New photos

Joy and Anna.

Noah at fifteen months.
I was experimenting with natural light and captured this lovely photo of Kendal with our old camera.

Thankfully, Bob bought us a new camera shortly after the old one died. We're still learning how to use it.

Below is the current "stair-step" photo. You can see how everyone is measuring up. Joy is catching up to Anna, and Kelsey passed Kendal long ago! Noah is not happy here. He doesn't want to stand in line, of course!

But, now he's happy riding in his car.
Kelsey and Anna. (it looks like I was experimenting with the "black around the edges" feature)
Joy and Noah.
more to come...

Growing gardens, growing people

I love to go outside and work in the garden. I have such a sense of accomplishment when I am finished. I am dirty, hot, and thirsty. I can look back and see all the places where my work has made an effect.

If it's quiet while I'm working, then I have many deep thoughts. Sometimes it seems as if God is teaching me by speaking to my heart. The analogies between caring for a garden and caring for my children have been so direct that they've seemed surreal. I've been wanting to write down every wise teaching from the garden. I'm committed to save these summer treasures. I'm trying to do it here. The messages seemed profound when they were spoken to me in the garden. I was inspired. Now the lessons sound (or read) simplistic, but my experiences with God were truly holy...

Young plants (young adults) need protection: When the tomatoes and squash were growing quite large, I planted a couple of seedlings among them. I knew the little plants would be broken by balls or feet if they weren't protected. I used hardware wire that I shaped into a circle around them. The sun and water could still get to them and we could still easily see each part of the plants, but they were buffered from danger. Likewise, young children need protection. But it's more than that. Even young adults need protection. They need safe places to grow and mature. Like the young squash, they are close to maturity, but so tender and susceptible to danger. Extra measures must be taken to protect them. And the timing of removing the protection is crucial, lest the plant's growth be hindered. God is the ultimate authority on proper sheltering.

Weed often (weeds are sins, ungodly passions): When the garden is first planted the dirt is clean and clear between each newly planted vegetable. It reminds me of caring for an infant. Everything is sweet. After a couple of weeks the weeds start to visibly invade the dirt. The weeds are easier to spot and remove when there are just a few of them. This is also true in our children's lives. Ungodly heart attitudes are much easier to discover and "root out" when they have just begun. That's one reason that I enjoy a baby so much. Each birth presents a fresh start and bed of opportunity-just like a new, weedless garden. A diligent "gardener" will return over and over to root out the new weeds. I try not to overreact to bad attitudes/sin/ungodliness in our children, afterall I can sport an ungodly attitude just as well. Often that reality causes me to repent, in front of them, of my own poor example and then come alongside them to discuss how we can be more like Christ. "Weeding" is much more time and energy consuming than any other part of gardening-and parenting.

Weeds left unrestrained will take over a garden. Ultimately the desired plants can barely be seen. The weeds require deep digging to be removed, often damaging the nearby vegetable roots. The vegetables will wilt and threaten to die. But water, sun and weedless soil will give them another chance. That is very much like removing the undesirable things from a young person's life. They sulk. They want us to believe that they'll die without "such and such". But, they won't. Then again, there are those deadly attachments to certain sins (weeds) that do threaten a young person if we forcefully remove them. So, we must be vigilant and never tolerate a small dose of a deadly habit or appetite.

Hope: there is always hope. Never give up-on a plant or a child. I had a plant that threatened to die after I had vigorously weeded around it. I had even severed part of it. Secondly, we had another small plant that was trampled by little feet. It was broken at the main stem. I replanted it in a safer place. Both of the above plants survived. Both had appeared dead, hopeless. When I discovered them thriving and green, I sensed that God wanted to gently discipline me for being impatient and thinking certain situations were long-term problems in our family. In fact, in a short time, both plants looked new again. I think He wants me to develop a more patient, "marathon" mentality and not always look for instant maturity or fruit.

Beautiful, fruitless plants: I built an 8 foot trellis for our cucumbers. I planted seven plants. They grew like weeds. In a couple weeks the trellis was covered with vines and blooms, like the one in the photo above. Those vines promised to produce a summer full of cucumbers. It's now August and we have picked less than a dozen cucumbers from there. However, the tomatoes, slow to bear fruit, and quite over-grown and ugly, have filled our freezer with bags of soup-starting tomatoes! We've had many meals stocked with tomatoes! The two modest bush tomatoes have provided grape tomatoes for nearly every dinner salad. That cucumber trellis looks like a monument of infertility. Similarly, we do not desire to raise beautiful fruitless children. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control." Looking "good" on the outside is good if that attractiveness can draw one person to another initially. But the Spirit of the Lord, through us, ministers to the sick, gives to the poor, cares for widows and orphans, and brings men to repentance. This is a fruitful life!

"Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them."Eph. 5:11

"Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." Matt. 7:19-21

"...I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last." John 15:16

Four dollars and one hour alone

Many years ago, a very good friend of mine said that she and her husband have weekly dates and she recommended that all married couples do the same. I scoffed at the idea, at at the time, since all of our children were very young and I didn't like to ask for sitters. Now that we have enjoyed nearly two years of dating on a regular basis, I have to agree that it is the lifeblood of our friendship.

Dating means leaving the house and going somewhere else. It's funny how we can forget how to do such a basic thing. It amazes me how much younger we both act and feel when we are in our vehicle alone!!! At that point it doesn't matter where we go as long as we can both focus on being together.

Tonight we enjoyed a Thin Mint Blizzard at Dairy Queen. We ate it in the van. Two spoons. One cup. We watched the teens come in and out and talked about them. We listened to pop music from the 60's, 70's and 80's and remembered our own highschool days. If only we'd known back then how it would all turn out...God is so good!

Dating helps us to remember a time when we could think of nothing but one another. It's like looking at a wedding album. It conjurs up loving memories. Those memories seem like strangers during the difficult days of marriage. It's so good to go back.

We are the same two people who thought they were in love 22 years ago. It helps us to remind ourselves of how things were back then. We spend alot of time and energy on the serious parts of maintaining our marriage and family life. Now it makes sense to me that we also should balance those efforts with nostalgia, reminiscing and fun! And we can do it with only four dollars and one hour away from home!

Busch Gardens with friends

We've taken full advantage of our Fun Passes at Busch Gardens this summer! Bob and I have gone alone for date nights, double date night, "older girls with Mom and Dad" night, and many family evenings with only our family, or with our friends. As of tomorrow we have one month left...

Last week when we joined two other families at the park there were twenty-two children between the six of us adults!!! It was fun and challenging to keep everyone entertained and safe!
We all ate dinner together and coordinated many roller coaster rides, kiddie rides, and time in the Land of the Dragons. It was great fun being with such gracious folks. We enjoyed the challenges as much as the thrills on the rides! It often attracts the attention of the workers at the park to see so many children together. Thursday was no exception. A lady who sold drinks to us in New France had many questions and sweet comments for me and the other two moms. We always pray that our words and actions will bless other people, but most often we leave encouraged!

We've included photos of our friends, but since our blog is now open to all readers, I won't identify each of them since I don't have their permission to do so. That said, these are some of our dearest friends and we adore their families and often treat their children like our own. It's such a blessing to be in community with other believers.

The log flume was one ride that most everybody could ride. So the moms waited with the babies/littlest ones on a bridge that the flume went under. It was fun trying to capture their pictures as they floated under us.


These four boys were thrilled to ride together. One of them had never been on any rides before. It didn't slow him down!

Moms and dads were glad to cool off in the water where the little ones were allowed to play!

The smokehouse/barbeque place has become our favorite dinner spot. The portions are generous and yummy. It's also right near the Griffon, one of our favorite roller coasters!

This is our family below, but Kendal is taking the picture, and Noah is in the stroller by the table.
Our digital camera died shortly after this trip. So unless our backup camera takes some decent shots, our blogging with pictures could be limited! We were given tickets to a local baseball game on Monday and took another family along. A neighbor came to our door asking how many tickets we could use. God pours His blessings upon us everyday!!! We invited our friends, who live nearby. There were nineteen of us! We took alot of pictures and had a good time, but the photos are ruined...