Jessy and Conner

May 28th...Jessy and Conner got married.

It was good to have our whole family together!  Here is our clan with my folks.

It was hot for those boys in long sleeves.p...in the 90's....but everyone looked great!

Jess was beautiful...here she is with her Oma Lowman.

We pray the Lord blesses them as they start their new life together.  Love you guys!

Time

Time has flown by SO fast to discover it is July and I haven't updated in what seems like forever ....

The good news is we are all doing well and we have lots of big things to share with you...

So hold onto your seat....I am hoping to do that here in the next few days!

Here we go!

And Then There Was Ben....

This guy....

Just have to say as his mom...he is pretty amazing.  He has such a big heart.  He has jumped in with both feet into this family and does his best at just about everything.

He is amazingly neat in his room despite living with a room full of happy flingers!  Wins every bed making contest we've had.  Even puts everything back where it belongs after using it...what is up with that?

Willing to try it all that we have presented him with so far.

Looks out for me and is my protector....out on hikes if he thinks I might need help...he comes racing back to hold my hand down the steep rocky hillside.

He is super excited this week is Mother's Day....

And he is our newest Alert Cadet....he has worked so hard on that!  Memorizing scripture in a language he is still learning....A-MAZ-ING!

Does it all with a smile on his face too!

Love this boy!

Father-Daughter Retreat

Darrell headed to Camp Maranatha this past weekend with our youngest girlies.

They were SO excited to share some special time with just dad.  They were even more excited to hear they were having a candle light dinner together....oh, so, excited!

Kiara dressed up for dinner in the lodge.

The dads served their daughters.

Rebecca dressed for dinner.

They had the afternoon together and went to the local fish hatchery.

Kiara with a sweet baby bunny.

They had group games, made fairy gardens and had devotions.7

The girls also played games in the game room ....Rebecca  (our girlie ) met Rebekah ....same last name spelled slightly different.  Cool, huh?

They had a sweet time with dad and came home very tired and happy!

Goals and Spring

I tried to think of something to sum up this post....

It has been quiet here on my blog as we have been about the business of spring....packing away winter and all that goes with it....

Spring activities bursting onto the scene....Ben, Eli and Devon learned to ride bikes in about 3 days after pulling them out for the season.  They have banged up elbows and knees to show it too!

Still plugging away at our school work....celebrating as we finish books for the year!

The daily business that makes up our lives and keeps us hopping each day!  We've been working hard at preparing our garden for the summer and were immensely blessed by several loads of wood chips to help our new Back to Eden Gardening.

The kids have had their first horseback riding lessons for the season....our newest ducks and chickens are getting big!

And...

Last summer as one of our summer goals we planned to hike the NH Firetower Challenge.  We didn't do any fire towers during the summer but started in the fall.  We restarted when Ben and Eli came home and are very happy to report we finally got all of our kiddos to do at least 5 towers and finished our last one this past Saturday.  Despite the notorious black fly season....

we managed to hike to the summit and then went to celebrate at Kimbell farm for ice cream and their beautiful petting zoo.  The kids loved the sand pile....what kid doesn't?

Earlier in the day we had a family dinner thanks to the gift cards we were given at Christmas....it was good to be together.  We are treasuring  these times!

It is Spring!

Spring arrived here a few weeks ago but we were given a winter gift this past weekend...

Isn't it beautiful?

It was a bit of magical fairy land right outside our door....

Hoping it was our last winter gift for the season....our flowers are poking their heads up out of our already raked beds....can't wait for their showy display!

Kintsukurio

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things, the things that are not, to nullify the things that are.  --1 Cornthians 1:27-28

We keep running across this pottery....it is surprisingly beautiful which prompted us to look further into how it is designed.  Upon our research, it gives us a new perspective on so many things in our lives and what we do as a family....

We have been challenged of late by people in our lives asking some hard questions....people who don't understand all that our family is about, offering some odd solutions to what we are walking through, saying they don't "get it"....or saying....I could or would never do what you do.

Believe me....adoption can be hard.  Kids who have come from hard places need time to heal and don't always understand what family is all about....but 

we know that HEALING can happen and that starts with HOPE because we know LOVE always HOPES!

So...getting back to the pottery....a process that comes about because of a simple broken pot.  The artist puts it back together with gold.....and the stunning part to me is that it is more beautiful than it was before.  Broken pieces being put back together....just like the broken pieces in our lives....

Doesn't the Lord ask us to come broken?  The song we use to sing in worship at our previous church....Brokeness, Brokeness is what I long for?

Brokenness.....so that the Master artist.....can knit our pieces back together....so he can makes us more beautiful than we were before.

This is such an amazing picture of the Savior's work in our lives and the lives of our children.

Real Gold....a treasure!

This visual has helped us walk through our difficult spots in the last weeks....bringing Brokeness in our lives....waiting for the Lord to make us into His Masterpiece.

The more we have studied this....it is amazing. It is not only for our children but a message for ourselves.

Are you ready for all He has for you?

Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most illogical connections.  The only way a worker can keep true to God is by being ready for the Lord's surprise visits.--Oswald Chambers