Thankful

A friend recently introduced me to this blog.  Check out Ann's blog.  Tonight was the first chance I had to check it out.  I only looked at the site for a few minutes, but I will be back.  Thankfulness is so important and yet often hard to find in our home.  So I am going to combine my need to blog with my need to be thankful.  Here are a few things I am thankful for tonight:

-Friends and family
-A friend blessed us with tickets to Dutch Wonderland. Her family wasn't going to be able to use them so she gave them to us.  We took the kids last Saturday.  Wow, what a place!  The kids loved it and we were so humbly blessed to be able to spend a day together as a family because of the generosity of a friend.  I forgot to take our smaller point and shoot camera and we decided after we were there that taking the D90 along and letting it sit in a stroller while we took rides might not be a great idea.  So, I'm thankful for the memories in my heart.
-Last year for pastor appreciation month some friends gave us a gift card and offered to watch our children while we went on a date.  Would you believe it has taken us a whole year to make it happen!!  Pathetic!  We went on our date this past Wednesday evening.  I'm thankful for great friends who know how hard it is to raise children and nurture a marriage at the same time.
-Thankful that even though we drove a  mini van on our date and I found a pacifier in my purse I still know I'm married to the man God planned for me.
-I'm thankful for two dates in one week! We don't get to "date" much, but this week Jeremy and I went out twice.  A couple from church saw the movie "Courageous" several weeks ago.  They were so impressed with the movie that Friday night the babysat for any couples that wanted to go see the movie.  What an amazing movie.
-I'm thankful for emotions that let me feel other's pain and joy
-I'm thankful for the fall camping trip we did this weekend.  I'm also thankful for a warm house. (yes, those two belong together!)  More on the camping trip later.
-I'm thankful for my children...

Second Honeymoon

OK, so it wasn't really a second honeymoon, but hopefully you are now singing that dear old song:

We're going on a second honeymoon,

I made reservations at that same hotel room

Ain't nobody gonna know where we go when we leave town

We're going on a second honeymoon

You know Jeremy and I were raised a lot alike when we got married and both knew this song. :) It wasn't a second honeymoon, but it was a full weekend away. Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. Amazing. Maybe we are getting old and forget, but we're pretty sure this is the first we have been away, just the two of us for more than one night since our first year of marriage.

We were blessed to be able to go to Spruce Lake retreat center. Neither of us had ever been there. It was such a restful, quiet (at least in March!) place. Just want we needed. My parents were visiting and so we left the kids with them. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! We did miss the kids, but they were still here when we got back. :)

We did not take a computer, no tv, no movies, no internet. Just quiet. Friday night we almost thought it was too quiet! Sososo good. After this weekend I'm thinking maybe the monks are on to something. :)

We had a great time together. We took our camera and took it with us on a hike. We took about a billion pictures trying out different settings. I know taking scenic pictures is much more enjoyable than seeing them so I won't bore you with too many, but since this is for my recording more than your enjoyment (sorry) I am posting a few.

On the hike. I looked at the map of different hikes before we started and saw the one marked "difficult". I hoped Jeremy would somehow miss that whole section of the map, but no, that was the one he picked. I knew he would. I love it that I know him so well. It was a great hike and I didn't even complain that by the end there was water squeezing between my toes from walking through so much snow. Good girl

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Here we are on top of the mountain. I was trying not to laugh at the teenage boy taking our picture. He's friends were behind him the whole time saying "put the strap around your neck, put the strap around your neck." I guess our camera was a little more intimidating than we were!

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While we were there they were tapping sugar maples. It was very interesting to see.

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I'm sure most people wonder what in the world an old married couple does by themselves for a whole weekend (other than hike!) Here you go. We spent aprox. 5 hours doing this...

Yeah, we're kind of nerdy like that, but it was a lot of fun to accomplish this together. It was also a great time to talk.

Such a great time away. I realized again exactly how much I love Jeremy and that he truly is my best friend. I believe when we got married I said I was marring my best friend, but now 7 years into this journey I realize I had no idea what I was talking about. This runs deep. We are far from perfect and sometimes I know we express our frustrations about each other with each other more than we did when we first got married. But there is a deep knowing that comes only with time. Not time spent apart, but together. I am blessed.

Travels

Warning: This was written by a rather sleepy person.

I really want to post pictures, but Jeremy is working on the computer that has all the pictures so I'll have to settle for words.

The past few months have been busy with a lot of coming and going.

In January I attended the second Among Women retreat near Columbus. While I was there Jeremy and the children were at my aunt and uncle's place in Cincinnati. I joined them after the retreat. Sadly I think we only have about 2 pictures from that weekend. Jeremy took them of Isaiah and Nathan sleeping in a double bed. They are cute pictures, but the cuteness wore off sometime during the night when they woke up fighting about covers. I was blissfully sound asleep 2 hours away. (Jeremy has very graciously encouraged me to be part of Among Women while he carries on the "home" responsibilities.) We always enjoy are time at Joyce and Paul's. The kids love all the new toys and we love the relaxing, the great food and the great company.

In February we attended CMC's pastor's conference in Kansas. It was a long trip, but it was worth it. My parents also attended the conference and we were able to stay at the same place they did. My parents helped out a lot with the kids -very much appreciated (and needed). The evening before we left to come home Isaiah starting throwing up. Great. Nate woke up at 3:30 AM doing the same. Jeremy decided we should just get up and leave for home then. I'm not sure if I've ever dreaded a trip that much. We buckled the kids in and I sat in the middle of the van with the bucket close by. Thankfully no one threw up. They boys slept a lot. Callie didn't. She isn't a real great traveler. :( We drove 19 hours straight to get home. We stopped only 3 times. It was a very long day, but it was nice to be home and wake up in our own beds Saturday morning.

Brandon and Cindy along with their family and Cindy's sister arrived here on March 1. It was wonderful to finally meet Adam and Ashton. I'm in love. I have some great pictures that I'll hopefully post soon. My whole family spent several days together at a cabin. Good times. I'll let the pictures tell more. :)

I'm sitting her trying to stay awake until Jeremy is done with his online class lecture. I'm done and he is still working. :( Speaking of Jeremy, last weekend he and I were very blessed to be able to get away for the weekend -Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. So good. I'll post more on that later, maybe.

Home Alone, Chocolate Smiles and Bloody Ears

This is old news, but I decided to post about it anyway. Last weekend Jeremy went camping with is brothers. Aside from the trip I took to Thunder Bay in 2006, I think I can count on one hand the number of times Jeremy and I have been away from each other overnight. (maybe one hand and a thumb, but not many) I know some of you have husbands that go out of town a lot for work. I've decided that I am very glad that Jeremy doesn't have to do that! It was a good weekend, but being a single parent is not an easy job.

I decided that I would concentrate on just spending time with the boys. I maintained the house and did some laundry, but nothing more than necessary. I watched a Barney DVD with Isaiah. That was an experience. I also played outside with Isaiah for awhile. That is something I should do a lot more of. We had a great time. I was struck at one point at how few of times Isaiah and I really laugh during our days. We laugh at Nathan and Nathan and Isaiah laugh at each other, but not often do Isaiah and I share a laugh. It was a very sobering thought for me. I feel like right now all I do is correct or respond to whining. I'm not sure of the exact wording, but I was reminded of the verse in Proverbs that talks about a merry heart being like good medicine. I wonder how much less crying and stubbornness would happen if Mommy had a smile on her face all day (or most of it -I am human!) Just a thought. How do you make your kids laugh? I remember my dad telling me a story of one of his aunts. Her son opened a can of chocolate syrup using an electric can opener, but forgot to hold onto the can. Chocolate syrup spilled all over the floor. My dad told me his aunt sat down and laughed!! I've never forgotten that story.

I'm way off track. Back to the weekend. Saturday morning I did decide to do something productive so I cut Isaiah's hair. I was almost finished, just trimming around his ears with a scissors and I chopped a piece off the top of his ear!!! I felt horrible! He has a nasty scab now. He keeps telling me his ear is feeling better. :( Nice reminder to me that I made it hurt.

I was going to go into more details, but we really didn't do a lot more the rest of the weekend. I wanted to rent a movie, but redbox didn't have what I wanted. I really missed Jeremy in the evenings. Especially when it was time to put the boys to bed, and then once they were in bed. Suddenly I had free time, but no one to share it with. Jeremy had a great time with his brothers. In case you're wondering, they played 54 holes of disk golf! The boys and I also had a good weekend, but we were all happy to be back together again.

P.S. We leave tomorrow evening for Thunder Bay. We will be driving through the night. We'd appreciate your prayers! I'll try to update some while we're there. I am looking forward to some Canadian summer weather!