Friendly fellowship and games!

The evening of the 4th.

OK, so I'm running out of words, it's getting late and I really want to get this all on tonight so please forgive me as I am not going to try to eloquently replay the whole evening! Enjoy the captions at least and I hope you get the idea of what we did! It was a great evening anyways. May God be praised!!

The elder gentlemen..

...and young people enjoying our new swings!

Timothy being his usual self! =)

Lunch/Dinner under the willow tree.

We introduced the fun game of water balloon volley ball to everyone with great success!

Wheel barrel races...

David Wagner and John had great fun pushing each other!

Sack races...

...and three leg races!

As darkness fell we gathered around our new fire pit, sang happy birthday to Faith and continued to sing many more songs of glory and praise to our King! How blessed that day was, and how grateful we are to that Great Creator who has so richly blessed us with so many gifts, through friends and family and His forgiveness and grace!

This post is done, the day is past and many memories were made...Blessed be the Name of the Lord!

Thank you Lord!

Internet is back up (hopefully for sure) and I hope to get some very behind post on soon! Unfortunately time is short around here but I will try to at least get Faith's birthday post on before New Years! =)

Coming soon....

Declaring our Freedom! ( 4th of July morning at the Court house for the reading of the Declaration)

Hadley Parading (we participated in a nearby towns independence parade)

Faith's 23rd birthday celebration!

Friends over for an evening of fun and fellowship! (it turned out to be more of a field day!)

...and so much more!!!!

Musical Round-up

Last Thursday night (A week ago now) we enjoyed yet another musical concert, this time with a western theme that kept your feet tapping and smiles cracking as the Lapeer Civic Orchestra played at the Historical Court house! Though the concert seemed to end too soon, through the remainder of the evening you could almost still hear the echos of the tunes, from the Western Hoe-down, Shenandoah and the Magnificent Seven theme to Trail from the Grand Canyon Suite, Celebration Dance from Billy the Kid and ending with William Tell Overture - to just to name a few!

Our friend Tim Wagner playing the french horn...

...and his sister Lindy with her violin.

With the theme being western, a few of us went dressed for the occasion. Josiah here with both his Matthew friends. =)

Josh was very sharp looking in his outfit too!

The evening was again, most enjoyable!

A test of Patience

OK, so you have a ton of blogging to do, your maxed out on pictures and are giving yourself limits as to how many you take now 'cause you don't want to overload your already full schedule, your head is spinning as words to say for all the different posts are quickly exiting your though capacity and finally to add to it all your Internet access is playing the elusive game and you cannot even get one picture on before it shuts down and you loose anything that you did not save!!!!

Yes, God is teaching me patience.

I was already behind on blogging when this past Wednesday came upon us and the day was jam packed with fun and fellowship and around 310 pictures taken and now I cannot put anything on the blog!!*sigh*

I must wait, and listen, and learn my lesson.

You must wait also till I am yet again able to share this exciting adventure we have been living lately!

Coming soon (hopefully)...

God's Promise!

Sun shining through the dark clouds this evening and we thought it might pass, but in an instance a light rain started to fall turning into a quick down pour.

I couldn't get the camera speed fast enough but it is raining in this photo.

Flowers in the water drop window

Setting sun below the clouds and opposite it was clearly seen a huge rainbow! Arching over and through clouds with a mirror shadow close by, the brilliant colors shown out so clear! Gorgeous!

Like the appearance of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the brightness all around it. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. Ezekiel 1:28

~May you all have a blessed Lord's day tomorrow!

Lily Spring Gardens

Lily Springs has come alive! For the past week or so we have enjoyed watching the beauty unfold as lily after lily has bloomed on our property. Though most are the day lily type we also have a dark 'red' and bright yellow asiatic bunch! As for the spring, well, with all this dry weather it has almost dried up but a small pool of water is still there. Again God is continuing to bless and even though our soil is not the ideal for a garden a lot of the things we planted are coming up and we cannot wait to finally be able to enjoy the fruit of our work. May God be praised!

Weekend Festivities

Last Friday evening we had a most enjoyable time at Eddy Acres as our dear friends had invited us over for a bonfire and opportunity to go canoeing on their pond. It was a wonderful time of fellowship and as we gazed up into the star adorned heavens we sang hymns of praise to our Savior, our voices echoing over the openness and filling our hearts with awe of our Great Creator and King!

Following is what I was able to capture on "film" (digital of course).

The above two pictures are rather hilarious! Actually the latter came first but the expressions could say something else! No, Christianna was not thrown into the leech squirming pond but they did really enjoy themselves, especially since this was the first time we have been able to use our "new" 'old neighbor going-away-gift' canoe!

Pop-corn was prepared in the cast iron kettles and though a lot of it burned it still was delicious!

Roasting Marshmallows over an open fire - delicious!

Sitting under the open heavens and looking at the moon through a telescope - breathe taking!

Spending time with fellow believers and worshiping our Lord - Indescribable treasures!

*Thank you Eddys for your wonderful hospitality!)

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Saturday afternoon was also a blessing. Our church was hosting a belated welcoming party for our family and even though everyone from our Church were not present, it was a most enjoyable time had by all as we canoed, played games, walked the trails, and enjoyed a scrumptious cookout dinner! As the evening came to a close we all met around the campfire and our family was blessed with a gorgeous peach tree and a basket of goodies from the local area as house warming gifts! "Thank you" is such a simple phrase to express our gratitude to our friends, both "old" and new and the kindness they have shown toward us with support and prayers over the past three years of trying to move and now with being able to fellowship more often. The Lord has truly been good to us and we cannot praise Him enough for His mercy and blessings!

Josiah and his two friends checking out the pond for frogs.

A game of soft (nerf) ball!

Musical entertainment around the campfire.

The big (and only) catch of the night! Josh brought in a large catfish.

To our Church family and the Bryson family, we thank God for you all and pray that He will bless you richly!

For Christ's glory!

Baby and Basil

Last weekend we added yet another fun farm-life country experience to our list! We got to goat-sit the Klaty's "pet" goat kid as they were out of town! Basil and Baby (our dog) hit it off right away, though Baby made sure that Basil knew that she was the boss, but they had fun following each other around the yard and as these pictures show, taking naps together.

Today we took the little goat back to it's real home and boy will we miss her, but maybe some day we will be able to get our own goat (or cow or alpaca or horse... as some of us dream) but this sure was a neat experience and yet again a blessing from our Lord!

Going on a Frog Hunt!

Last Thursday Christianna and I had a most enjoyable time "Twin-sitting" for our friends the Ervins. The highlight of the evening was going on a frog hunt with Jennifer and Jacob around their pond!

I can't quite remember how many frogs we caught (or actually Christianna caught! I was manning the camera and didn't want to get it slimy!) but there were quite a few and before we ended the hunt, a race was held and Jenny's frog won! Enjoy the photos! =)

Christianna tries for the first catching attempt as the kids and I watch and wait.

The first catch - a little yellow belly!

The beautiful sun was shining through the trees and down upon the pond. Tranquility...minus the misquitos!

"Going on a frog hunt, gonna catch a big one!" Rrrribbit!

One in each hand! Quite the achievement!

Two...

...And three!

Cute little junior.

Big Jumper!

The little girl and her prince.

Even though almost all these pictures are of Jenny, Jacob was always close by but just didn't really care for much of the hands on work. (He was helping me cheer on the frog catchers.)

What a fun evening we had and even though our first intention was to be cowboys and settlers eating around a campfire, frog hunting turned out to be quite the enjoyable adventure! God's creation is so amazing!