Gracie's favorite place to be!  

Ryan and Daddy driving the tractor! 

Bailey practicing for a fall catalog shoot :) 

Ryan in the leaves 

Dee Dee 

mom and dad enjoying a Sunday afternoon on horseback. 

Catch up time!

Family time well spent on a Sunday.... We had fun today, and I am going to be able to record it, hallelujah! I am sitting here typing because my husband has finally given up his throne in our living room, aka, the computer chair! I try to attribute his desire to shut down, and have quiet time to those men years ago that would come in and read the newspapers, but in our generation, it's the computer. If you ever are in an airplane with my husband and the pilot for some reason or another, can no longer fly, just send my husband into the cockpit, because I think we could log his flight hours into the thousands....on his flight simulator games anyway. ;) I don't mean to joke at his expense, He is a wonderful husband, but he is truly a proficient pilot, because of the hours he has dedicated to practicing with his simulator.... :)

On to our wonderful day... Starting out with sleeping in late, and then making breakfast as a family, and then on to church and then the rest of the day at the barn. Our church service was really good, and one of Bailey's little friends from school got to share with the entire congregation about how she was able to share the salvation message with a 103 year old woman in a nursing home on their field-trip on Thursday. This woman accepted Christ into her heart, and our congregation was so excited! We all cried and stood to applaud.

Scott and I rode and played with the horses as did the kids. At one point I had Ryan with me on Sierra and Scott had Bailey on Brownie. We were trotting around and the kids were laughing hysterically! It was such fun! Grace was sitting at the other end pretending to be a judge at a horse show. What fun! Then we stopped at our favorite Grocery store for a few items and we always enjoy shopping together!

We have some sad news to report...Last week we lost a very important member of our family. One that was bound to go sooner or later...but as of Last Sunday, we said goodbye to our faithful friend...Our Mini-Van. She made it to 142,000 miles. Then she just had to give up. So my wonderful husband, the all-knowing, most fantastic, incredibly-thoughtful, hard-working, dutiful, not to forget, good-looking man went and battled the car dealership. He spent many grueling hours there drinking mountain-dew and shmoozing those salesmen, in order to do his best for his family. (You can't pay me to spend time in a car dealership!) He called me and asked me to come and look at a few vehicles. He waited for two hours for me to come for two minutes to sit in two cars and tell him which one I liked. I decided on a sparkly marroonish red dodge durango, which the kids and I affectionately named today, Dee Dee. For the boys reading this I will include the following details: It is 4X4, 360 c.i., loaded, with black leather interior, aluminum wheels with BF Goodrich all-terrains. (Scott helped me with that.) 66,000 miles with a 36 months/36,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty. I can not put into words how happy my husband is that we are no longer in the mini-van stage of our journey through parenthood. This still seats 7 like the mini vans do, but the kids are big enough now that at least one can strap herself in by herself. :)

Also thanks to my dad for his help in many ways with this. His unending help and advice in all things that we need financial guidance on is irreplaceable. You are such a blessing, Dad.
God is so faithful to us in all things. He is so generous with his love. I am beginning to see this in so many ways, including our need for things like vehicles. Thanks to God for caring about all of our details.

Update on family...the kids are doing really well in school....I am watching Bailey grow so much so fast! We see each other a lot at school, and she is developing some really neat friendships with her friends there. Ryan and Grace have their friends as well, but truly they are each other's favorite people. They hug and kiss and call each other, "honey." The other day Ryan told Miss Kim that he wasn't going to school because Grace needed him. I asked him why he said that and he responded, "Because she said she didn't want me to leave."

Scott and I are enjoying our jobs, and busy so much of the time. We love being able to do what God wants us to do. Which is different for each of us. I love teaching. It's going very well. I am thankful that this is the job that God has given me, although I still do miss my children during the day, I am thankful that I get to see them at school, and I have more time off with them as a teacher than I would in any other profession. Thank you, Lord once again for caring about the details.

We pray that you guys are well. I hope we can do better at keeping up. Maybe I could hide Scott's flight sim. game once a week, so I can catch everyone up! :) JK