Watching the Year Roll Over

We moved a year ago this weekend. 

Wow, it's been something to look back over the last year and also to reminisce about Texas. 

We really had a great neighborhood in Texas. I miss those sweet child faces, the helpful moms and dads, the fun our kids had in that cul-de-sac. 

With those cherished memories also comes great thankfulness for being here in Missouri. We are near family and familiar friends. We are out in the country and get to watch farming very soon. We have good work to do here ~ work on this home, work at church, work in town. We have that sense of place here. The land, the church, the town ~ the Gores and Fergusons have been here a good while, and we get to add to that heritage by living here. 

We're noticing the bits of nature that struck us when we first moved here. The robins have been running around for a few weeks now. The kill-deer are back, building nests and laying eggs I presume. I see henbit giving a purple hue to the same field I noticed it in last year. Our trees are budding, the wind is blowing, there are white blossoms on a tree in town ~ dogwood, I think. 

Phillip did more work on the front porch posts. Sanding and painting. 

We weren't sure what we thought of them being black, but I think we settled on: "We like it." 

Just sittin' around the kitchen talkin'.

Elizabeth came to visit over her Spring Break. She's reading the proof of my Charlotte Mason book. It'll be available very soon. Twila and I have a couple of podcast interviews lined up to talk about the book. I'll post links when they're out. Talk about nerve-wracking! I'd much rather write than speak. At least these are audio only. :-) And it's very nice to do this with Twila so I'm not in it alone.

At the Junction with Mimi and Papa.

Carl. 

Just...... 

Why can't we cuddle with you, Carl? 

Why do you have to always run away? 

Phoebe's been able to get closer to some of the others. I'm calling the most friendly one "Charlie." Even though no one else wants to call it that since we had a fish named Charlie. I guess I'll call him Charlie, and they can call him whatever, and we'll see who wins.

 

Spring is Coming

 I feel like the February blah's wiggled their way into March this year instead of arriving in February. I'm trying to figure out what the blah's are: maybe they come from dreary, cold weather? from the end-of-holiday slump? from school droning on? 

Anyway, we had some great warm weather which turned cold again. But I really can smell spring in the air. The blah's will not be around much longer!

This is Phillip's favorite of our seven cats. She's named Carl. We don't know for sure that she's a she. But I think she has a really feminine look, and she's very dainty and shy. She was named Carl before the female qualities came out, so she'll remain Carl. 

Phillip and Jonathan participated in our church's leadership seminar presented by John Mitchell from the CRA. Phillip took a quick picture of Jonathan. He'd had to work that day, but was able to make it to half of the presentation. 

Phillip and Jamie have been working with the youth group boys, teaching them how to write communion meditations. I really appreciate and love that our kids are learning how to lead and serve in the church.

On a sunny day last week, Harrison and a couple friends went to the park to enjoy some outside time. At one point I couldn't find them. Turns out they were climbing this evergreen.

Sunday nights are geared toward adults and teens, but sometimes we end up with a passel of kids too. Kids running around the church building on Sunday nights ~ I have those memories, and I'm glad we made it here in time for Harrison to make some of his own.

Youth group kids doing the dishes Sunday night. How great is that?!

Kitty footprints in the snow at sunset.

Excitement!

There've been several exciting things happen these past weeks.

Today is another snow day for town -- the YMCA closed -- so I'm spending my time on the computer today instead of walking the treadmill with Christy.

There is good work to be done on the computer. Amy and Tina at Blue Sky Daisies and
Twila are working hard to get this Charlotte Mason book out the door, which, for me means, read and tweak, read and tweak! 

I started researching for this project around the time of Grandma Phoebe's funeral (2018) because I remember talking to some family about it. So it's been a bit; it's thrilling to see it coming together for the Spring!

The big snow we had a couple of weeks ago gave me opportunity to do some wilderness trekking. Doesn't this snow remind you of sand dunes? Or undisturbed sediment on a river bottom?

I walked down the north field in Harrison's snow boots. I didn't make it to the main road (I think that's about a mile) even though I was plenty warm. Turns out it wasn't cold on the way north. But the way south was against the wind, and my ears were not as protected as they could have been. Brrr. 

Jonathan bought a film camera at a garage sale and these four pictures are some of the ones he got back from his first roll of film. 

Jonathan in silhouette. 

(Guess how many tries it took me to spell silhouette. 

Too many.)

The beautiful Gabry.

Snow angels in the big snow.

He did a good job photographing.

Some of the other excitement last week was our friend Emmey Harris on Collegiate Jeopardy!! We were over-the-moon excited to watch her compete. She came back from negative money (I think it was -$600) to win the round! She will be on ABC again Friday night (tomorrow) for the Semifinals, or you can watch it on Hulu the next night (which is what we'll have to do, so I'm not going to get on Facebook all day Saturday so I can be surprised when we watch it.) 

(Hopefully I'll remember to stay off Facebook.) 

(Please remind me if you see me on Facebook, that I need to stay off so I can be surprised.)

This is Emmey and Elizabeth at our house in Iowa with Emmey's dad Cody. 

Sha babies!

And the other excitement last week was attending Super Start with Harrison and the youth group. The excitement describes the feelings of the all of the youths at this event and not necessarily the feelings of the adults at this event. If you love loud noises, spot lights shining in your eyes, and sleeping on cold gym floors, then this event is for you!

Actually, I had a really good time. A friend (Brittany) and I got to go together, so that definitely upped the quality of the weekend. 

Also, look at these sweet faces. 

Before each session would start, there would be 5 minutes of count-down screaming. 

Five full minutes.

Of screaming. 

The event knew us though; they provided earplugs.

I asked Harrison what his favorite part was. He said it was Small Group time. Super Start had an app for the phone so that Small Group was interactive (brave of the youth ministers to pass their phone around to 4-6th graders though 😳). 

Brittany's daughter Bonnie.

Breakfast at Krispy Kreme! 

After a cold, restless night, a large caramel latte hit the spot. Mike (our youth minister) had it worse than we girls did though; he had a boy with a stomachache up a good portion of the night. Nothing that didn't pass though; thank goodness it wasn't the flu!

Brittany and I.

One of our girls had her birthday that Saturday, so she got to go up on stage and receive a gift.

CIY does Super Start. They do know how to put on a fun time for the kids. And they shared the Gospel; several times in different ways. 

Our group taking a picture with two of the stage actors. They were funny and the kids thought they were really cool. 

Lunch at Incredible Pizza in St. Louis. 

Harrison's favorite game at the arcade was Star Wars.

We always super appreciate the youth leaders we've had in our lives. They do the crazy, fun, tiring stuff for our kids. They teach them the Bible alongside us. 

We've always had great ones: Levi, Danny, Richard, others here and there, and now Mike. 

This is a favorite dessert of Jonathan's. I made it for Valentine's Day for the family. 

Strawberry Pretzel Dessert. 

Weirdos. 

Every time we open the kitchen door, they attack the back porch door begging for food.

See. We feed them.

Soft foggy Sunrise. 

Naturally gaussian blurred.

 

Snow Days

Everything shut down for the big snow this past week. At the beginning of the week, the town turned out to fill up with gas, stock up on groceries, and run errands. And it turned out that the town knew what it was about. 

We had two days of most everything being closed. Since we homeschool and Phillip works from home, not too much was different for us. We still did school and work. We just couldn't go to the Y or the coffee shop or meet up with friends. Not that we could have driven out of here even if those places had been open. 

Mr. R had our driveway and lane cleared once the snow stopped (thank you so much!); then Jon was able to go to work, Phillip met with a friend for lunch, I took Harrison to birthday parties, etc. 

This was a dry, blowy snow. 

So we have large patches of grass in our yard and then tall snow drifts against the house and shed. 

What I especially love about snow right now, is that the kids can get themselves dressed for it. And then enjoy it with me watching from a window. I'm glad they have each other to play with. Harrison did have to bribe Phoebe the second day. He promised to play poker with her if she would go outside with him. And then Jon just joined in after he saw them out there.

Jon is a good older brother. He's helping Harrison get all the snow off in the sink. 

The first day I had grilled cheese and tomato soup waiting for them when they came in from the snow. The second day they cooked whatever it was they were hungry for. Phoebe made Mac and Cheese. Jon made pancakes and bacon for him and Harrison. I probably had boudin' that my parents gave me. (Does anyone around here like boudin'?) Phillip has been liking nachos for supper lately. 

"he can skip rocks so i feel pretty lucky" 

😂

I swiped this picture from Elizabeth's Instagram. 

This led to a whole discussion amongst the family about men and sports. Phoebe thought Jon and Dad were going to be okay since Dad had played t-ball and basketball (and is already taken) and Jonathan had played soccer. But she turned on Harrison, who was insistent he would never play sports, and said, "How are girls gonna be attracted to you if you don't play any sports?!" 

And he retorted, finger in air: "Knowledge!" 

And then it resorted to everyone agreeing that Harrison already has no problem endearing himself to the girls, and Harrison wished for a broken nose so that the girls wouldn't say he was 'adorable', and Phoebe told him that would only make him more ruggedly handsome so just deal with it.

All of that from Liz's adorable instagram picture of her and Amos.

This landscape has me imagining a trek to the South Pole. I cannot imagine walking through this icy cold knowing that your respite was going to be a tent you had to set up and a fire you had to make yourself. If that's even how South Pole trekking goes. 

Brrrr. I'm glad I just have to trek from a warm vehicle to my warm house. I have to admit the adventure of it is a little romantic though.