Happy 21st Birthday Grace!

March 8th, marked the Birthday of yet another member of the Sauve family. Grace Elizabeth was born this day, 21 years ago. What a blessing she has been to our family over the years! From her recent interest in photography, and thrilling us with all the unique and beautiful pictures she takes, and her creativity with sewing and crafting, to her organizing and cleaning skills, (which can at times be an annoyance to the 'flightier' members of the family:-) and her love of praising her Savior through song and with her guitar.

This year, Grace chose to have "Dirt Cake." A rich tasty desert that consisted of layering a pudding/whipped cream mixture with crushed Oreo Cookies. Yummy!!

Grace's good friend, Heidi joined us for the party. She also plays the guitar very well, and she and Grace always have fun playing and singing when ever they get together. They have even written a few songs. Part of the day was spent trying out the new recording program that Grace found of the computer. (they sure do sound funny when you speed up the voices!!:-)

This is one of the gifts Grace received, Libera, her new favorite Music group. They are a boys choir based in England, and they have the most ethereal voices! Simply gorgeous! (almost as good as my Monks;-) inside joke=)

May God bless you, Little Sis, as you strive each day to be more conformed to the image of your Savior, and to become that beautiful woman the He plans for you to be. Keep using your talents for Him, that people may see Christ in you, the hope of Glory!

Love,
FaithAnn

The Large Icicle

One Sunday, not so long ago, while at the Lapeer Twp Hall for our worship service, some of the young people happened out side and found this gigantic icicle hanging from the gutters!
They finally decided to take it down and have their pictures taken with this unique specimen of our Maker's creative design!


Tim, Josh and Shawn...

...and Theresa with the nearly six foot tall icicle.

Whole Food Visits

The week that Charity was in Ann Arbor our family was very spoiled as we were able to visit our most favorite store - Whole Foods, whenever we wanted! With it being less than 10 minutes from the hospital I think we found ourselves frequenting that wonderful store maybe a few to many times and though having to drive 45 min. again isn't that bad, I think that more than a few of us are rather missing that luxury.
These following pictures are only a glimpse of the greatness of this huge place and if you have never set foot in one of these stores you have certainly missed a lot!

From a beautifully and artistically arranged produce section...


APPLES!






ORANGES!




PEARS!




AVOCADOS!







CARROTS!





GREENS!







... and Flowers...

...to isle after isle of neatly (and mostly Organic) arrayed teas, juices, crackers, chips and candies (and all sorts of 'healthy' stuff)

but most of all our favorite - the bulk isle!

There is so much more to be seen and had in this spectacular store (including the very tempting taste testers place throughout for the shoppers enjoyment!) but I could never tell about or photography it all, so you will just have to go check it out for yourself- oh and remember to take a full wallet cause thing can be a little pricey at times - just check out the exquisite dishes offered in this lunch display and you might just decide to eat before you go!

Anyways...I hope you have enjoyed this little taste of one of our family's most favorite places - the Whole Foods Market!


Oh! Did I mention that they make the best ever peppermint brownies?! =)

Snow Day - Shoveling - Annual Snow Fort

In the early morning hours of February 13 we were dumped with close to 8 inches of snow, a busy morning of shoveling jobs for our neighbors, helping people get their cars out of the snow ruts and carefully heading over to the hospital to see Charity.


Drifts were everywhere...

even hanging off of our gutters...

- ranging from 28 inches to 1/2 inch.


The crew headed out to cover our annual jobs of shoveling out our neighbors.


After all the hard work was done, the now tired and rosy cheeked gang came back in for breakfast.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Remember the past posts of our wintry season when we told and showed of our annual snow slide and forts? Well this year it all happened again, though it was short lived because of warm weather, and our slide was erected off the back deck (sorry I didn't get any pictures of it this year!) and though a little different from past years, our front yard quickly acquired a VERY LARGE mound right in the middle of it for all the passerby and interested house shopper to see! =)
This years goal was for bigger and better than ever! John really wanted to get it high enough to stand straight in but that never happened and so a huge cave came into existence with a support beam in the middle, front and back entrances and an additional room off the side. Though the shape was anything but attractive (at first I thought they were going to go for an igloo affect, but it turned out more like a volcano!) the creativeness it encouraged and pleasure it brought were all the worth while and though again short lived, it was at least yet another founded memory to keep for years to come!

Baby wasn't to sure about hanging out in the snow cave.

The creators and their master piece!
(l-r Faith, Josiah, John, Joshua, Christianna and Baby)

Another Backyard Visitor

On February 12 and a few days following this little stealthy hunter would pay a visit to our area of the woods trying to catch one of our many resident squirrels but unfortunately to no avail. However we greatly enjoyed being able catch yet another glimpse of one of God's amazing and beautiful creations!


At the first few visits of just hiding and peaking from behind the trees this little guy got rather bold and just hunkered down in this little hollow though rather in plain view to wait for any absent minded rodent to cross his path.


Though my digital zoom wasn't the best, this was the closest photo I was able to get.
See a resemblance between this pretty fox and our corgi/spitz Baby?!

The Frank and Poet Drain Adventure!

February 9th was the day that it all happened...We had a house showing, this adventure took place but never got posted, and Charity was found to have a very high fever which turned into a series of eventful and prayerful postings for the next month! Finally as things have settled down, Charity is doing better and our live's have returned to almost normal (whatever that is?!) we get back to the second happening of that very eventful day :
The Adventure at Frank and Poet Drain.

The day was bright yet overcast, the glittering blanket of snow helping to illuminate our world. The temperature was mild, and as was earlier stated, we had a showing for our house in the mid afternoon and so the gang (minus John and Charity) headed out of the house in several different directions ending up with a visit to the river down the street.
This "river" has had many a visit from members of the Sauve family on several occasions throughout the last few years as we have taken our dog Baby out for walks and found that she really enjoys water. Our small city of Riverview is a "Rural City". Bordered by the now subdivision-invaded farm land and decades old woodlands we are still surrounded by some of God's most beautiful creations. Down the road from us stands a piece of the past- an old farm house and collections of barns spaced out on a most likely once large but now small piece of land and running along the front of that property is Frank and Poet Drain. Yes, though not attractively named, this small river - as we call it- starts is track somewhere over in the Rural lands of Romulus and slipping through the lower wetlands ends it race flowing out into the Detroit river. Though for whatever reason it is here or how it came to be made, this small river has brought us great enjoyment and as this post is to show- a most unique opportunity of enjoyment was had on the afternoon of February 9th!

Because of the very low temperatures from previous days we were very excited to find out that Frank and Poet Drain was frozen- almost totally through- and so on this day we decided to go for a walk on the river!

Smooth and glistening with only a few spots still snow covered, we headed down (or rather up) stream slipping and sliding, hopping over low branches as we made our way along.

As you can see, the drain was quite frozen and had made a beautiful 'still life' waterfall that Christianna just had to get her picture taken with! =) Unfortunately the photographer was 'taking too long and walking too slow' so I wasn't able to get a clear closeup picture of the gorgeous ripples frozen in place.

Oh, did I mention that we had Baby with us too? She was really enjoying herself, not minding the slipperiness of the ice and was overall thrilled to finally be able to sniff out the other side of the river that she has never been able to get at before!

As I walked along keeping my eyes open for any photographic subjects, here are a couple unique images I was able to capture.

Frozen leaves amidst the once swirling and bubbling water.

A grand Great Blue Heron must have taken a stroll down this water way on a day when the ice was starting to thaw as these deep, clear footprints appeared in many places along the trail.

A bubbling air pocket with a hole on top provided a neat view of the still fast moving water below. The blurry object at the top of the picture is Joshua's fist as he tested the strength of this remarkable phenomenon - rock solid!


Along the river we traveled- the photographer lagging way behind with Christianna keeping her company- and around the bend we came to where the water went under the road through a large cement structured tunnel.

I had never been down this far before (some of the other kids had gone wading when the water was low in the summer) so it was pretty amazing to be able to walk under a road on top of water!! The picture is a little dark but it was the only ok photo that I was able to get of myself.


We finally came up to a point where the ice was getting a little too thin to walk on and this huge crack was waning open as the water was rushing by underneath.

We then started to make our way back down the glazed pathway and towards home.

On the way back along the river I had Josiah quickly pose for this picture and though I tried to get a whole group picture by setting the camera down on these rock slabs, the batteries were not able to hold up with the settings I had the camera on so the picture never happened. (though later I realized what I could have done to make it work but by that time everyone had quickly moved on).

We finally got back to the open area where the ice was so smooth I wished I had brought my ice skates (though I have never skated before), but everyone else was have the grandest of times just skating with their boots and shoes and the results are these following pictures!

Baby and Faith - having the time of their lives!

What an experience and what a day! Even though when we got home things seemed to turn disastrous, I don't think we will ever forget (with the help of these images) the great and enjoyable time God allowed us to have in being able to so closely encounter a beautiful part of His nature - to be able to walk down a river and see and experience things we would otherwise never been able to. So for even the small things in life that we can be blessed by, for this small event that took place in our lives we are very thankful - when we took a walk down Frank and Poet Drain! ~ Grace

... And the sun was shining on the water.
2 Kings 3:22

Nothing new...

Well we never heard back the results (though we were told that we would only hear if they were positive) so hopefully that's good news! However Charity is still battling a fever every night and therefore not getting her much needed rest, but today she is scheduled to go see the Lupus specialists and hopefully we will be able to find out if that has been one of the causes of a lot of the recent problems. We continue to pray and search for answers...


Due to the past month's happenings with Charity's illness I have not been able to post the many other things we previously and have recently done but I will hopefully be trying to catch up on the rest of our family's happenings throughout the next couple days, though I will still try to keep giving an update on Charity's health conditions as we continue to ask you to seek with us our Great Physicians healing.


For Christ's glory alone!

Grace

Update on Charity - Friday P.M.

Dad and Mom took Charity to Ann Arbor around 11:30 this morning and they were able to get right into the ER and get some blood cultures done. She also had some other tests done as every immediate check seemed to show that everything was OK, making everyone even more puzzled! Even through all this her fever was back down to normal (though she did take some Tylenol before leaving this morning) so that adds to the confusion.

God knows all this though and is in control. We continue to trust and try to learn more patience and understanding of the lessons He is teaching us through all this.

We await the results - tomorrow.

Continuing Prayer Request...

Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation,
continuing steadfastly in prayer;
Romans 12:12

• Please continue to keep Charity in prayer as yet another weekend is coming around and though she is home, we are continually in need of wisdom from the Lord as yet again her fever has started to go back up and the doctor said we need to take her back in to get some blood test done to try to determine the cause of all this.
  

• Please prayer for physical and spiritual strength for Charity to be able to go through what ever needs to be done to help her regain her strength and cleanse her body of what ever is afflicting her, if its another bacteria- to destroy it, or her Lupus- to suppress and gain control over it.

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear...
Psalm 46:1-2

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace,
that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews 4:16

Our strength and our help...God's all sufficient grace

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?

In every condition, in sickness, in health;
In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth;
At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,
As thy days may demand, shall thy strength ever be.

Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen and help thee, and cause thee to stand
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

Even down to old age all My people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne.

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

Words by Rev. John Rippon, 1787

Take Two...Finally Home!

What a long day this has been, but by God's amazing grace Charity was finally released from UofM Hospital late this afternoon and is finally home!!!
We are all so exhausted so I will post more tomorrow.

We greatly appreciate all those who have commented and let us know that you have been praying for us! Our great and awesome God has truly heard and answered those prayer!

May His name be praised forever!

Grace