two boys in the woods

spring in my garden...

My kiddos and I have been quite busy in our yard...

We are about to do a construction project on our house (expanding) 

so we had to move our old Keyhole garden.

The kids and I moved all the rock, and dirt and created new terraced flowerbeds on 

the other side of the yard that won't be effected by the changes!

I'm SO enjoying my little oasis and bird sanctuary.

14 years

Yesterday was our 14th wedding anniversary.

To say that I love this man I married is just beyond an understatement.

I adore every moment of my life that I get to be with him, he is pretty much awesome!

We don't go "out" on dates very often.

It's just the way it is when you have six kiddos and one of them has special needs.

We do however spend about an hour or two alone every evening before bed, 

we both carefully guard that time, the kids must all be in their rooms and it is our time.

Even if we are to tired to actually talk, we just sit beside each other.

However, in our ALLLMOST 13 years of being parents we've never been away from our kids 

for very long at all. This year... I decided we needed an entire day.

So between 3 awesome caregivers who took shifts with our kids, we got to be away 

from 9am to 9pm yesterday...

The longest I've been alone with this incredible man in YEARS.

We started our morning out with breakfast out...

Then, we thought we'd visit a lake.

But when we arrived there were 100 first graders there...

I just worked to get childcare for our 6, last thing I wanted to do was hang out with 

100 of other peoples kids!!

SO... plan B... We headed to our state capital and their "old town" 

We are pathetic, but seriously, not...

We spent a lot of our time shopping for our kids! 

hey, when else are you going to get to do it and get really "different" unique stuff! 

Besides that, part of what makes us love each other is our "ministry" to our children. 

We had an AMAZING time just walking and enjoying each other's company! 

(oh and the boss had the BEST EVER cappuccino) 

Once we'd seen what there was to see we headed back to the lake 

We figured the multitude of children would be gone since school was out by that point...

It was beautiful and much of the time we were there, 

we were the only ones!

SO beautiful and SO relaxing to just sit and watch the geese, turtles and beavers!

Get ready for picture overload:

The camera slipped after I hit the timer, but somehow, I love this shot anyhow...

seems artistically purposeful

haha!

After that we headed to dinner, where we both got our "once a year steak" 

OOOH YUMMY! 

We got "the table with a view"

that overlooks the entire city near us!

After that we went to the place that "started it all"

This is where the boss and I became engaged

in a car overlooking the city lights!

 I love you boss....

Delight in the Lord...

I'll be back soon.... 

Been busy celebrating a superhero and working on my home... Until then, 

I love this shot I took on Monday this week (today we have snow!) 

Genesis 1:21

God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, 

with which the waters swarmed after their kind,

 and every winged bird after its kind;

 and God saw that it was good.

Blessings

"What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life

Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy

what if the trials of this life

The rain, the storms, the hardest nights

are your mercies in disguise"

~blessings by Laura Story~

 in the past few days, through great pain came a beautiful mercy in disguise.

I have a back injury and usually with being careful and doing physical therapy stretches

I can keep the pain entirely manageable. 

The limitations placed on me by this injury are often infuriating 

(though the inability to clean the toilet has never bothered me to much haha!) 

But having to be careful in what I do is a constant reminder of my 

limitations and it truly is a hard pill to swallow most of the time.

I LIKE to get things done... I LIKE to move furniture

I LIKE to be in control.

The first few hours into our camping trip this past week I lost my footing exiting our camper
I had Lydia in the baby carrier and in order to keep from falling onto her I flung myself backwards,
obviously wrenching my back hard and gaining some very colorful bruises.

I sat down in tears, both of pain and of great thankfulness that Lydi was fine.
But this fall did interfere with my best laid plans for the trip.
At this moment the old injury flared back up with gusto.

Something that MUST be understood about me is this...
the very core of who I am is tied up in the mountains.
I don't just "enjoy" being in the mountains, I don't just "do" mountain things,
God has made me, a mountain girl.
Nothing more, nothing less

So I imagine it's pretty obvious what a blow it was to find myself in entirely
to much pain to continue on our first hike of the trip.
But I simply couldn't do it and so I separated from the group tears stinging my eyes.

I found a beautiful view, sat down and began to pray for peace and acceptance.
I don't generally mind solitude, but I DO mind not seeing what was over that next ridge.

A while later my oldest son came sauntering back down the trail by himself,
he plopped down beside me and said he didn't want me to be alone.

I was so overwhelmed at what a great kid my boy is.

What a great gift the Lord gave me in some time alone with Caleb!

We took use of the time and I continued on teaching him how to use my camera.
I was SO impressed with how quickly he learned how to use shutter speed to his advantage
and how he learned to work at finding different angles to bring out the beauty in his shots.

ALL of these are exactly straight out of the camera, I didn't edit a thing...
I wanted you all to see how incredible he did learning all about shutter speed.

we found a spring bubbling up out of the ground!

a heartshaped cowpie, because he is afterall, a 12 year old boy!

If we open our heart to the Lord, nothing is wasted, NOTHING, no storm
no incredible amount of pain is a wasted thing.

Mercy, He bestowed Mercy upon my heart when He sent my Caleb back to me,
When he opened up my eyes to a teaching opportunity
That while my body may be broken my ability to still be of use is not.
He reminded me yet again to "bloom where I am planted" quite literally.
I remembered the true beauty in hiking is taking your time and soaking in each tiny detail of creation
given by an incredibly creative God.