Memorial Day, a day to make new memories too!

We spent the day with four of our favorite families. It was a pool party picnic. There were 10 parents, 36 children (2 not present), and a lot of fun! And our family only had to travel one block away to the Wards' home.

Yes, all these children belong to five fathers!!! What a happy bunch! We've never had a better Memorial Day than this. God is so good to us! The Ward, Shedd, Pollard and Cadet families are blessings in our life!

If you see five 15 passenger vans in front of a home, you can guess there are quite a few children very nearby!!! We were all excited to see our vans parked together. It reminded us how far the Lord has brought us from where we all started nearly 20 years ago! A memorial of sorts. :)
It is a Grand Old Flag and these children know it! (Don't tell them about Obama and all the other current bad news for our country)

Blessed to be a Blessing

Mother's Day is always a nice, encouraging day. The sermon is consistently the good word that I need. This year our pastor reminded us that what we do each day does count for something very important, and that we are blessed with children so that we can return the blessing. He also helped us to remember that everyone is not as blessed and that many women are desperately praying for children, as Hannah was.

Flowers, cards and special meals are good too. I have a gift bag on my closet shelf full of precious cards and plastic jewelry from past years.

Bob and I are blessed to still have both of our mothers, and in good health. I think the best part for me is having our family happily together. Since all of our children are still young and living at home, holidays are so easy to plan.

This year we invited Grandma Butler over for lunch and she even attended church with us. Afterwards, our family went to Busch Gardens. I always enjoy taking a photo in our church clothes to save the memory. You can tell that it's not so important to everyone! :) But, since it's Mother's Day, Grandma Butler and I can insist!

Home Renovations Completed

This past weekend we put the final sets of new shutters on our house. This made our front yard and house refreshment project complete. (well, the front door still needs painting) The flowers are growing so nicely from all the great rain and we are really enjoying the fruit of our labor. We continue to appreciate it all each time we look out the window, go outside or drive up to the house.

Family Fun!

This year we decided to get passes for Busch Gardens. We haven't been to an amusement park since Daniel was one year old. It became so impractical with a family of four little ones. This year is very different with eight children of all ages.

Bob took half a day off of work on Friday and we went to Busch Gardens on both Friday evening and Sunday evening. It wasn't crowded, the lines were very short and the weather was fabulous!
It's so much fun to see everyone excited about the rides. Even the Mary enjoys her kiddie rides! Not everyone is tall enough for the scariest rollercoasters, nor does everyone want to ride them. We have a nice mix of ages and levels of bravery.

The Griffon is the newest, and by far, the most intimidating rollercoaster. Bob rode it on Friday night. Before the summer is over more Butlers will give in. For now, Apollo's Chariot, The Big Bad Wolf, and the Loch Ness Monster are sufficient thrills. On our next trip we'll try the Alpengeist...more hills, twists and screams!

We're going to try to get our money's worth before public schools get out for the summer and before it gets too hot. We have a few more trips planned for May. Frankie Avalon, the Oak Ridge Boys, and the Lettermen are all coming in concert there. Who knew they were still performing?

We strategically eat before and after the park. Who can afford that food? A soft pretzel is FOUR dollars!

The gardens are beautiful! There are new shows and animals, so as the novelty of the rides wears off, we'll take in a few of those too!

Even at Busch Gardens folks are counting us! Being a large family is always an adventure! We have both a front and rear guard when we walk from one ride to another. :) So much fun!

It's very difficult to get action shots, so we have just a few to share. The following are the Roman Rapids. Kelsey and Anna are in one "boat" and Bob, Kendal, Isaac, Daniel and Joy are in the other. They waited to ride this last. They were soaked and quite cold on Sunday night.
Kelsey and Anna
Mary, Anna and Joy on the children's version of Tradewinds.
Daniel and Isaac.

I just have a feeling

Communication has certainly been the largest obstacle in our marriage. Men and women just communicate differently. In fact, most people do not communicate similarly, therefore, many conflicts arise.



Neither of us have been "super spiritual" in our conversations with one another. We haven't pulled the "God card" as some call it. We didn't grow up in homes where people say things like, "the Lord told me such and such". So, we've never used spirituality to attempt to manipulate one another or win an argument. This has been interesting since we have both matured significantly in the Lord since our wedding day. We are walking more often in the Spirit and therefore at times we do sense that the Lord is leading us in one direction or another. We're making progress in communicating this to one another.



A few years ago acquaintances of ours were planning to start their own church. We had just left our church (of 12 years) and were excited to join the other couple in their efforts. Well, I was excited. My husband had some hesitation to commit. He didn't vocalize his concern in a specific way so I thought he was feeling intimidated by the thought of being part of the new church's leadership. In short, it was a mistake. The other couple had some anger issues and those issues caused some mistakes to be made during the very early days of the new church. Ultimately the church disbanded at the end of a year.