Life

First - some pics from our recent visit with family in Wausau. It was so great to have everyone together again, if only for a few days.

Mom treated us to a nice lunch out, just the girls while we were in Wausau.

Showing off Thing 3's toosh to all the aunties. He was so good, didn't
pee on me once!

Hangin out with at Mom and Dad's with the fam.


Cousins!


Uncle T. the snake catcher and entertainer of the family.

So much of life happens between posts that I wish I had the time to share with you all. One significant thing that God did I already emailed to many of you but want to put down here for my own record and for any of you who I missed telling this story to. On the morning of July 30th a friend/co-worker stopped by and my kids were outside playing. When she was about to leave I decided to walk out with her b/c I hadn't heard my kids for awhile. I walked out front first with her and didn't see them or hear them. I started to walk to the backyard and happened to glance toward her car parked in our driveway. I could just barely see Ben, my 3 1/2 year old sitting on the ground playing by himself right behind her jeep. If I hadn't seen him she would have walked around the front of her car, gotten in and ran him over for sure. This still just makes me panic even now. I'm usually pretty good about knowing where my kids are playing but we do have a lot of people come and go and they usually don't think to look behind their cars before they leave. I'm praising God for protecting Ben and am reminded to always check before I pull out or if anyone else is leaving the house. I decided to have a sign made and put it up in our driveway just as a reminder for folks to walk behind their cars before the leave. Here is the link for the website that I designed it on - it was reallly easy:
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Some other highlights have been seeing some Navigator staff friends from our region at a quick get-together in the Dells. Though not all our kids are big on water slides, we did enjoy our time splashing around. Thing 3 took the "Lazy River" to heart and fell asleep on me as we floated through as a family. Speaking of family we took a quick jaunt up to Wausau from there to have the whole family together again which is a rare occurrence at best with us living on different continents!

Hubby blessed me last weekend with my first night away from all the Things. Though I missed them all, Thing 3 especially, it was really refreshing and healing for me to attend the Beth Moore conference. I nearly grabbed the baby a few seats down from me during one session just to hold him...but I thought better of it since the mother probably would not appreciate a stranger commandeering her baby. I really enjoyed my time with 2 other staff women and a whole group of women from our church who went up to Fargo to attend. The worship was incredible and I was caught off guard by how quickly the tears for Heather and thoughts of her came while we sang. What is it about music that you can't hide your heart from? It just draws it out - both joys and sorrows. Glad it was dark in there while we sang! :) The teaching was excellent as always and if you ever get a chance to hear her - go!

We have also squeezed in a few last and really fun times together as a family at the city pool. I'm sad that it is already closed for the season. And the two older Things cashed in about $2k in "library loot" for all the reading "they" (ahem) did this summer. They went hog wild buying all sorts of junk..err...toys at the library store. Those boys will listen to books until I go hoarse if I let them! We have been doing a lot of books on tape lately to meet their need for more stories!

That is all for now...we are off and running with planning our fall semester. Our staff team (up to 9 of us now- wooohooo!) all came for a day of planning yesterday. We ended the evening with dinner and games together. I'm blessed by each and every one of them. And though my main ministry these days is managing the Things, I do enjoy and appreciate the times I am blessed to minister alongside them outside our home.

For the next 3 days our staff and 30 of our student leaders will be meeting, planning, praying and a little playing of course! Please pray for God's hand to be leading them as we prepare for the school year ahead. We are all excited for things to get into full gear again!