friends

I think of all the places that I have lived and the people that I have met. My life is richer because of the friends God has brought into my life. This past weekend we went to the Jersey shore with our good friends, Joanne and Jess Foggy and Emily Voshell. Jess and Emily are in Kate's class at school. We all had such a good time. It was a girls day at the beach! I am so appreciative Joanne's friendship. I love the conversations we have, the love for Christ that we share, and the fun times. God has blessed me with wonderful friends. Joanne and her family have taken us in when we were "homeless" and shared their "basement apartment" with us many times. We look forward to making more memories with these treasured friends.

this and that

This picture was taken after a wedding reception we went to a little over a week ago.
I was going to sit down and blog...finally, but a little boy needs his mom to snuggle with him. I know the time will come when he won't want to do that anymore so I better go make the most of it! :)

summer fun

Here are my kids having fun with the neighbors. It was dusk and so the picture turned out too dark. We have fun neighbor kids who feel very at home at our house. One day David came downstairs and found one of them making himself some lunch! :) We like it that they feel that way. Sometimes we wish they would knock before they came in the house. We have great neighbors and are starting to really enjoy each other this summer.

Here is Jacob, "The Inventor"
Here is "The Engineer"

This is what the boys did this morning. We have a policy for the during the summer that no one can look at any kind of screen thing (TV, movie, computer, games, etc. ) before noon and you have to spend as much time reading as you do in front of the screen. So if you watch a two hour movie at night, you have to have read two hours or read for two hours the next day.
Well this allows for all kinds of creativity, since they can't just sit and stare at a screen. This morning the boys were being "inventors and engineers". Jonathan said that Jacob was the inventor and he was the engineer. Here are some pictures of what they created....boy fun!!!

savoring

Kate sitting on her "throne" at her b-day party!

Jacob on the slip and slide in our back yard.

Here are some pictures....the one above is Kate's friend's singing "Happy Birthday" to her in the street in front of her teacher's house where we had her party.
Summers always go by so fast. I just want to sit and savor every last moment before the busyness of school comes back. Tonight David and I sat on our front porch and enjoyed watching the kids play. They were playing NASCAR but with bikes. They had their pits marked in the street with chalk, each with their own name. It was pretty funny. Jonathan was the pit crew for all of them, "changing tires, cleaning the bugs, sweeping up the pit after the stop".
We had a great weekend. A young couple (Megan Cathey and Behn Trader) from our church got married down in southern MD. So we got to go somewhere we had never been. We cross the Chesapeake Bay at Annapolis and then go straight south to the bottom....beautiful country. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful wedding...one of the best ones. Our pastor did the ceremony and the bride's dad said a prayer for the couple at the end which was very moving. I don't know very many dad's who could do that without getting emotional. You know me, I was my typical emotional self after listening to him pray for his daughter and her husband. David actually got a copy of the prayer.
Yesterday, we heard a great sermon on contentment. "You can be content in your circumstances without being content with your circumstances." He gave several examples... Joseph who was content with where God had Him but still wanted to be free, asking the butler to remember him when he went before the Pharoah.
Today is my mother and father-in law's 47th wedding anniversary. Happy anniversary to one of my favorite couples!! I am so thankful for you!

Birthdays and Anniversary

My computer was doing weird things the past few days. I feel out of touch with the world when I can't get on the computer.
We celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary on Monday. My sister and I share the same anniversary and we both married Davids. I was six years after her. I had lost my engagement ring earlier this year. In the winter, it would get so loose on my finger but during summer it was okay. I was running with the high school kids one cold day after school and I think that it is one I lost it. That was the last place I remembered having it on my finger. I didn't realize it was gone until 10 that night. I was sitting on Mary Ellen's bed helping her with something and saw that it was gone. I was so sad. We looked everywhere...even had the kids at school helping me look.
On Monday David proposed to me all over again and gave me a new engagement ring. It was so sweet and I was feeling like I had just got engaged all over again! I was giddy, excited, and couldn't stop staring at it...just like when you first get engaged! He's a keeper.
Yesterday was Kate's 16th birthday. We had a surprise party for her with her friends from school. As we were getting in the car, she trips off the porch, sprains her ankle, scrapes her knee and is in pain! I was thinking "Oh no, now she won't want to go out to dinner!" She thought that we were going out to dinner and I had to drop something off at one of her teacher's house on the way. The party was at her teacher's house. All the kids had hid at the end of her street and as we got out of the car, they came running down the street singing Happy Birthday. It was so fun! She hobbled into the back yard and we had a wonderful evening....didn't get home until 1 AM. So today we are doing nothing, eating leftovers, trying to keep all the kids outside because it is a beautiful day!

Blog happy

Yeah! I figured out how to put pictures on my blog! I am so excited about my blog...I just love doing this. I have to put in a plug for my friend's new blog. She is a great friend of mine. I met her 8 years ago when we first moved up here and we got to be good friends in the past few years. We used to go to church together, in Bible study together, our kids go to the same school. We have lived life together and she is a dear sister. Her blog is Life with 4 kids. You will love it. She is a great writer and tells great stories. There is never a dull moment at her house! God provides her with lots of material to write about....life has it's moments and her life is full of them!

sweet time in VA

Our dear friends, Herb and Susan Brown with us at Mary Ellen's birthday dinner.
Jacob really thinks he is cool. :)

Birthday dinner for Mary Ellen at the club house at Fawn Lake (Spotsylvania, VA).