Nan took the girls out for a treat while youth group met here.
They look quite pleased.
Johanna
Throwing stones.
Specs and sharks
One of the casualties of our road trip vacation was losing Johanna’s glasses at Mother’s Beach. I honestly believe it was my fault. She has no history whatsoever of misplacing her glasses. Photos prove she had them on at the Aquarium, and I helped her and Katriel change into their swim suits at the beach. She most likely handed them to me and I put them ??????
As soon as we got home I took her to the ophthalmologist’s office and we ordered new glasses. She was overjoyed to find that they had the exact same ones still available by order.
They took over a week to come in, but we hurried over this morning to pick them up.
This called for a stop at Dunkin Donuts. And she picked a donut covered in
sharks?
It was gloriously hot out… but too hot for Hanny, so we scooted back inside to finish the treat.
Johanna’s 8th birthday party
Johanna loves people through and through. She has been blessed with so many lovely friends and many of them joined us for her 8th birthday party.
Daddy and the boys were camping, so Marie and Tab helped me pull it off.
Mother Daughter Retreat
In January, a friend from church shared information about the May Mother Daughter Retreat at Camp Hickory Hill in Varysburg, NY. We’d never gone on any such event, and it did not have a limit of one child per mom, so I decided I’d embrace my newly acquired camping gene and sign us up. I also told my friend Lindsay about the weekend and she signed up to join us.
It was pretty cold and rainy as we drove down, but we met our friends at Mark’s for dinner and continued on to our destination.
I didn’t take photos of our lodging, but our church had a large enough group that we were placed in a lovely building right next to the bathrooms! SCORE!
We headed to the game room for a while
As we were playing games, my girls rushed to the windows. They saw princesses walking by. It wasn’t long before we headed up to the fellowship hall to see what was going on.
The theme for the weekend was Princesses…. since we ARE daughters of the KING of KINGS.
We played a “who am I?” game where we had to ask questions to see if we could guess who we were tagged as.
We had singing, and some games, and ice cream!
It was maybe the worst night’s sleep ever…
Having JUST gotten over the bad back I had endured for about a week, the rock-hard bunk I slept in was enough to cause me to have spasms hour after hour through the night.
My little girls and I were awake bright and early, so I took them out and around to keep the cabin quiet.
We headed back as others were rising, and then we all enjoyed breakfast at the hall.
I realized why my purse was so heavy! Thank you, Stewart, for getting me the flashlight, etc., I may have needed.
Tab and Janessa are special buddies.
Our first assigned activity was archery. This was a lot of fun.
We then did kayaking and canoeing. And then Katriel met this “friend.” (She often embraces the scary to get ahead of it. Not a bad tactic, if it works.)
We had fun doing Nerf wars.
Katriel stayed on top of the ammo.
Lunch was excellent!
Finally it was time to zip line. This was TOO MUCH FUN!!
Why yes. Even my five year old tried it!
We did a few other things, including a few minutes of dress-up with friends.
I love this picture! The Butler and Nickels ladies.
Twins day
An early morning email.
Some rapid fire texting.
And these two jewels got to be “twins” for “Twins Day” at CBS.
Phew…
Best playdate ever.
Some special people are moving to Florida. Though we didn’t hang out that often, it was always a given that this family would be doing the same fun things we were doing in both our homeschool community and their church community. Our kids have done VBS’s together since 2005. Their sons have been in a few of my boys’ short films. The DAD has even been in one. Two of their sons and my boys have done Cub scouts, a boy’s club, homeschool co-op, CBS, and seasons of youth group together. It has always just been the given that we would do things with them.
And now – a new chapter in their lives has them moving south.
So, when the packers came to their house today, I picked up these lovely ladies and we had what more than one of these girls has deemed “the best playdate ever.”
They played outside, and had a tea party, and played with princesses, and went to Bounce it Out, and came home for popsicles, and watched Mary Poppins. And every last iota of the day was fun. Said the girls.
Easter Egg Art
The fact that we skillfully decorated 24 eggs is marred only slightly by the fact that they somehow all ended up pretty close to soft-boiled. Ugh.
But we still had a blast. ♥
A mountain top weekend.
Some seasons, we find ourselves in the valleys of life; we walk through hard places and experience painful refining.
Other times we are wholly on top of the mountain, just basking in all that is good and joy-filled and life-giving.
On Friday afternoon, it suddenly dawned on me as I dropped off my boys at the Charles Finney School that I was having a mountain-top weekend.
For starters, Marie, Tabitha and Johanna were performing in the church’s production, “Who Can He Be?” This is the same production our church did in 2012 and 2013. I was able to participate in 2012, and John participated in 2013. Marie and Tabitha were also in both of those shows, albeit as markedly younger performers. This time around, both are part of the adult ensemble and had much larger roles.
The boys and I were able to go to the dress rehearsal on Wednesday, March 21st, and I was able to watch a second time on Thursday, March 22nd.
I was blown away by the musical. Though I had been in it in 2012, I had never watched the entire production from start to finish. My sister, Kelly, also played the woman at the well.
My joy would have been complete if that was where it ended.
Oh boy – that’s only half the story.
Since December, Stewart and Nigel have been practicing at the Charles Finney School to be part of their production, “Acts – A City Rising,” a modern retelling of the book of Acts.
Stewart was cast as Saul of Tarsus/Paul, and Nigel was cast as Isaac, a zealous defender of God and persecutor of Christians.
As I dropped them off for their cast call on Friday and hurried home to get the girls ready for their performance and over to the church it dawned on me how this is the kind of joy-filled weekend I had to hang on to. Remembering just how abundantly we were blessed for this weekend should constantly remind me of how God loves us. My kids – my HOMESCHOOLED kids – get to be part of fabulous, Godly stage productions. How cool is that?
I could blow up the internet with images of the boys’ production. They put in almost 100 hours of rehearsal. Stewart met with Mr. Carl Wager many, many times as Mr. Wager helped him advance his singing abilities. I had no idea the treat I was in for as my son sang triumphantly as he conveyed Saul/Paul’s life.
As the boys and I left the production Friday evening, they asked if I had cried at the end. I confessed I had not and they were disappointed. Truth-be-told, I think I was in shock. I believe it wasn’t until after the third production that I truly grasped the full story; until that point I think I was just absorbing, “Those are my handsome boys! There are my handsome boys!”
I feel like I know the apostles so much better after this show. And I am in awe even more of how much God loves us and how He grew the church. I can barely express how moved I was by this musical. What is more, I can barely express how generous God is.
Dayspring Disciples 