Trading kids

Our summer is in full swing. Last Saturday Dan, Peirce, and I made the trip to Galesburg, IL to meet my cousin Rob and his wife Jen to take their son Nathan for the week. On Sunday, we dropped Kirsten and Mitchell off at camp. We haven't heard anything from them, which at least means they aren't so homesick that they need to come home.
We have not planned huge things while Nathan has been here. Mostly the boys have been enjoying the video games, playing games, swimming, and my favorite, pulling the little maple trees that have come up in my flower garden voluntarily. This has only taken a little bit of time. I figure that I would give them a project to work on. Now maybe I should get them to weed my vegetable garden that is getting unsightly.
Nathan has enjoyed the freedom that a small town has to offer. He lives near Indy, so it is a lot different here. It has been fun to see his reaction to everything being so close.
It is amazing that in a few days we will be into July. Where does it go?

Clear Lake

This is Clear Lake. It is a beautiful lake. It is not the clearest. We have yet to swim in it, but it is so pretty to walk down to it. I'll have to get some pictures of the downtown that is leading down to the lake. We live one mile from this spot.

What you may or may not know, is the special little blessing that this lake is to us. Dan and I love to go to the lake. We many times while we lived in South Bend would travel to Lake Michigan to watch the sunset, or we loved to go out to my aunt and uncle's home on Eagle Lake. Iowa does not have many lakes, but God blessed us by putting us on one of them. It brings new meaning to Psalm 37:4--Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.---Not that Dan and I are perfect and always do what we are supposed to do, but we truly sought after God in this move, and he gave us beyond what we could ask or think. It does make me question how many times I miss things that would have been such a blessing if I would have not gone in my own path.

I don't have to drive by the lake in order to go to to many places, but I chose to drive by it a few times a week, in order to remind myself of God's blessing, and the beauty of His creation.

Enjoy your day, and look for God's special blessings that He has for you!

Show and tell

Bible School has one more day. We've had a great time, but we are definitely feeling the week. We are looking forward to the program tomorrow.




On Saturday, we are going to meet my cousin and his family half way between their home and ours in order to bring their son, Nathan, to spend the week with us. I give up two of my children to camp, but gain one to keep Peirce busy during the week. I know that Peirce and Nathan will have a great time together, and Mitchell and Kirsten are really looking forward to camp for the first time.




Well, I promised more pictures, so I wanted to put some before and after pictures so that you can see what it looked like before the renovation.

Family Room

Before................................After

Kitchen and Dinette Before...

Kitchen after

Living Room Before

And After

I will get some pictures up. I am hoping next week. I also will try to get a better picture of my dining room which is to the left of the living room picture on the right. The picture that I have right now is too dark.

Next, we'll get some pictures of this beautiful town that we live in. Maybe we'll get some bedroom pictures done also. What a blessing this house has been. I am so thankful that God has provided this wonderful home for us. It has so much of what we wanted in a home and so much more!

Our new home

I wanted to let you all see what our home looks like. For those of you who do not know, we are living in a church parsonage. E. Free built this house around 1980, and did a makeover before we moved in. What a blessing it has been! We have been so thankful for this wonderful house. We had a group of 25 over this past week, and it worked so nicely. What a blessing to have a house that enables us to have groups of people over. We still don't have pictures up, so when we get them up, I'll have to post more pictures.

Winter

Today

The tree does keep you from being able to see the whole house, but the outside has not changed with the renovation. It does look different without snow.---Iowa looks different without the snow.

I'll post more pictures over the next few days. We are in the midst of Bible School this week, so it adds a new dimention to the week. Kirsten is in her last year of participating, while Dan, Peirce, Mitchell, and I are helpers. The theme is Power Lab, and it has been full of experiments and fun ways to learn about God's power.