A Joyful Follower

A guest post by my mom . . . .

Very often as your dad and I pray together, we are reminded of all of the hidden blessings – ways that God pours out His gifts and grace on us – about which we don’t even know. We have known God through Christ nearly all of our lives. We have been blessed to follow His commands, adopt His value system, and be placed under the shadow of His wings.

But today, as I sat and listened to a coworker pour out her heart to me, I realized once again how blessed I really am. This young girl is carrying some heavy burdens and has had a much rockier start in life than I could ever imagine. As a result, there are many tears and almost unanswerable problems with which she deals on a daily basis at home. My heart aches for her, and while I know Christ offers a better way of life (spoken of in Hebrews over and over), I also know that living contrary to God’s way of life brings some pretty heavy-duty baggage.

In today’s society, so many have chosen to redefine marriage as living together, have chosen to use drugs or alcohol for pain relievers, have chosen to chase after happiness by living for the moment. And as a result, when life comes crashing down, there is no safety net, no sure foundation.

How am I blessed? We were graced with a strong biblical view of the world. We go home from work to peace. We were gifted with two beautiful daughters who chose to follow Christ. We were given two strong sons-in-law and four precious grandsons who will be raised to emulate Christ. We’ve been protected in so many ways from terrible consequences which would have come from making unwise choices. How we thank and praise God for giving us forgiveness of sins, a loving relationship with Him, and a promise of an even better future when we meet Him face-to-face.

In our home, we have a plaque which reads: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:13. This is not a burdensome task. It is truly a joy to follow Him. We love Him because He first loved us!

The Honeymoon

Part 1 -- The Hayride

Part 2 -- The Interview with Seth
Part 3 -- The Interim
Part 4 -- The Rook Party
Part 5 -- The Meeting
Part 6 -- The Sign
Part 7 -- The Phone Call
Part 8 -- The Dinner Party
Part 9 -- The History Channel
Part 10 -- The Trip to England
Part 11 -- The Homecoming
Part 12 -- The Interview with Seth (part 2)
Part 13 -- The EE Questions
Part 14 -- The April Phase
Part 15 -- The Birthday
Part 16 -- The Engagement
Part 17 -- The Memorial Day Picnic
Part 18 -- The Official Engagement
Part 19 -- The Date
Part 20 -- The Family Participation
Part 21 -- The Wedding Dress
Part 22 -- The Bridesmaid Dresses

Part 23 -- The Wedding Ring
Part 24 -- The Bridal Showers
Part 25 -- The Week Before
Part 26 -- The Rehearsal
Part 27 -- The Wedding Photos

Part 28 -- The Wedding

Part 29 -- The Reception

Appendix -- The Marriage Advice

Since we celebrated our 13th anniversary the other day, I thought I'd drag out our honeymoon photo album and post a few pictures from that era of history. 

Since I did most of the wedding planning, Seth took on the responsibility of planning the honeymoon (with my help, since he's a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of guy and I didn't think that would work out well on a honeymoon). We've both traveled quite a bit so we wanted to visit a place that neither of us had been before. Seth decided that it would be fun to go out West (or at least west of where we were currently living). We settled on a week in Lava Hot Springs, Grand Tetons, and Yellowstone.

The day after we were married, we took a flight into Bozeman, MT, rented a car, and drove down to Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. We had heard that the hot springs there were world famous, and we wanted to see them. We stayed in Greystone Manor, a B&B that had been converted from an old church. 

Note that this was in the era before selfies and selfie sticks.
We had a real live person take this picture of us.
AND it was also in the era of 35mm cameras,
where we couldn't immediately see how it turned out and try for another if it didn't.
Thankfully, the person taking this was OK with the camera. 

After we settled into the room, we drove down the street to find the world-famous hot springs. And the only thing we found was this sign and, through some gates, what looked like a small area surrounded by concrete.

It wasn't what either of us had envisioned (I'm not sure what we had envisioned since neither of us had been to hot springs before), so we decided it wasn't worth our time to visit.

Instead, we finished out our time at Greystone Manor by enjoying the heart-shaped pancakes with coconut syrup the lady of the manor made for our breakfast.
Then we moved on to Jackson Hole, WY.

We hiked up a little trail to the top of the mountain to get a good look down into the valley where Jackson Hole is located. 

We arranged to stay at a guest house of a friend of a friend. And when we arrived, we found the place was infested with earwigs. Seriously. They were everywhere. But, there were no other available places to stay, so we moved into Earwig Palace, nestled in the valley of the Grand Tetons. And worked hard not to think about them crawling in our cooler of food and around the bed and over the floor.

Our favorite memory, besides hiking through the Grand Tetons, was eating at the Gun Barrel Steak and Game House. We loved the buffalo and vowed to find a place that served buffalo for every anniversary thereafter. (We kept that up for the next year. This year, we had steak on a dinner cruise, which was also very nice, but not nearly as tasty as the buffalo.)

We were proud that we got to check off three states from the list in one trip -- Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana.

Then we started out on our way to Yellowstone, driving along the mountain chain. 

In front of the Grand Tetons

On a hike in the Tetons, courtesy of a timer on the camera

Sampling some of the fresh, mountain water.
(He didn't die or get dysentery.)

Having fun with the food storage bins that kept the bears away from the food.

After driving through the Tetons, we headed into Yellowstone and toured the park from there.

Of course, we stopped by Old Faithful and waited for it to erupt,
which it did, right on schedule!

We really enjoyed seeing all the hot springs. 

The Upper Falls

Somehow, we got the brilliant idea
that we would hike down to see the Lower Falls.
We didn't realize there were 350 steps involved.

After taking in the view from the bottom of the trail,
we realized we would need to hike back up all 383 steps.
There were a lot of steps.
A lot.
A. lot.

We tried to do what all the brochures say to do: stay out of their way.

A wildfire had gone through at some point previously. 

Our last stop was Mammoth Hot Springs. 

We had a great time traveling around together and a very difficult time coming back home and adjusting to real life (i.e., leaving each other to go our separate ways to work). I'm all for the ancient Israelite custom of the newly married man staying with his wife for a year before going off to war (or work, as the case may be). If a presidential candidate had that as a platform, I would totally vote for them. Totally.

School is in session

We did a lot this summer. I should probably blog it. But the time has come for school to begin again. Cael started last Monday in a kindergarten-readiness program at the school he attended last year. Although he's just four, his teacher asked at the end of last year if he would want to move up to the K class. He was thrilled to have that privilege and has been talking all summer about "when I start Kindergarten." 

He was concerned his first day because his teacher, unbeknownst to him, had switched the tables around, and he thought his assigned chair was still at the preschool table. He perked up when he learned that he and his two friends, Logan and Coleman, were all big kindergartners. He likes his class and his teachers and learning. 

We ended school with Kieran sometime in May. But, I figured it would be better for him if we kept reviewing what he'd learned over the summer, so he continued with reading and math off and on. My parents spent several weeks with us this summer, and my mom, a teacher by profession, enjoyed working with him on his reading and word families. 

I decided that since we were schooling anyway, I'd go ahead and "officially" start his next school year at the end of July. Our state has some of the best homeschooling laws in the nation and the main requirement is that you get in an equivalent number of days as the public schools, or about 180 days between a calendar year (which, I think, goes from July 1 to June 30). I'm not really tied to the 180 days idea because I think he needs to keep going year-round in order to retain what he's learned, but for record-keeping purposes, we "started" at the end of July. 

I work better when I have a framework ("guidelines," really) to think through and organize my day around, so this is my current schedule on school days. Cael is in preschool on M, W, F mornings, so I use that time with just Kieran to go over reading and math. 

A few weekends ago, since my parents were visiting and could watch the boys, Seth and I went to an all-day homeschool conference for "struggling learners" (I think that's the homeschool equivalent of "special needs"). I mainly attended sessions by Carol Brown (equippingminds.com), whose focus is on helping to improve brain function overall in non-academic ways (working memory, processing, visual memory). She went through several "games" that she plays with the kids she works with to help in those areas. I bought her curriculum and have been using several of the ideas with Kieran. 

For the rest of the academic side, I'm using Five in a Row (suggested by my friend Tina). The idea is that you read one children's book five days in a row and pull out different aspects to talk about each day--a simple unit study of sorts. I'm also using an Ask Me book about plants to cover our "science" base. 

And in a few weeks, we're starting a Spanish class at a co-op. Kieran loves learning different languages, so I thought he might enjoy that class. 

He still receives occupational therapy (45 minutes/week) and speech therapy (2 20-minute sessions per week) through our local elementary school. His OT gave us this set of cards sometime ago. I pulled them out the other day, and we've enjoyed going through them a few at a time. 

I've been reviewing the +1 addition facts for quite awhile before we move on to the next concept in the Math-U-See book. Sometimes, to add a bit of variety, we use Seth's tool catalogs to review number recognition using the prices of the tools. 

Here's to another year of school, by God's grace!