kev and I talked and prayed, we both knew it was time, time to open up and share where we had been and where we are today because of it.

We decided that we would arrive at Hoffmaster State Park a day earlier then the rest of the troops. I remember setting up camp and talking to Kevin about where the group campfire would probably be held. I remember praying that the weekend would go well and that my nerves would calm down.

The morning of day the others were to arrive. Kevin suggested we go to the local store and get donuts and punch for everyone to enjoy as they arrived. There is a joke in our small group that brownies always make everything better. Well, I was hoping donuts would work the same kind of magic.

As everyone started to arrive, my spirit calmed. Cars started to pull in, tents started to be raised, children were running all around and a feeling of peace swept over me. This was going to be a good weekend. Aslan was on the move...

The Journey Begins

There sat 5 campsites waiting for it's occupants to arrive. This was a place we have never camped before, with people we have never camped with.

How was the weekend going to go? Would we all still be friends by the time it was all over?

This was a weekend that our Small Group from church had been preparing and praying for. A weekend that I will never forget. For God blew his sweet breath through our campsites and touched our hearts.

So lets start the journey....

February 11, 2011

He stands in the kitchen and asks if she would like to go out to dinner with him. She gets a big smile and says "Yes". He smiles and tells her to be ready for their date at 5:30pm. He walks away, she turns to me...

"Mommy, what is a Daddy Daughter Date? What am I supposed to do?" I explain that Daddy is going to take her out on a date. They are going to go to dinner, just the two of them. She smiles and says "just Daddy and me?"

The light in her eyes, the smile on her face...

4:30pm comes, I ask her if she wants to go get ready. Daddy makes a comment, does it really take an hour to get ready. If she is anything like her Momma, then yes.

We walk up the stairs hand-in-hand. She is telling me what she wants to wear and how she wants her hair done.... yup she is like her Momma.... We go in her room close the door and begin the transformation.

After about 5 or 6 different outfits, she settles on the one she wants to wear. We quickly skip into my bathroom, time for the hair.

She explains what she wants. I look at the clock, only 25 minutes left. Not a good thing to be late on your first big date. I tell her to hold still and I being to work my magic.

We hear Daddy come upstairs to get ready. She giggles, thinks it's funny that she is getting all pretty for Daddy and he can't see her.

We hear him go back down the stairs, so we sneak down behind him. She is holding my hand, her eyes are bright with the excitement of her first adventure with Daddy.

She is standing in the kitchen. When Daddy walks in and looks at her. Daddy tells her how pretty she is, he picks her up and hugs her. They get their coats on and off they go.

Their First Date.

The Posing King

I need to finish posting about our vacation at the cottage. I keep getting distracted with other exciting things that are happening right now. So I am going to focus and get this done :)

The night of the family picnic at the cottage, we did a lot of posing for pictures. I think Kevin was feeling left out so he planted himself among the dune grass and struck a pose.

He should know that I am going to start clicking away... and this is what I got.

Work it... Work it...

We all started laughing so hard at his "poses".

He cracks me up!!

Blessings!!

Aiden Luke

It all started early Wednesday morning. The morning after the Blizzard 2011. Nadia started contracting, of all the mornings to go into labor, Wednesday wasn't a very good one to choose. Paul and Nadia waited until her contractions were about every 5 minutes apart and then headed to the hospital. There was just one little problem. We had just had 15 inches of snow fall, the wind was blowing 3 ft drifts in the street and they didn't have a 4x4 vehicle to get out.

Thankfully God placed a plow truck at their house just as Paul backed out into the street. The plow truck driver asked if Paul needed help. Paul informed him that he was trying to get his wife to the hospital. The truck driver attached a chain to their SUV and off they went, being pulled through the snow drifts to get to a main road that hopefully had been plowed.

They made if safety to the hospital and after 5 hours of observation the doctor said that she really wasn't progressing, so they needed to go home and labor there.

Off Paul and Nadia went, traveling all the way back home (45 min on a good day). Thankfully their streets had been plowed enough for them to make it to their driveway, but Paul had to snow blow a path for Nadia to even get to their garage door.

That is where she labored, at home, having contractions every 5-8 minutes 24 hours a day for another day and a half. Friday night my parents were at their house for several hours. They felt so bad for Nadia, not being able to sleep or get comfortable. They were praying that even though she was still 19 days early, that she would come soon, because they didn't know how she would last being in so much pain.

My parents left at 8pm and by 8:30pm, the contractions were coming even harder and closer together. At 3am Nadia woke up Paul and told him she couldn't take it anymore, her contractions were every 3 min apart, it was time to head back to the hospital.

At 6:54am, Aiden Luke was born via c-section. He was 6# 15oz & 20.5 inches long. He has dark wavy hair and looks like his Daddy.

Both Mommy and Baby are doing well. I have yet to hear what Aiden's big brother thinks about his little brother. But Aunt Lynny couldn't be happier!

Blessings!!

Blizzard 2011

In our little piece of the world we had what they are calling "The Blizzard of 2011". It was a fantastic little storm. I had been just a little jealous of my East Coast family and all the fun snow storms they have been having while the biggest snow dump we had had this winter was maybe 4 inches. Which is basically a dusting of snow in my book, not even worth forecasting and talking about.

Wednesday was the day the storm was to arrive. I went to the store just to grab eggs and milk, and you should have seen the people. Droves of them grabbing all their"essentials", funny to see what people think are essentials. Anyway, there I was among all the craziness, loving it. Praying that this storm we were supposed to get would really smack us hard. I drove back home and we hunkered down waiting for the storm to hit. And we waited, and waited, and watched, but not much was happening. All the snow that they said was coming was just gently falling, but nothing major.

The wind started blowing, and it started to snow harder, but still.... nothing like I had pictured in my mind. We put the kids to bed and watched the TV, still waiting. Reporters were out all over the place reporting on this "storm". But we really didn't see anything more that was worth reporting. Both of us skeptical that we would really get the snow they said we were going to get. We went to bed and Kevin said, "it's going to have to really start snowing soon, I guess we will see what we wake up too."

2 am Jilli started to cough. Kevin woke me up and asked me to get her some medicine. As I was walking to her room I looked out a window and couldn't see down the street. I turned around and told Kevin to get out of bed and see how hard it was snowing. It made my heart happy that we would wake up to a thick blanket of white.

We we rolled out of bed in the morning we came down the stairs to a beautiful, clean, white layer of freshly fallen snow. Then it happened. Kevin spotted his beloved snowplow with the V-blade on it coming down the street at us. He was so excited he woke up Tyler and Jilli with his enthusiasm. We watched as it cut a path in the snow.

Then another one came flying down the street, this one had a huge orange blade on it. We went running outside to see it come down our street into our cul-de-sac. It was exciting. We all decided to quickly get dressed, eat breakfast and get outside to play in our winter wonderland.

Kevin spent the next 4 hours clearing out 5 driveways and our sidewalks. The snowblower broke down at least twice that I saw, but he didn't give up. He even helped our new neighbors from Kenya clear their driveway. They told him they had never seen so much snow!

With all this snow Kevin was able to get the sled-run up and going. I have lots of pictures to share of that. So stay tuned!

Blessings!!

Must-Do List

I will be finishing up blogging about our yearly cottage vacation. I think I only have 2 short posts to write. It's been fun looking at all the warm summery pictures as the snow has been flying outside. I remember that it was so hot at the cottage this past summer that it was hard to even sleep. We were using as many fans as we could to keep the air moving at night... such good memories.

Every year we have the unwritten "must do" list. On this list includes things like: Eating Ice cream, home made cinnamon bread for breakfast, monkey bread for breakfast, at least one fire on the beach (smores included), trip to the fun park, family picnic, the list goes on and on.

So today I will share pictures of some of our yearly must-do's.

Early morning games with Uncle Andy and the boys - this picture is rare because the Mom's usually don't do the early morning thing. Uncle Andy is up EARLY and about the time the Mom's get up, he is heading back to bed for a nap.

Family Picnic - We usually take one afternoon/evening to invite my family out to the cottage. Andy makes some killer brats and the rest of the family brings side dishes to pass and we make a fun day out of it.

Games with Nana - During our picnic one of my boys finds Nana (and usually PopPop) to play a game with them.

Self Portrait - Carey and I like to take pictures of ourselves every year. We have a lot of fun with it and this year Kevin had my camera for one of our many mini photo sessions.

So this year I decided that we needed to start taking a picture of the men together, all serious like, and this is what I got...

I am starting another new yearly picture, one of Daddy and his little girl. **sniff.sniff.**

Here is the final picture.... an honorable mention.... Kevin and his "Surprise Face" I am thinking that I need to add this to our yearly must-do's.

And on that face.... I mean note, I will be signing off.

Blessings!!

The night of the Freighter

We love freighters and as I continue to chronicle last year, I will be sharing lots of pictures of freighters. Most of which, come from our trip up-north, when we were up at the Soo Locks. But on one very hot evening in August, while eating dinner, we gazed out the cottage slider to see a freighter silently slipping by. We watched to see if it would enter the channel.

Living in Michigan, and having the great privilege of spending lots of time at the cottage on the lake and also, taking trips up-north, we have encountered many, many freighters and every time we see one, we are just as excited as if we were seeing our first. But for our cousins, who live in another state, the sight of a freighter is even more exciting. So we finished eating dinner, cleaned everything up and headed down to the pier to watch it come in.

We got there right on time. All the kids just stood there, some waved at the men, as they watched it pass by.

Tyler had the binoculars, of course the ship was really so close you didn't need them, but I think he just likes to look at the crew's nose hairs.

And since we were down by the pier, we took that opportunity to take some pictures of the kids.

Then I took some of the parental units that bring all these kids our way every year.

It was really great to see the ship come in and we did get to see it leave as well. Just one more reason this side of the pond is so great!

Blessings!!

Here You Go Kev...

I think I got reprimanded, in a round about way, last night from my hubby for not posting on this for awhile. My bad.... It has been awhile. Although I have "written" several posts in my head, I haven't had the time to type them all out. Life seems to be on fast forward right now.

So in honor of my dear and loving husband..... Enjoy!

I don't think I will ever understand the love of digging a hole in the sand and sitting in it.
The sand that finds it's way into..... YUCK!

He was in the hole so long he decided to take a nap, or something like that, not quite sure what he was doing here.
But he was sure proud of himself and all that he accomplished on this beautiful day.
And because I am his wife and I love this man with all my heart, I got down in that yucky sand and posed for a picture with him.
Blessings!!

Ramblings of my Heart

Today is one of those days. I stayed in bed longer then I should have, I taught school in my PJ's, my bed has yet to be made, there are clean dishes in the dishwasher and dirty dishes in the sink, and here I am on the computer, but I am OK with that for today.

I have been battling a sinus infection that has been wearing me out. Last night I woke up because I couldn't breath and was awake from 3am until about 7am. Like I said, it's just one of those days...

We are finally seeing some snow, which has me happy, but I need to run some errands and since my little spin on the M-6, I am kind of chicken to venture out, if the roads are bad.

Tonight starts the visitation for a close friend of the family. She passed away unexpectedly, and it has my heart feeling sad. I hurt for my friend who lost her mother way before one should lose a mother. I hurt for the Grandkids who will no longer have a grandma. I hurt for her husband who lost his wife. But so thankful that she is now dancing with Jesus...

Not looking forward to the funeral because I know that I will cry buckets of tears and with a sinus infection, that is never a pretty sight or a pleasant experience.

Thinking that the family will be overwhelmed with the outpouring of love from all the lives that this crazy, special women has touched.

Excited and sad that my friend's ordination is this Sunday and now, the day that so many have been waiting and praying for, is finally here and my friend has to bury her mother a day before she is officially a Chaplain. Again, I am sure that Sunday my eyes will be pouring out buckets of tears. My heart just aches...

Excited that our yearly trip to Great Wolf Lodge is almost here. Excited that we get to spend almost 3 days with the people we love. Praying for safe travels, good weather, and happy times. A little concerned with my son on this trip. Tyler + camera + Mommy in bathing suit = scared Momma. He is dangerous with his new camera and you never know when he is going to snap a picture of you.

Here is one he took of Jilli and I, at least I was ready for this one. There are times that I walk into his room at night, when he is supposed to be going to sleep, and as soon as I enter the room I am assaulted with bright flashing lights and giggles coming from the top bunk. My little photog *smile*

I think that wraps it up for today, just some ramblings, things that are on my heart. Have a blessed day...