Lost in the Maze

We had a great time at a corn maze with some friends this weekend. It was a beautiful day - a bit cool and windy but still nice. The maze was fun and challenging and the farm where it located was so pretty. Beautiful views, lots of cool old buildings and a variety of animals.

We went right over Audrey's nap time but she did great. She looked like her eyes were going to close at any moment but she stayed awake for it all.

I wanted to LIVE at this farm. It was so peaceful, simple and beautiful

Through trial and error, multiple dead ends and many laughs we figured out the maze! If you can call random paths, lots of mistakes and being completely turned around most of the time figuring it out. :-) So, after conquering (or I mean stumbling across the exit) we pulled our map out and explored a bit - trying to make sense of where we were instead of just randomly choosing paths. Map or no map, I never knew where I was - I just followed the guys. My exact location didn't matter as long as they knew and we were all having fun :-)

Looks like I caught Brock cutting through the corn! Hey Mr. that's not allowed!!

There was an added adventure for the kids. They were given paper bags at the beginning and had to find 5 people hidden throughout the maze with orange buckets of candy. After receiving some candy they would get their bag stamped. Once they collected all the stamps they had found all the candy givers! They had fun searching - and fun eating!

Our whole group - us and our friends Mike and Erika with their three boys, Kevin, Luke and Andrew. Imagine all of us walking, running twirling and giggling our way through the maze. Yikes!

These cows were HILARIOUS. We noticed right away how short and fat they were - it was so crazy looking. We proceeded to read the sign - they were miniature cows! I had no idea there was a such thing. Look at that cow - it is shorter than Hannah! They were really friendly and the kids loved them. They all had name tags on their ears so we are still hearing about Erica, Sophie, Darla and Lucy!

Oh look - there is Erica - she was the kid's fave!

Kevin, Madison and Isaac. I really loved the neat barn! I decided I better let the kids get in the picture too :-)

They had several big black horses (percherons according to our resident horse expert Madison). They were very cool to see!

All the kids minus the two littles - Hannah, Luke, Madison, Kevin and Isaac.

We all had so much fun and can't wait to go again next year!

Us

Things have been so busy. We have had a great summer - trying to pack in all that we can. We have been busy camping, travelling, visiting family, hosting guests, doing summer activities, enjoying each other and the beauty around us. One of these days I will get pieces of it posted here. Until then . . . .

13 Years

Brock and I just celebrated 13 years of marriage!! In one sense I can't believe it has been 13 years and at the same time it's like "wow, only 13 years".

I love how each year brings us closer together, more in love, more tolerant of little imperfections and so much more in tune with each other. I can't imagine loving him more than I already do but experience has shown me that next year I WILL!

Our 13 years have encompassed life to the fullest - happiness, sadness, changes, stability, fun times, boring times, uncertainty, confidence, excitement, challenges, endurance, patience, love and so much more. Through all the changes we have learned about God's sovereignty, His power and His stability. We have learned to count on this when changes in emotions, feelings, settings and circumstances occur.

In 13 years we have:

*had 4 kids

*lived in 7 different homes (4 apt. & 3 houses)

*lived in 2 different states

*made 3 big moves

*owned 1 pet

*owned 2 houses

*started and ran a business together for 5 years

In 13 years we have:

*learned about love and respect

*learned about submission

*learned about leaving and cleaving

*learned about handling our anger

*learned about holding our tongues

*learned about parenting together

*learned about compromise

*learned about encouraging one another

*learned about praying for one another

*learned about praying together

and most of all learned that our standard in ALL of this needs to be GOD and what He commands in His Word

In 13 years we have:

*been silly together

*been exhausted together

*been sick together

*been devastated together

*been happy together

*been excited together

*been scared together

*been thrilled together

and so much more

but most of all we have learned that the key to it all is being TOGETHER

In 13 years we have learned

*that the sole purpose of marriage isn't our happiness but to refine us and make us more like Him

*that we can't expect each other to meet all our needs - only God can do that

*that we can't find our purpose in one another or our kids but in Him

*that we will suffer hardship and He will see us through it

*that hardship and trials truly do bring us closer together

*that we can trust God to work on our spouses so we don't need to :-)

*that putting the other above ourself is always best

*that our emotions can deceive us

*that communication is key but not necessarily immediate communication :-)

*that God always knows what is best even when we don't

and we continue to relearn these lessons and so many more

We know that without God in our marriage we wouldn't have the marriage we do today. We thank Him for bringing us together so many years ago and for staying with us every step of the way. He has guided us even when we weren't paying any attention to Him, He has comforted us although we were still asking "WHY", He has led us despite us being less than willing to follow. He has been more to us than we ever deserved. We have learned to seek His counsel, His guidance and teaching and we count on it as we journey through many more years together.

Happy Easter

“‎He is risen! And O the overflow of that single event. It was the cosmic Yes! from God the Father that the death had done all it was meant to do.”

— John Piper
Desiring God

We had a great Easter. Things have been really busy since returning from MN so it was very nice to have a low key celebration with just the six of us.

Brock has a new job (which is why we were in MN earlier this month) and with that new job is a new shop/retail store. He has been busy getting it up and running. I like being there to help him and the kids love playing outside and exploring everything. We decided to do their easter egg hunt there and it was a huge success. They LOVED it. We gave them their baskets with a couple things in it - one of which was a webkinz. They were so shocked and thrilled and it was so fun to capture it with my camera.

The hunt begins! The kids had painted eggs with grandma the day before so we had lots of eggs to hide and a beautiful sunny day to enjoy while searching.

It was so fun to watch Hannah because she was so excited when she would find one. This was her first egg hunt and she enjoyed it thoroughly.

The shop has a lot of tall grass, a little man made pond, private road for bike riding and horses next door - what more could a kid ask for :-)

Gingerbread Houses

A couple weeks ago the kids and I headed over to Grandma's to make gingerbread houses. Unfortunately, I was so engrossed in house building that I didn't get any pictures of the process :-) Thankfully, I did get the finished product (and the proud workers).

Audrey slept in her swing the entire time - allowing me to do much more than I expected! Yeah!

She woke up in a good mood - ready to practice her rolling skills. Although she didn't quite conquer the roll she had fun trying.

Hello sweet baby!

Thanksgiving

We were going to go to ND for Thanksgiving to see my family but bad weather prevented it. We were disappointed but had a nice day with Matt & Donna instead (and a delicious meal).

No "photo shoot" is complete without some silly faces

A Birthday Visitor

My friend Rachel had her 40th birthday and her husband gave her a trip to visit me as a present! How fun to benefit from her birthday present!! We had a great time. The kids LOVED the extra attention they received from her and the house echoed with, "Rachel, come see this" "Rachel, look" "Rachel, are you coming" etc etc. It was funny and a nice break from "mom . . . . ". Audrey loved the extra holding she received and I loved having someone around all day to talk to, shop with, scrapbook with, have a latte with etc. etc.

While she was here we hit the thrift store and a couple consignment stores, went out to eat at McKenzie River Pizza, visited a really cool pottery store and had dessert and coffee and scrapbooked. We had big plans to try digital scrapbooking for the first time. It was much more involved that we realized, more expensive that we thought and took a bit of getting used to. Thankfully, we found some free software as well as free downloads (backgrounds, letters and embelishments) so we only had to pay to print each page. Rachel did several pages and I spent most of my time downloading free stuff because I didn't have the pics I wanted on my computer. I am anxious to actually do a page because Rachel's turned out great and I have LOTS of well organized free stuff :-) That is so ME - lots of preparing, organizing and sorting and little action :-) Brock came into the family room late one night and found us busy scrapbooking. He laughed at how serious and intent we both looked, how we were working in the midst of such a mess, how BRIGHT Rachel's screen was and how Audrey was there sleeping through it all! Seeing what he saw (through the pics) makes me laugh too - he was right about it all :-)