Blessing...this world is not our home!

Yesterday, Uncle Stevie passed from this life to his GREAT reward! He has a new body, his suffering is gone, he gets to be with JESUS! The questions seem to resurface...why do some people have to bear so much in this life? It is a fallen world and it makes us "homesick" for heaven, but also we are so reminded how our great God can be working beauty in this brokeness!

I've thought often of this song in the last few weeks & was reminded again of it...

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace

Comfort for family, protection while we sleep

We pray for healing, for prosperity

We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering

All the while, You hear each spoken need

Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops?

What if Your healing comes through tears

What if a thousand sleepless nights Are what it takes to know You’re near?

What if trials of this life Are Your mercies in disguise?

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear

We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near

We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love

As if every promise from Your Word is not enough

And all the while You hear each desperate plea

And long that we'd have faith to believe

When friends betray us, when darkness seems to win

We know the pain reminds this heartThat this is not, this is not our home

What if my greatest disappointments

Or the aching of this life Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy?

And what if trials of this life The rain, the storms, the hardest nights

Are Your mercies in disguise?

Blessing...by Laura Story

Serena or Venus?

Here she was in the backyard.. Brian wondered which Williams sister she looked like!?!

Free Juggling Shows

Loving the summer fruit

And lots of popsicles!!!

Summer Time fun...

Valiant effort at family pic...that is all we can say...

Fun "end-of-the-season" tourney for the boys...lost all 3 games & still had a lot of fun! Very high scoring event...29 to 26 :)

Cheering section...

Cute kids...

Free face painting at the grocery store (this was a monkey)

Sister Bear

A favorite thing to do at Grandpa & Grandma's

Lots of water fun

Just the beginning of birthday celebrations...its not till August!

They had been dreaming of doing a Lemonade Stand...they had fun, drank A LOT of their own lemonade & made $2.50 each :)

The rest of the 4th of July fun

Happy 4th of July!!!

We have had a really fun 4th of July weekend, lots of friends here to celebrate, fireworks last night, parade this morning & an attempt to set off some firecrakers tonight! The highlight of the parade were about 20 unicyclists in descending heights (couldn't get them all in the pic) but they were very cool!

Thankful for the fun and the blessings of the weekend...so much to celebrate with our great country's freedom! God bless America, land that I love!

Easy idea to do for others AND fun Guatemalan lunch

In addition to ALL the shoes that were so easily collected for Ethiopia (see post below), we also did a SCHOOL SUPPLY collection for the inner-city near us. The response was tremendous. We just had some notices go out in the usual school e-mails & put a box in the front of our public school (again with great support from our principal). Families dropped off any extra supplies (stickers, markers, crayons, paper, coloring books..)...anything in good condition. And we had the priviledge of bringing those to the inner city school who's students do not have all this stuff to play with over the summer. The inner city school was super appreciative. It is so great to get to connect our "extra" with someone who thinks its "special". We also left the box open at the end of the school year for any supplies parents didn't want at home...we plan to distribute those also for summer-time fun for more inner city kids.

So all of this brought us near a Guatemalan restaurant (in daylight hours). It was the 1st time we have had Guatemalan food since we were there picking up Zach. (and no, it does NOT taste like Mexican, but it super delicious also) The smells & tastes brought back so many good memories. The restaurant was decorated great, very clean (bonus for me :), and the food was outstanding!
Zach loved everything he tried & was so proud of being there. We were totally loving ourselves too...he said at some point "are you so happy I was from Guatemala so you could eat here?" We are sooo happy he is from Guatemala!!! I proudly told the waitress that he was from Guatemala, she said she already could tell. It was authentic Guatemalans running the restaurant (very limited English) but very hard workers!Zach's favorite was getting to drink pop from the bottle!

Guatemalan tableclothes
And they had an amazing wall with so many pictures on it, bringing back so many memories, it was so fun to get to talk about them with Zach! We missed BJ because he was at school, but we will look forward to going back again!!!!

Somebody that loves Jesus most of all...

When the kids ask about how people know who to marry...I usually say that you should look for someone that loves Jesus most of all.

It is my priviledge to married to this guy & its amazing how his role of father falls right in place. We are so thankful for the amazing Christian heritage we have from both of our fathers & I love getting to see this daily around this house!

As for the picture, it is the day Ellyana came home..I love it because you can see a "proud papa" in his eyes...and he feels this way about each of our kids! What a blessing!!

Happy Father's Day, love!

It REALLY was all 1 day...the last day of school!!!!

Yesterday was the last day of school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We may have the latest "summer break" of any school I have heard of, but don't worry these have not been "heavy" on academics weeks...lots of fun stuff for the kids...yesterday topped it all off! BJ's sweet 2nd grade teacher this year has journeyed with us & we have no doubt God is the One the had her in his path! She loves the Lord & she loved the kids. BJ's grade had a "bowling party with pizza" followed by an ice cream party later in the day. BJ's bumper bowling score 101 :)

Zach's class had a "Beach Party"...slip n slide, sprinkler, freezy pops, pizza...they had so much fun!!!

His class has grown up soooo much over the year, its hard to believe it is even the same class...and kids from around the world in his class...he's had a great experience!His teacher did a fantastic job with this class & we are thankful Zach had her this year!
After the "countdown" & screaming to end the year...we came home & this big guy "crashed" (never seen this before)...

Then it was off to BJ's game & then Zach's T-ball game, where he was "Player of the Game"...he's quick, he's got a swing & he LOVES baseball...And well, Sister she did OK...here she is at the end of the day, with a Dum-Dum sucker...that's how we make it through big days...and she did get treated to a babysitter in the afternoon so she could sleep at home ;)

The boys really have had a good year, so they weren't really dying for summer break...but I was...I have missed them EVERYday they have been gone at school, our kids are JOYS to be with & I will not miss the "running" & schedule of school. We do keep busy in the summer but we are hoping for LOTS of relaxing too!

HAPPY SUMMER, FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!