Sasquatch Sighting On Our Road

With everything shut down, folks on our road became creative to add some smiles in the neighborhood.  Welcome Big Foot!

The story goes that one of the kids down the road from us is a big Big Foot fan.  One night, he heard a noise in the woods by his house and his folks told him it was his beloved Big Foot.  They thought they would take it a bit further and order a cut out pattern of the creature and place him around the trees...the neighbor across the street beat him to it and cut out several. 

A few weeks later, Darrell's sister, Suzy, was visiting and took the kids down to have their photos taken with their Big Foot.  The spoke to the owners, got the back story and one of the kids made an off hand comment to say they would love one too.

When we arrived home the following afternoon, we found one in our front yard with a note on it!

We did our big kickoff with a celebration for our 2 graduates!  We've had lots of honking horns from this!

And now the kickoff for summer!

We look forward to our new friend some fun!

Forced Down Time

These past few months have rambled by....first there was fear, then a settling in to a new routine and figuring out a new normal.  Finding time to even come here and write some thoughts out....

God has used this as a time to unplug from our normal and while there are people and activities that we miss terribly, it has been a time of connection, reexamining and blessings in our family.  We have 3 boys working in grocery stores and 1 daughter in a hospital.  We had finished a huge bulk of our school work in preparation for the many activitiess we had schedueled....meaning we had some extra time to focus on things we don't normally attend too.  In the midst of things, we also have kept our Neurological Reorganization Program going!  We had another kiddo graduate from that program and are working diligently with the 2 remaining...we look forward to celebrating their completion!

Here Joe is finding out he is graduating from our program with Sarge at Active Healing!

Art projects....painting, origami, perler beading, quilting  and some of the kids stained glass projects.

Gardening and yard work....we reconfigured our barn area and added another stone wall which has been planted!  We have some new chicks in the barn. We've chopped wood and almost have our wood shed filled for next year!

House projects, spring cleaning have been getting accomplished.

Family walks, hikes and bike riding...sweet time together!

And we welcomed a new sweet treasure to our family....Alexis Anne...isn't she just beautiful?

We have 2 graduates this year too and they are missing some special activities but have taken everything in stride.  Our church celebrated them this past Friday with a drive by and the youth pastor rode in on his cycle and prayed with each of them for their future.  This mama had tears in her eyes for the gratitude of the jesture and her sweet boys.

Over the past 2 years, we have worked on the book the Circle Maker as a family.  We have pulled so man gems from this book, made prayer lists and goals and have watched the Lord answer those prayers, dreams and look forward to those goals being met as we focus on serving, family and our faith!

Learning to look for the blessings among the sacrifices and hardships is what makes us thank the Lord every day for his amazing blessings!