Day #1 Friends...and a new Home!

The day the papers were signed we met down the street at the Brysons for lunch and then headed down to our soon to be new house for a walk through. From there mom and dad left for the closing and us children went back down to the Brysons to wait for the call that we now were finally *home* .
The Brysons live in an old beautiful farm house with many barns and out buildings surrounding it on ten acres. Attached to the old cow barn is the silo. Upon seeing that you could climb up the inside of this tall pillar Josh quickly ascended and peered out over the top!



Quite the view I'm sure.






All the young people went for a walk around their meadow, enjoying the view and the beauty of God's creation!







This picture of Josiah walking down the road is most puzzling.
Doesn't he look like a giant?!


When we got the call telling us to go over to our new house, the majority of us started on the1/4-1/2 mile walk down the lovely dirt road while Mr. Bryson and Daniel drove their mowers down to help us clean up the long neglected yard! *Thank you Brysons!*






Our new neighbors - A red winged Black bird and a crow greeted us from their perches on our huge play scape!



Our beautiful Lilac bush was in full bloom and gorgeously sending forth it's delightful fragrance. As the cleaning begun some of the girls helped pick bunches of the flowers and placed them in jars and vases and put them all throughout the house!

Unfortunately lilacs are not known to last more than a day, but we sure did enjoy them and the lovely fresh aroma they produced!

~More pictures and posts to come...house cleaning and unpacking comes first around here! Sorry!

God's Mercy Remembered

I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the LORD

And the praises of the LORD,

According to all that the LORD has bestowed on us,

And the great goodness toward the house of [Sauve],

Which He has bestowed on them according to His mercies,

According to the multitude of His lovingkindnesses.

Isaiah 63:7

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wow! my mind is so full of everything that has taken place these last three days, especially yesterday and I don't quite know where to start! For now, until I can get all the pictures straightened out and thoughts organized, here we all are in our new home. After a VERY long and eventful day, we finally were able to settled down, get this picture taken (it was around 10:30pm) and get some sleep.

What an awesome God we serve! We could never have gotten this far without His grace and the many hands that so willingly helped us!

Thank you!

Praise God!

The Sauve family are no longer nomads!! We have a home!!!! Today started out *lovely* though as we drove farther up north the clouds hung lower and then it rained! God was so good! (Yes Mrs. Hall the sun did shine!!) and the closing went well and we now own a house that is quickly becoming our new home! Our new friends and neighbors the Brysons were such a blessing as they helped us get things into the house and then proceeded to mow our very long neglected lawn! Also our dear friends the Eddys came and helped out tremendously with getting more things unpacked in the kitchen and starting to rip up carpet as we hope to get some new flooring on Wednesday.
Today was wonderful! Thank You Lord!!!

Yes, the time is late, my eyes can barely stay open, but I just wanted to keep you all posted before all our computers down here get closed down. I took a lot of pictures today but I don't have time to download right now.

More boxes are calling to be packed...God bless you all...good night


~Grace (officially known as The Blogger)

The race is on!

Tomorrow starts the last leg of this marathon and the finish line is in sight! We cannot express enough gratitude to all our dear friends who are helping us move! May God bless you all richly!

We pray that the Lord's will be done as we head up tomorrow morning with two vans and a car full of things and people, close on our new house at 1:00pm and start cleaning and getting stuff settled in it! May our strength be in our great God alone. The evil one is constantly trying to discourage us but we will have the victory if our focus is always on Christ and His glory!

Though we may never see some of you again...by God's grace, we shall meet again at the finish line! Happy racing!

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2

Moving!

What do you get when you have 9 people living in a 2500 sq. ft. house for seven years? A LOT OF STUFF!

Yes folks we are finally realizing that we have acquired a lot of things over the years and as we are moving into a smaller house, we are starting to really see just how much stuff we have!

This picture only shows MAYBE an 8th of all that is in our house! Thankfully this morning mom and dad were able to take a load up north to store at some friends place as we were realizing that getting everything up there by next Wednesday just might be impossible!

For those of you who have not heard, we are closing on the new house on Monday the 14th, and moving it all in by Wednesday. Yes, it will be hard, but thank God for dear friends who have offered to help us so we hope to have the big truck loading start at 9am on Wednesday and hopefully be up north by 4pm to unload!

All things are possible with our Lord's help and we again thank you all for your prayers!

May His will be done. <><

Vintage shopping again... an outing with friends

This past Tuesday our friends the Bezeaus came over to visit and spend time with us before we leave and also us girls wanted to go together to Alora's.


Before we went though, Christianna, Madison, Halley and Faith went back in the woods to look at the flowers that we have seen back there recently. They came back with treasures!

Besides the lovely bouquets of wild geranium and violets Faith also brought over this unique plant that has many different names. Jack in the Pulpit, Wild Arum or Lord and Ladies. We know it best by Jack in the Pulpit.


Then we headed out for a trip through the town!

Again we were all thrilled by the beauty and delicateness of this antique shop!




Though its rather hard to point out, the book/album on the left with the white tag hanging down the front was quite the treasure find! It was a family photo album dated in 1880 and it still had almost all the images in it! Almost all of them were tin types too!






Inspecting and admiring the beautiful dresses.



Three friends - Christianna, Madison and Halley



Ancient opera glasses...



...and new stationary and organizer books!



The most special picture of the day was when I was able to capture the three friends in the mirror on the lovely toiletry stand!

After spending what seemed like two hours in Alora's we then started to head home but taking a different route we ended up finding another cute store, a more modern gift shop, which had some really neat things to offer as it was set up with different dealers booths here and there.


Jellies, sauces, china tea sets, candles, crocheted gifts and so much more!



Yet again the day's outing was most enjoyable as it was a blessing to be able to spend time with our dear friends!


Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. James 1:17

Vintage shopping

Several weeks ago we noticed an article in our newspaper advertising a new antique shop in downtown Wyandotte. Though we have never really gone antique shopping before, Christianna really wanted to go visit this quaint little store before our move so last week Mom, Faith, Christianna and I headed over to see what Alora's Attic had to offer.

Sandy, the lady that owned the store also owned the room next door and had the windows filled with lovely articles from the past - elegant dresses and hats, old baby carriages and bird cages!

*Self-portrait*

Inside the shop

After leaving Alora's and on the way home we stopped at another store who's sign stated: Almost Antique. Well, lets just say that they named the store a long time ago, as almost everything in the place was definitely antique! What a place! Though we definitely were only 'window shopping' as the prices were extremely high, is was a real treat for us to be able to see so many things from the past, made to last, with many stories to tell from our ancestors.

The lighting was rather bad and it was hard to get clear pictures but here are a few for your enjoyment.

The lady at the store said that she has been collecting things for over 25 years and finally decided to start sharing it with others!

On this one wall there was hanging a huge collection of saws and old farm tools that had been beautifully decorated with scenery paintings.

Of course a favorite of us girls was this old treadle Singer sewing machine. Gorgeous!

Faith found the clothing and accessories section and was having fun trying on many of the hats.

Then Faith saw this candle stick patriotic phone! *FYI if you didn't know, Faith is our patriotic baby, born on the 4th of July* Unfortunately, when we asked the price,($75!) all possibility of being able to purchase this special gift was wiped out.

However, if any of you out there would like to send the funds to help purchase this unique phone for Faith's birthday... =)

Anyways, as you can see, we greatly enjoyed ourselves on our little shopping outing, though we again have been reminded of the words in scripture:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-21

Visit with friends...

Some dear home school friends, the Van Riper family, came over for dinner and fellowship last week. We had a very enjoyable evening with hamburgers and grilled chicken for dinner, fun at the park for the kids and wonderful fellowship as brothers and sisters in Christ.

They have a lilac bush in their yard and knew that we greatly admired the blooms of this bush, so they brought us a beautiful bouquet, which while it lasted, filled our dining room and kitchen with it's most delicious perfume!

The Van Ripers have 7 children, with #8 on the way!

Jamie is the youngest and becoming quite the little talker at 20 months old.

Emily is quite the pianist, and if she didn't have anything else to do, she would be composing some new piece of music for our enjoyment!

Mrs. Van Riper is one of the very ambitious ladies that took over the homeschool group that mom was leading and has done a great job in helping others out in their home schooling endeavors.

Daniel, the second youngest, is a very friendly little fellow and near the end of their visit was delighted to be able to try on our huge sombrero! Doesn't he sport it well!

We are so thankful to the Lord for being able to know the Van Riper family and spend time with them before we move.

May the Lord richly bless them as they continue to serve Him and be a blessing to others!

Dina and Ginger

Last week yet another 'chapter' was closed in our lives, a memory was etched in time and something 'new' was brought into our lives...

Dear Dina, our sweet old van. The automobile who has carried us far and wide, been faithful in so many travels where in she must have had angels packed around her carrying us on our way. God has been so faithful and merciful to us! Only one accident as I recall ever took place in dear Dina and that was only a minor fender bumper, otherwise God has kept us safe in her and protected us over the many miles we have traversed.

Now to those of you who have never heard the reason behind the naming of this vehicle, a while back when our van started to have some congestion problems she started to make this strange groaning sound whenever you accelerated which sounded like a dinosaur (ok, so we don't really know what those animals sounded like but you get the idea), and when it couldn't be fixed, we then started to call her Dina, and thus she has been affectionately called since.

Don't ask why we decide on that gender, but maybe it was because the majority of our family are females.

Like I said though, last week another 'chapter' was closed in our family and that enclosed Dina. The dear old van was becoming rather fragile for our many travels up north and back and we didn't know when she might just fall apart on us, and because of the move coming quickly (or not so quickly) upon us, we decided it was time to say goodbye and find a newer replacement for our faithful steed.


Faithful old Dina. Twice down and back to Florida, once to Shipshewana and out to Pennsylvania, a couple times to Canada and several times to Toledo, Ohio, (and probably many other trips that have slipped my mind right now) and last but not least, all the innumerable times up and back from church and other events up north in the thumb area!

Baby and the faithful old friend, ready to go for a ride at any given moment.



We'll miss you old girl. =)


So the old was taken and the new brought home and surprisingly a name was almost immediately found and labeled onto our new traveler!

Welcome Ginger! Wild Ginger to be exact.


Back in the woods behind us are many plants that we have observed and transferred over to our backyard for our enjoyment. One of them that was found in the last couple weeks was a strange little plant with some very interesting looking florets of the exact shade in color of our new van! It was a Wild Ginger plant!


[the color might be a little off, but from the human eye, it is exactly the same shade.]

..And yet again we are praising God from whom all blessings flow!