In Christ Alone our Hope is Found

Grace turned 7 on June 15. My yummy baby is not so little anymore. She will always be my baby. I know she is not the youngest, but in my heart I put her with Tessa. Two babies is ok. (: I took this while Ken and I were going for a walk on our anniversary night. It's so pretty.  I like this one too. (:  School is done. The kids and I have been slow for a few weeks already. But Ken and Micah are finally home. The year went quickly, but was still long, if that makes sense. I got my first shipment of school books and I am so excited to start again. We need this time of rest, but my new history curriculum looks amazing. It's not just history. I can use it for bible, geography and even do novel studies with it. We did our history backwards. We did Canadian history last year and are doing world this year. It still works. (:  We are planning to do a little school with kids this summer. We do half a lesson of math a day. I am also doing grammar with Grace. She is su

Walking back from the mailbox, the wind was whistling and the trees were swaying and I felt like I was at the ocean. Since I am a water girl, it was dreamy. I just closed my eyes and breathed deeply. It was like medicine. I felt completely content in the moment. But I did more than enjoy the beauty. It made me look up and I saw this. But I didn't just see the trees or squint my eyes against the sun or feel the cool breeze on my face, I saw who God is. His kindness. His grace. His beauty. His power. His love for me. His sovereignty and His faithfulness. In the busy, I tend to put my head down literally and figuratively and just do it. I don't have the brain space or the physical energy to pour into other people or things like my heart longs to do and I get bogged down and forget to really look up and see. Do you ever wish things were different? Sometimes it's easy to get caught in a pattern of waiting for our next stage of life or for our circumstances to change....

I have been trying to write a blog post for a while now about today and the words aren't coming. But I need to write something  so this day is here in writing. (: Ken and I have been married for 20 years today (yesterday). It feels like a life time ago that we said I do. We have experienced unspeakable joy and have had so much fun together with lots of laughing. (: The Lord has also taken us through twists and turns that have stretched us, matured us, broken us, built us up and sanctified us. We have experienced His grace, mercy, love and faithfulness in very real ways.  I thank the Lord for my best friend. He has made me giddy and given me butterflies since I was 14 1/2 years old. I can't imagine walking through this life with anyone else. I would say I do all over again today. I thought I would try to find some pictures of us. They are almost non-existent. The ones below are pretty much the only ones I could find in the last 7 years. We were going to take one last n