This week at our house

(fall colors on the Muskegon river)

This past week, we went to Lansing Michigan for our first teen quiz meet of the year. It is about a two hour drive from our house so we had to leave here around 7:30 am. The quiz went well, James quiz mastered in novice and really seems to enjoy it. We were nervous at first but the A team did well winning all their games. Our B and novice teams also did well. We are leaving for a tournament today in Indiana. We are staying at a friend from Indiana's house. The boys are going to sleep in a barn tonight. A barn with heat and foose-ball. Not your average barn!

(the woods are looking bare)

This week has also brought a change in the weather. Days are cold and the nights are colder! Every morning there is frost on the ground and we routinely have to remove ice from the windshield if we are to get anywhere in the morning. Once a week we drive into Grand Rapids for band, an all day event that has us leaving the house at 7 and returning at 5.

(chasing leaves)

One afternoon a gust of wind sent hundreds of leaves flying up into the air, and the kids ran out to catch the leaves before they fell. I think this counts as P.E. I stayed out there as long as I could but unlike the kids I was freezing. Perhaps I should have been running after the leaves myself!

Our little wooded area behind the house is looking so bare! During the summer you could hardly see a few feet into the trees and now you can see way back into the clearing where the kids have set up their "Indian" village.

The deer have been very active lately too, the other day Sam just about went head over hills when he was walking the lab. Three deer crossed the trail about 10 feet ahead of them. It is not unusual now to see 5 or 6 deer in the field by our house just as the sun is setting. We see them on the way to church and back along the side of the road, kind of scary as we've heard some deer collision stories that make us a bit nervous. Needless to say we slow down on the dark roads around here. Soon deer hunting will start in earnest and we expect to see quite a reduction in the numbers, many people here need to hunt in order to provide for their families. Not only that but with the large number of deer out there many will starve over the winter if their numbers are not culled.

We regularly see wild turkeys roaming around. They are not very smart and sometimes you have to just stop the car to keep from hitting them while they try to decide which side of the road they want to end up on. I guess the joke is Why did the turkey cross the road? He doesn't know either. Every once in a while I will hear them in the woods near our house the sound is hard to describe but once you've heard it you know what it is. James has seen them walking around out there.

I hope to get some pictures at the tournament this weekend and on Sunday our church is having the annual "Toilet Bowl" football game weather permitting of course.

All because two people fell in love.....

American Gothic???

Today Ron and I have been married for 19 years. I keep thinking that seems so long and yet it feels like such a short time. When we went on our after dinner walk through the forest last night I told him, we’d be an old married couple next year on our 20th. I remember our wedding day as if it were yesterday and I thank God for my husband Ron, he is my best friend and the love of my life. Our anniversary is a good time for remembering not just the memories of a great marriage but also the way God has moved in our lives.

Ron and I met at church when we were both in our late 20’s, we became fast friends and because it was a friendship we avoided the pitfalls of dating. Ron and I also went to the same junior high school and the same high school graduating a year apart. I thank the Lord that he did not have us meet during those years. I was not the person then that I am now and neither was he. Sometimes I envision God orchestrating a kind of dance in those halls at Santa Ana High, to ensure that we did not meet and I sometimes wonder how many close calls we actually had.

After we gave our family planning over to the Lord we used to say, "10 kids, 10 years, and 10 acres"-that was our "plan" but God had other plans and they were good. I pray that my children embrace the plan God has for them, not trying to fight against what God is doing in them. I pray that when the time is right God brings into their lives the person they are meant to marry and that they don't try to hurry His plan or delay depending on His will for them. As a mom I want what is best for my kids but my human eyes don’t see it the way He does, so I pray that God directs their steps and that I have the wisdom to advise, embrace, and when the time is right, get out of the way.
Most of all I pray that when they marry it will be as great a marriage for them as this last 19 years has been for me. Not that everything has been perfect, but it has been good.



We loved having Bonnie and Jonathan here!
















Grandma and Mary at the Muskegon River by the Croton Dam

moving

(the tree "house" in summer)

Moving across the country to a place we've never been has been an adventure. I think when we put the house up for sale with this idea to move to "another place" than California we had thoughts that it would be easy. Just sell the house, pack up and move. That is what we did, after a grueling 15 months on the market and continually knocking down the price we finally sold, packed up and moved. Our move happened so fast after seemingly taking so long that it left us and many of our friends reeling. Things have settled down and we are settling in so I am taking the advice of a friend and starting a blog.

We moved to rural Western Michigan and it is breathtakingly beautiful. Watching summer melt into fall has us running to the windows to see what has changed today. It seems that overnight the view from our deck has gone from green

(the tree "house" just this afternoon)

to gold and red and orange and..... you get the picture. Walking through the woods - we have 5 acres of woods- is totally different than it was a month ago with the lush humid green becoming dry and much more open. At times the only sounds are the sounds of leaves falling and the occasional squirrel or woodpecker scolding us for coming too close. At other times the kids can be heard while they run in the woods or ride their bikes on the trail that winds through the forest. They have been given the time to play, run and create.

( James lashed together a bed and the

others created an extra bedroom?)

(Foxes Point)

Moving was hard, and at times the homesickness, the loss of friends close by brings tears to my eyes. Just yesterday Grandma, (Ron's mom) left after visiting and we all cried a little. This is an adjustment but we are getting through it. We have found a great church and the kids are making friends. We went to a Family Fun day at one of the church members houses and had a really great day. I took this picture of the kids there.