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Family considers moving |
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Yes we are in the process of looking for a new house. We love our incredible and charming Victorian house that was built in 1902. However, people in 1902 did not have all the stuff we have, nor did they seem to want the center of family life to be all-together in one room (at least not the builders of our house). We have said over and over again that we could live in this house forever, if it wasn’t for our desire to have friends over and have constant activity in our house. We have done very well making our lives fit into our current space, but we are quickly realizing that our kids are getting bigger and bigger and bigger, their friends are getting bigger and bigger, and our space seems to be getting smaller and smaller. The result is that we have been praying and looking for a new house. We are in a great situation because we are not desperate. We can afford to keep looking for the house that will meet our needs and continue to live in a house that we love. In our opinion if we end up looking for a new house for the next 5 years, it will be fine.
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Yellow does not Equal MAIZE |
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As we evaluated what the next house project, we determined that as people came into our house there was a strong chance that at some point someone might fall through our aging front porch. Therefore, Terry and his dad brought out the sledgehammer and tore off the front porch leaving Jennifer very nervous that from now on visitors would need to enter the house from the back yard! Fortunately the Makita and hammer came out and a new porch slowly emerged. With a fancy new porch, the need for a paint job on the entire house now was required. Evaluating our need to paint and the height of our house, hiring a painter seemed logical. Therefore with birthday help from Jennifer’s folks we hired a young friend (former church youth group kid who has just started his own painting business) to paint our house. We don’t know if all painters are this way or if it is just the young painter we chose, but completion (Working) is not their forte! He started out strong — working 3 hours then going on a looooong (3 hours) lunch and returning for an hour to clean up. Then he crashed on his bike and this meant he couldn’t work as much. Long story short, we still have some windows covered with paper, the garage is half done, we can still see blue on our back porch and the trim work might never be finished. The spilled paint on our roof is promised to come off after our infamous painter finishes painting. We are only complaining a little about the lack of completion by our painter because we know we can keep bugging him forever to finish and he probably will; whereas, if we had done it, we could bug ourselves and we wouldn’t have even started! As for the color choice — when we started this venture, we said we wanted any color but YELLOW. Therefore our house is a lovely MAIZE (the color of corn)! The white trim really brings out the small accents of blue. We love the look and we invite you all to come see our new yellow — I mean Maize — house! |
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(The elf is this year's Simpich addition - His name is Kernel and we thought he represented
and reminded us of our color choice for our house!)
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Driving trip to the Dakatas spotted with fun. |
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This summer our family trip was a driving trip to North Dakota for Mikaela’s Godparents’ wedding. Everyone we know recommended that we get a little TV so kids could watch movies as we traveled those many miles. We decided that we would enjoy the kids more if we had activities and projects they could do all the way as we traveled north. This seemed like a great idea until Mikaela started getting little spots all over her. Yes, she had Chicken Pox. We all thanked God that her stint with this itchy annoyance was just about complete by the time we were to leave on this driving trek. As many of you know or have personally experienced, when you have more than one child it takes 10-14 days until other exposed children in the same household break out. We also learned that subsequent children in the household tend to get more severe cases. You guessed it… A few days before leaving on this vacation which was to be spent primarily driving in a hot car for many miles, Kaitlyn and Courtney both broke out with so many dots all over their bodies they looked like a mosquito colony had slept in their beds! The trip must go on, so off we went. The great thing about our kids is that they LOVED the trip. They loved all the car activities and they enjoyed the many miles of flat land scenery that they had never seen before. Amazing!! The adults in the group complained more than the compliant and truly joyful kids. We also were able to pretty much expose all of South and North Dakota’s McDonald Play Areas and Public Parks to Chicken Pox. All those effected we’re sure are truly grateful. Even with chicken pox we highly recommend going to see Mount Rushmore and surrounding areas if you find yourself going that way!
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Church -- What does God want?? |
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This has been a growth year for us, not only for the church itself, but also ourselves. Terry is Sr. Warden and we continue to work with Christian Education. Well over this past year, the church has been on a numerical growth, which means change. What we do when we face change is PRAY. Well we have prayed and prayed and this past year has stretched us a ton! The great thing is that God has taught us tremendous lessons. 1st and foremost we know that we can lean on God for His understanding, timing and healing touch. Our standard line, is God what do you want? And God’s answer is typically, "take one step at a time and keep on listening."
One thing that we are doing that is new at church is Children’s Chapel. This was supposed to be just a summer program, but it was enjoyed so much by the numerous children in our parish that we have continued it. The format brings all kids (baby – high-school) down for their own teaching about the Scripture for that day. Then they do an art project that applies to the lesson. As the kids do the art project, small group leaders or "mentors" talk to the kids about what the lesson for the day means to them. This has allowed many adults to work with the kids without long term commitments and at the same time, make our long church service more applicable to the kids so that they’re relationship with God can deepen. Jennifer has worked with a very talented friend at church who can easily make sense of the Scriptures and the two of them have created the curriculum.
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Here is Courtney starring as a Sheep in the Church Christmas Pagent
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