The date was April 22nd, the location Fort Leonard Wood Missouri, the occasion... Joshua's Graduation from training for the national guard. Therefore the morning of Tuesday April 20th found all of us (Grandpa included) piled in our dear van Ginger and heading down the freeway in the direction of Missouri. I will stop here and inform you that this post will be over flowing with pictures and for the most part wordless. Enjoy!
Counting trucks, a mind numbing activity to help wile away the hours (Faith got to 1,000 and quit, before we had left Michigan;)
We passed many interesting and beautiful sights along the way.
Including the St. Louis sky line.
Coming to the Mississippi river bridge.
After arriving at our motel Tuesday evening, and having a semi-restful night, we headed out to Fort Leonard Wood, Wednesday morning , for Family day with Josh.
It was hard to find Josh among all the shaved heads:).
We went to a park for lunch and Josh entertained us with all his stories.
Then off to the Military Police Museum.
Fort Leonard Wood covers 71,000 acres of land, some of which is beautiful wild land.
That evening we met John who had driven up from Texas, and had a nice dinner, before taking Josh back to the Barracks for the night.
Thursday we headed out bright and early for the Fort, but still found the Abrams theater packed when we arrived for the graduation. After speeches by their Captain and others, each platoon marched onto stage in time to a cadence sung out by their drill sergeant.
Then each private stepped forward shouted out his name and place where he came from before marching off stage.
We are very grateful to God for keeping our soldier safe during his training, and are so thankful and joyful that we have him home once more.
Well, we have a new addition to our ever growing farm. 101 new additions to be exact;). About 2 weeks ago we received a boxful of peeping fluff balls. These fluff balls make up Josiah's new business. Meat Chicken farming. Right now the chicken nuggets are residing in the garage but soon will be banished to the outback.
At first they were adorable and darling.
Everyone wanted to come see them and hold them, and the little nuggets were quite obliging.
How things do change! We just returned from a 3 day trip (that story is in the works) and were quite surprised at how much they had grown.
They are actually getting ugly. Which is really a relief, I could never kill or eat a cute chicken;). I promise to keep you updated on our first attempt at raising our own meat. Oh.. and if anyone wants to come over 6-8 weeks from now, we would be more than happy to include you in our butchering process!!!!
I do apologize profusely for the lack of posts on this site. I have a innumerable amount of excuses that I could incite at this time, but since Dad's message this morning dealt with the foolishness of excuses, I think I will refrain and instead try to bring you up to date with the proverbial happenings of the Sauvé family. In accordance to Vicki's kind comment on the post about the passing of my Grandmother, I am working on a write up about her with lots of pictures of her life. This needless to say this has not been completed.
I will warn you now that this post will be of great extent with countless pictures. The subject: After Grandma's passing we were planning on moving Grandpa up here to live with us. In order for this to happen however, quite a bit of maneuvering and changes needed to take place.
First our beautiful wisteria purple sewing room had to be emptied out so it might become the boys room. The objective of it becoming the boys room, was so Mom and Dad could move into the boys old room down stairs, so Grandpa could occupy Mom and Dads room. Complicated I know.;) Now, Mom, Dad and Grace went down to Florida for the funeral in Sebring and to drive Grandpa's car up here. So, those of us remaining, Faith, Josiah and Yours truly, decided with Charity's hesitant approval;) to give the travelers a surprise upon there arrival home by rearranging everything during their absence. The catch to this desire is that we had only 4 days to complete our endeavor. So we began, in high speed.
After cleaning out the sewing room and clearing all the piles of multifarious fabrics off the shelves we began to remove the shelves from the room.
Mom and Dads room began to take on this appearance, as the sewing room became cleaner. The first day came to a close.
The next morning found us mixing paints as Josiah absolutely refused to reside for any length of time in a purple room! So we lugged all our miscellaneous paints from the basement and began trying different combination.
Well...... Hmmm......
Thinking... thinking.
Finally the decision is made and the painting begins.
We completed the main walls and began to put little meticulous finishing touches on. Then came more "mind wrenching" decisions. What color to make the chair rail. To leave it stark white or color it a boyish blue.
Decision made, we all set to work. Yes I was painting also but I am not talented enough to multi task and take pictures of myself while diligently laboring;)
Faith serenaded us with the most interesting music to help us paint faster I guess. We did finish painting that night and the second day came to a close.
The next day we finished cleaning the room in preparation of the transferring of the boys furniture to the newly painted room. Doesn't it look perfectly lovely!?
Alright, I am not going to give you all the minute and gritty details of moving the boys beds from down stairs and fitting them into their new room. Briefly, it took disassembling, sawing, and stapling to fit this bed into its little nook. Seriously.
This bed frustrated us for a whole hour trying to get it out of Josiah's old room before we decided to take it apart move it upstairs and putting it back together. Brilliancy!
Saturday was our deadline day, and the exodus began from Mom and Dad's room to the new sewing room down stairs, which is at the back of Mom and Dad's new bedroom.
Such a nice little cozy sewing corner we created. We did get it all finished before the travelers arrived home, and with a little pushing and shoving everything found a place and fit just so. We are so happy that Grandpa is now able to be living with us and our rearranging has worked out fine. Many more things have been happening around here but you will have to wait, because like I told you I am quite busy. ~Chs
The LORD is our caretaker, our protector, leader and provider.
We shall never be in want or in dire straits without His knowledge and His Paternal love and sympathy. I shall never want for wisdom for He is all knowing and will give me knowledge if I but ask. I shall never want love, for He is the absolute epitome of love and all true love is stored in Him and He freely bestows it on all His children.
When it is for my benefit, He will make me rest in prosperity and peace, and will lead me to calm and sweet relationships and gentle days.
But the greater promise, Oh the marvelous gift, is that even when He sees fit to make our resting place rocky, even when the food on the table is meager, even when He leads us through troubled and tumultuous relationships, still He restores our souls. He fills us when the world leaves us empty and desolate, and He will give me the grace and strength to walk the righteous path and be like Christ, despite the evil around me, all for His names sake.
Yes even though I go through deep bottomless sorrow. Yes even though I seem to be forsaken by all my friends and must walk through dark valleys and fearsome danger seemingly alone, I know that You, Oh LORD, are with me, every step of the treacherous way. You guide my steps from the edge of the cliff, and You know the reason for every obstacle, for every stumble, and You see the light at the end of the tunnel, where You will bless me in the midst of all my difficulties. In the midst of all the men who question my motives and my heart, You give me joy.
I am overwhelmed with blessing. My heart will overflow with gratefulness for Your peace and mercy shall be with me to my last gasping breath, and I know that I will reside with You in your glorious house for eternity.
"Surely if the LORD is for us who can be against us?" ~Selah
On Saturday, March 27th, Millie Learned our dear Mother/Grandma went home to be with the LORD forever. Grace was down with our Grandparents for 3 weeks to help them get ready to move to a smaller apartment, and she was with Grandma when she passed away. Grandma would have turned 88 this year in July and she spent most of her earthly life serving her Savior. Now she is serving Him and worshiping Him perfectly for eternity.
Please pray for Grandpa who has lost his best friend and love, also pray for us as we try to arrange the funerals in Florida and up here in Michigan. Mom and Dad are flying down there this week to help arrange things and to be at the Funeral down there with the rest of Mother's siblings, and then they will be driving Grandpa's car back this weekend. So please pray for traveling safety for them.
Also we will be moving Grandpa from Florida and he will be living in our house, so please pray for us to have wisdom as we try to rearrange things and make room. Thank you in advance for all your prayers.
Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Dear friends and family!
As most of you know I left home last year on November 16th and traveled down here to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri for Basic Combat Training and Advanced Individual Training in order to join the Michigan Army National Guard.The Lord blessed me immensely throughout Basic Training and I am now officially a soldier in the United States Army.The Military Occupational Specialty I chose is that of MP – Military Police.I am currently in week 13 of training, week 4 of AIT.
Let me give you a brief synopsis of what BCT and AIT has been like for me.First off the weather has been brutal up until 2 weeks ago.We actually had to cancel a lot of training in December and January because of sub-zero temperatures.Our first week here was spent doing paperwork and getting our uniform and most of our gear issued to us at a place known as the 43rd.Our first day here at BCT was probably the worst day of my life.Drill Sergeants from our company, Echo Company 787 MP Battalion, were in our faces yelling and screaming like we were the worst privates ever.It was designed to be, and was, extremely frightening and demoralizing, also the push-ups and flutter kicks that we did for almost an hour in the rubber chip pit were extremely tiring.
The first 3 weeks of BCT are called Red Phase and are designed to break you mentally.The Drill Sergeants are in your face constantly, and the slightest mistake, or perceived mistake, will get you “smoked” i.e. push-ups, flutter kicks and other extremely tiring and painful exercises.Red Phase consisted mainly of getting used to the BCT schedule, such as waking up at 4:30 every morning, trying to eat our meals in less than 5 minutes, showering in less than 2 minutes, and lots and lots of PT.
As some of you already know, on December 18th I came home for a 2 week “Holiday Block Leave” and had just enough time to get used to civilian life again before coming back to FLW on January 2nd. When we got back, we started the second 3 week phase of BCT, White Phase. White Phase consisted almost entirely of weapons training.We learned to shoot and qualified with the M4 rifle, which is the U.S. Armed Forces’ primary weapon, and we also got to fire the M240 B machine gun, the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (light machine gun), the M203 grenade launcher, the M2 .50 caliber heavy machine gun, and the AT4 anti-tank missile launcher.We finished White Phase and began Blue Phase, the last phase of BCT on January 25.Blue Phase was focused mainly on FTX 3 which stands for Field Training Exercise.What FTX normally consists of is setting up a base camp, running missions in the woods, sleeping in little pup tents, etc.At the end we are supposed to crawl through a course that has barbed wire, broken vehicles with flames and mock explosions while real live rounds are being fired over our heads.Unfortunately the weather was so icy and cold that we had to do almost everything here at the barracks.We weren’t able to do the obstacle course at the end of FTX either because the snow had started to melt and we literally could have drowned trying to back-crawl underneath barbed wire through 2-3 foot deep trenches and dips in the ground.The last night of FTX we received our 7 army values tags, (Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, Personal Courage) and were officially made Soldiers in the United States Army.For me this is a secondary allegiance.I am a soldier of Jesus Christ first and foremost, the United States government second.
That pretty much concluded BCT and the next week after FTX, February 12th we started Black Phase, the first 5 week phase of AIT.AIT is where we will learn everything we need to know about being MPs so the first 2 weeks focused almost exclusively on learning how to properly shoot the M9 9mm pistol, our primary weapon when on duty as Military Police.The Lord really blessed me with skill with the M9, and I shot 2nd best in the company, hitting 29 out of 50 shots.Since we finished with the M9, training has consisted almost entirely of classroom work, learning about Military Law and how to deal with certain situations like conducting traffic stops, responding to domestic disturbances, how to properly direct traffic at a 4 way intersection, etc.We also have had some hands-on classes on handcuffing, how to properly apprehend (the army doesn’t call it “arresting”) a suspect/criminal, and personal defense tactics.We have already had 2 Law and Order tests which I passed easily (thank the Lord!) and now we are learning how to conduct patrols this week.
Now with only 4 weeks left to go, my daily prayer is that the Lord would keep me strong and pure in body, mind, and spirit, to complete the training that’s required of me, and stay pleasing in His sight.Thank you all so much for your continued thoughts and prayers.I Corinthians 16:23-24 – “May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.” ~Josh
For the past week the Hayse and us have been holding our collective breaths in anticipation of the birth of Dixie's calf. (Remember, Dixie was the cow we had to raise up by her hip bones for a week before she got up on her own.) Many times there were false alarms and rising hopes, as Dixie gave signs which we thought meant she should give birth any moment. Yesterday most of our family and some of the Brysons, sped over in the early morning, in answer to the news that Dixie seemed to be in labor. She was, but unbeknown to us, this stage could last 24 hours at the longest. So the morning was spent in unfruitful watching. Last night also there was nothing even though the Hayse girls checked many times. Then this morning at 7:00 we got the joyful call informing us that she had her calf, and not only that, it was a HEIFER!
So this afternoon we went to see this little miracle.
She is adorable, soft, fuzzy, darling, charming, with captivating ways.
Her name is Daisy, and after entertaining us by wobbling around nursing and nosing about she followed her mothers example and flopped down for a nap. We are very thankful to God for the gift of life, and allowing Dixie to have a beautiful healthy calf.
Our beautiful, amazing Grace turned 24 last Monday. We thank God for this multi-talented member of our family and wish her many happy, God directed, Spirit inspired years to come!
We all enjoyed her delicious chocolate pudding, peanut butter moose, cookie crumb birthday desert.
She received many special gifts including a card and lovely necklace from her brother Joshua who is away in Missouri for his National Guard training.
