Gideon's Friend Party

Gideon, our NICU wonder, has turned 8 years old. Today he had his friend party. We raced home from church to the valley to attend! This is always a fun time to celebrate with family and do a quick connect with dear ones from our prior church. 

The theme today was Pokemon. I would love to know where Bre gets her party planning theme making abilities. She is good at this. 

There were tattoos, face painting, games and food - all the fun elements of a good birthday party. LOL 

Joelle and Rebekah are getting good at face painting!

Stacia and Allie 

Myself and Arielle - I like this photo!

God has blessed us good with our son in laws! Luke included! 

Izaak (Trudy and Gideon in background) & Cory

Benny 

A cute shot of Jojo and Gideon playing with Ellie. But check out the little feet in the upper left corner. My guess is Trudy finally managed to climb the counter to the goodies. LOL 

Annie and Trudy! Check out that face art! 

We arrived before CoRielle. They had to lead a church service and celebrate a friend's graduation before coming to the party. As they walked in Charles sized up the room. He ran over to me very excited and screamed, "Baachan!!!! YOU BROUGHT GG!" His love of Dad is sweet. I asked if he wanted to go say hi to GG and he didn't, but he was very happy to see he was at the party. LOL  

Charles and Danny seem to be enthralled with coffee huts or drive throughs. They found all the pieces to play the game at BreZaak's as well as our yard. LOL 

CoRielle's 4 year olds

These days always fill my love tank with joy. I don't take for granted the blessing of living near adult Gherkins and the way they allow us to be a part of their families. By fall two of the girls will have moved out of state. A son is contemplating a similar move within the year...God shined on us when He directed us to Alaska instead of to Japan in 2015. We couldn't see the plan then, but we are blessed beyond measure on this end. Yes, "That'll preach!" 

Note: all photos are from BreAnne. I tried to keep children other than family off the blog....since I didn't expressly check in for permission to publish their images. There WERE lots of friends at the party. 

Mornings in the Garden are Back

 I set my alarm early this Sunday morning to be sure, in the midst of the hustle and bustle of getting everyone to Eagle River without Michael, I had time to sit in the garden. There's not much but weeds and dirt out here just now. 

Ah - but I have set my chair out and it was waiting. I bring a nice hot cuppa chai with me, and I sit and listen to the birds, and the occasional moose moving out in the woods. I sit with the weeds and the potential represented by the beds, and I dream and hope.  I sit with my thoughts, and they seamlessly become prayers and with no effort at all I sense His still and quiet voice of comfort and hope.  If nothing but weeds grow, these mornings make gardening worth the effort in this season. If the moose break through my bungee corded deterrent and eat all my little starts, these early morning garden moments are still worth the effort. 

I have come to realize there is a whole lot more than dirt and weeds out here. There is the awareness of Jesus and there is hope, comfort, peace and possibilities out here. 

What IS this? 

I had 30 minutes before I had to begin the morning routine. The girls knew what time we needed to leave. The problem this morning was me and GG. The shirt I gave him didn't fit any longer. He was a bit slower moving than I expected, and we were JUST making it out of the door on time. I started the van and discovered...

...I had less than a 1/4 tank of gas.  I WANTED to take the back hwy in and avoid construction - it's closer to our home. I did NOT want to go into town for gas. I googled how many miles it was from my door to the church's door - it is 33 miles. I checked the cars nifty readout to find out how many miles it estimated I had left in the tank - 21 miles. There isn't a lot between here and the church on the back hwy. 

We had to run into town, where it too 15 1/2 gallons to fill my 16 gal tank.  We usually show up at ACF 11:15 and save seats for all the Gherkins. I could tell we wouldn't make it by 11:15...however, we were the only Gherkins at church this week, so we weren't letting anyone down. 

I would like to say right here there should be a special place in heaven, or at least at ACF, for someone who can make it from the Valley to the church in 27 minutes. I believe, in Liberia, they called it the sinner's bench at the back of the church. 

Church was so worth the effort to get there. Randolph did an excellent job of presenting the difference between religion and relationship. I'm excited to journey through the book of Romans this summer.  Worship reminded me once again, death doesn't win. It's been conquered.