All Grown Up

Wednesday marked the completion of Josiah Thomas Sauve's 18th year.

Josiah, the youngest and only boy left at home, is a huge part of our family.  He loves God's great outdoors, and is working towards his goal of becoming a farmer.  He is an avid reader and really self-taught, and he absolutely stuns us with his knowledge of scientific and historical facts.  At 6 ft. 7 in. Josiah towers above us all and is always ready to help us with fetching the high stuff.  

As mentioned Josiah's favorite place to be is outside, and so this year, despite the cold, we continued our tradition of going for a hike at Beaver lake trails.  Because of the recent frigid weather, Josiah was thrilled to be able to do a lot of our walking off trail.... on water!

Beaver Lake was completely and solidly frozen, holding the 6 intrepid adventures and their canine companion with ease. (Mr. Reiche and Josh joined Dad, Faith, Josiah and I on our adventure)

Sadie Rose was beyond thrilled and probably traveled 3 times the distance we did because she was constantly racing back and forth.

Upon reaching the middle of the frozen body of water Josiah and Josh decided to see just how deep the lake we were strolling across was.  So taking Josiah's hand hatchet they chopped away, and by the time they finally reached water, they had gone through almost 7 inches of ice!!

{watching the ice choppers}

After we had measured the ice we had a quick snack of homemade peppermint patties (uhuh!  delicious!!) before continuing across the lake.

{Josh's signature.}

There were many beautiful winter wonders all around us, including many marks from the resident Beavers.

{I was there}

The boys had way too much fun at the island with dead trees, using them as jousting poles or..

.. or... Ummm, I'm not sure, why don't you give a caption for this photo? :)

Two masked persons, a dog, and The Birthday Boy!

{Sadie checking out the Beaver dam}

Despite the cold weather we did see some Skunk Cabbage.  Spring is on it's way!!!!!!

The sun came out a little here and there, and the four of us "young ones" took a slightly hazardous route through the marsh and back across the lake to meet Dad and Mr. Reiche (who had taken the more sensible path) at the beginning point of our journey.

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We made our way home where a party awaited us.  We were very happy that Grace and Tim were able to join us as well as Theresa; if John and Mandi had only been able to join us it would have been a family reunion!

Josiah was thrilled to receive his own top notch air rifle, among his gifts, 

and other useful tools,

As well as his own leather bound copy of Spurgeon's Morning and Evening devotional.

 A delicious carob cake and homemade Ice Cream was served after dinner.

And was enjoyed by all! :)

We are so grateful for our brown-eyed "boy" and his many talents given him by his Creator.  It has been such a blessing to see him grow in the handsome tall man that he is now.

~Chs