Unpacked in Castle Rock

We moved to a wonderful house in Castle Rock at the beginning of July and have been digging out of boxes ever since. We are finally beginning to feel settled and are attempting to enjoy the last few weeks of summer before we begin school again in early September. The little kids, especially, have greatly enjoyed all of the sand in our new backyard (part of the yard is a sand volleyball court). We've also been enjoying family bike rides on the trails near our house and the free concerts in the park across the street. We've managed two camping trips (the pictures of the boys in really muddy water, below, are from a camping trip at a local lake and the family hiking photo is from the other). Kevin has been training in a new job field (helping companies recover over-paid sales tax) and is still not certain what his job will look like, but we're hopeful that he will be able to work from home a significant part of the time. We'll try to keep you posted as things progress!

All packed up . . . with nowhere to go!

Our house is 95% packed up and we are still waiting to hear if our offer was accepted to lease (and eventually purchase) a house in Castle Rock. We are supposed to be out of our house in 5 days, so we're really hoping that they give us an answer soon . . . things are feeling more than a little upside down!

Recent fun, with just one!

One of our recent highlights was a chance to finally take Daniel out for his special night with mom and dad for his half birthday (which was at the end of April!) . . . our mini-golf fanatic chose to challenge us to 18 holes of goofy fun. Each of us managed to get a hole-in-one once during the game. It was lots of fun to spend time with Daniel all by himself, such an awesome kiddo!

Cute Photo!

Home from Canada

We are back home from Canada (actually we got home 3 weeks ago, but I'm just getting around to this!). We had a good trip and got to see a lot in Canada as well as en route. 16 days, 4100 miles, 10 different states, 2 trips across the border & God only knows how many orders of french fries(!) later . . . we are glad to be home!

The kids were awesome travelers and kept themselves entertained quite well in the car (and when they didn’t, they were subjected to re-runs of “The Human Body in Action” movies! – since we were finishing our study of the human body on the road). Daniel was exceptionally patient and tolerant with the two littlest kids on either side of him in the back seat (Anna spent half of the trip leaning over, resting her head on him!). We also listened to some books on tape and some worship music on Kevin’s new iPod. I’ve posted a million photos (at least it felt that way uploading them!)

Some of the trip highlights were:
~seeing Taylor in Omaha, playing in the pool and enjoying dinner together
~touring a chocolate factory near Chicago and seeing a 2500lb Statue of Liberty made entirely out of chocolate!
~playing at a playground right on the beach on the shore of Lake Michigan, and getting really wet and sandy (when it was only about 55 degrees out!)
~figuring out that pretzel sticks, peanut butter and apples make a pretty good dinner when you’re really hungry and in the middle of nowhere!
~watching the sun appear on the horizon while driving a car full of sleeping kids down the highway
~crossing the border into Canada!
~the park by the water near Toronto–with a “teeter-totter” big enough for five!
~our time in Canada, the conference and the gals who watched our kids for part of the time
~Niagara Falls (even if it was a fairly chilly day)
~buying milk in a bag (that’s how they sell it in Canada!)
~finding a really good used book store in Toronto (after Emily ran out of library books!)
~the Mall of America (who knew you could make so many things out of Legos?!)
~discovering we had a very unsafe tire at a gas station (one that “just so happened” to sell/replace tires)–all of which was much preferred to discovering this on the highway going 70 mph!
~finding a very cool McDonald’s play place right across the street from the service station where our tire was being replaced (they even had a free air hockey table!)
~visiting with our friend, “Auntie Hannah”, in South Dakota
~waking up in South Dakota to a stampede of cattle “moo-ving” down the street in front of our motel!
~seeing Mt. Rushmore (in the rain)
~arriving home to find fresh fruit in our kitchen after eating WAY too many french fries!

We have enjoyed being back home. The past 3 weeks have been a flurry of activity and a joyful mix of endings (soccer season, AWANA’s, school!) and beginnings (baseball season, summer break, having a trampoline in our yard!, and packing) We spent Memorial Day weekend celebrating Anna’s birthday and looking at rental houses. We are planning to move sometime in the next month. Kevin still does not know what ministry/job he will be doing next. His time with the Providence Network is winding down and we are trusting that it will become clear to us fairly soon!

Oh my!

It has been over 3 months since our last post . . . I guess it's good that I didn't promise we would update this every few weeks!

We have been busy with school, sports, AWANAs, friends, birthdays, Easter, church, potty training and generally trying to catch our breath! We're looking forward to summer break! The boys played basketball during the winter and Emily continued with gymnastics. Right now, all 3 are enjoying playing soccer and are looking forward to t-ball & baseball this summer. I'm attempting to post several pictures. The first is from a family fun night at Monkey Bizness just last night. The kids had a blast! The next several are from Easter & decorating eggs. Levi & Kevin both had birthdays Easter weekend. We were able to be part of a fun surprise party for Kevin at work (I wasn't able to post pictures--but he was very surprised and it was fun!). Levi, our contraption boy, had a "crazy contraption party" for his birthday, complete with plenty of kid-sized explosives! (the goofy cake with the contraption on top was for his party). Our "Auntie Penny" was hit by a car in early March, she spent most of the month in the hospital and a rehabilitation center, this photo was from a hospital visit just before St Patrick's Day. Samuel is a big 3 year old and wanted a blue car cake for his birthday! The photo of Emily and Kevin (and a teddy bear!) on ice skates is from Emily's half-birthday celebration. Last year we began a tradition of taking the kids out for a special time with (just) mom and dad for their half-birthdays. Emily loves ice-skating and chose to make that part of her special night. April 15th was Kevin's last official day as the executive director of the Providence Network (he's still working for now, training his replacement). We remain unsure of what God has next for us. We are leaving next Tuesday (April 22nd) for a conference in Canada and will be continuing to seek God for "the next step".

Pictures

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas!

Emily has been hoping for many years for a genuine white Christmas (with the snow actively falling from the sky on Christmas Day . . . otherwise, "it doesn't count"!). This year she finally got one! We awoke to find a wonderful, quiet blanket of white outside our house (which continued to fall all day long!). We spent a fairly leisurely day eating cinnamon rolls, opening gifts and playing games. In fact, we've been spending as much of our school break as possible playing games together. We also managed to squeeze some bowling in there, and our family slumber party on New Year's Eve (yes, even mom and dad managed to make it to midnight, but not much beyond!) We're still hoping to go roller skating before we resume school next week.

"Family Night" Fun

Every few weeks our family does something called Family Night. We usually do something pretty goofy in the hopes of teaching a memorable scriptural or character-related lesson to our kids. Last time we blindfolded our kids and had them touch a raw cow's tongue (making guesses about what it was). We got to talk about how "the tongue can bless or make a mess" and reinforce the power of words and what a powerful weapon the tongue can be. Tonight we allowed the kids to stand on the counter and drop an egg on the floor . . . it was really fun until they discovered that they had to clean it up!! We then encouraged them to "think about THAT before it goes splat"! to help hammer home the concept of consequences (and the importance of carefully considering our plans before acting). Emily declared it her favorite family night yet!

"Tis the season . . .

to be jolly and to decorate sugar cookies and look at Christmas lights! Somehow Christmas is less than 3 weeks away . . . the house is decorated, the carols are playing, (wisemen from the nativity are scattered all around the living room!), but Santa is not "on the ball" at all around here! Fortunately, Christmas cards have almost made it to the mailbox! The kids are looking forward to Christmas break (so is mom).

Samuel finally made the "big leap" to sleeping in his toddler bed last night and surrendered his crib to Anna. Poor crib!, it's on it's 5th child who loves to bounce up and down wildly in it (while hanging onto the side rail) . . . it will breathe a sigh of relief when it finally gets retired!

Levi and Daniel are both doing a great job learning how to read. We recently unearthed some favorite books from Lisa's childhood (which our local library considers antiques--oh my!). Regardless, the older kids have been enjoying reading the adventures of the Happy Hollisters with mom (a fictional family with 5 kids who like to go on adventures and solve mysteries) . . . Emily took it upon herself to dub us the "Grateful, Goofy, Greniers!".

Samuel and Anna are an awful lot of fun to have around and the older kids are such great helpers with them. They are both horribly attached to their "blankies" right now and both have strange fixations with their shoes! When Samuel is mad he sits down on the floor, takes off his shoes and throws them (not very far!) . . . Anna has decided that every trip in the van (no matter how short) requires that she pull off her shoes and socks the moment we pull away from the curb! (and she's far too cute to be frustrated with!).

We recently wrapped up a study on "modes of transportation" in school--Samuel was delighted to have the side benefit of watching (over and over and over again) the "hopto-cockle movie" (that's "helicopter" to the rest of us!) from the library. He also loves to request juice and milk and such from the "fwidging fwato"! One of his favorite things to do when we are out and about is to push the buttons in the "outa-gator" (elevator). It will be a sad day when he starts pronouncing things like the rest of us do!

Daniel and I were doing some work in a phonics book a few days ago where he had to choose words from a list to correspond to certain clues. The clue was "it shines on the Earth" (sun was the list word they were looking for), Daniel's answer was Jesus! I far preferred Daniel's answer! . . . such a fun reminder in this crazy, hectic season that He came as a little baby in a manger so that He could shine His light into your life and ours. We hope that you have a chance to ponder that truth this Christmas season . . . life will never be the same when that reality sinks down deep into your being.

brothers! ~ 2007

Some cute "stairstep" photos of the kids from this fall