Time with Friends

This past weekend my friends from college John and Carrie Larson came to visit us. Dave and John went moutain biking in Rock Cut and I am hoping that John still likes us after Dave tried to "show him the whole park" in like an hour! poor guy.

Anyway, it was great hanging out and enjoying yummy dinner at Five Forks. Of course we forgot to take pictures till we were in the parking lot so here are our vain attempts thanks to go-go gadgit arms! Come back soon!

Solverson Pool Party

When Charlie and Patty Solverson come into town, all the Solverson's come out of the woodwork to see each other. We had the pleasure of having a small family gathering at our house on August 2nd. The weather was perfect for a never-ending game of 'grey-hairs' vs. 'young bucks' pool volleyball in our back yard. I have never seen a volleyball game go on for quite that long! It was great to see everyone and all the cousins. I am still learning all their names after 5 years now, but it seems like there is a new one I don't remember meeting each time we gather! I come from family with 3 cousins who I have seen maybe 5 times in my whole life! I am glad everyone had a great time and I look forward to making this a summer tradition.

Mom moves into the neighborhood

I am still wondering if showing my mom the house around the corner was a good idea. Originally I thought it would be a great house and casually mentioned it when on a walk one day. Little did I know a month or so later she would be moving in. Hmmmm.... but then I remember, it was nothing short of a miracle that she did move, and so obviously the Lord has some reason to have my mother within walking distance. Dave says...As long as we can't see her yard we will be okay...of course, Kona bean thoroughly enjoys gramzy moving in and practically runs to her house each time we are on a walk.

Here are a few pictures of my mom's move. The move to end all moves. The move we all thought would NEVER happen. Of course the story is not over yet, but what a trememdous first step and I believe, a gift to her from the Lord.

Fun with Baby Landon

So I am always happy to have my good friend Holly and her little boy Landon over for some fun in my pool and living room. He is fascinated with my curtains and enjoys making lovely noises on with my tupperware. He also is a little fishy and doesn't care that our pool is only 79 degrees and enjoys playing motorboat with his mommy! Try as we do, we can never seem to swim on the super hot summer days; we always seem to get the cloudy ones! It was also a special treat this past week to have Holly's sister Sarah visit. They are both very sweet and came over to encourage me, how nice to have such thoughtful friends!

Waiting Patiently

Many of you have heard that I had my fourth miscarriage last month during an 8 week check up. This time was especially hard as we were more confident that the hormones I was on would be the answer. But God has a different plan for our lives than what we would like. This is the hardest part about life. Waiting on the Lord and trusting Him that His will be done. We don't like to wait, and I most of all do not like to wait for anything. I have been learning to really lean on the Lord in ways I never did before. I have learned to have to thank the Lord for all things as this is His will, 1 Thess., and that has been so much easier said than done. Yet, I do rejoice for these trials as they have taught me much about patience, faith and spending time each day in God's word, but have also brought Dave and I closer together. I am very thankful for that.
The doctor has a few more tests he wants to do in the next months and next time we will be adding heparin to the cocktail of drugs I am on! Please continue to pray for us that we will not be discouraged and will continue to have hope.

4th of July

We kicked off the 4th of July festivities this year with a birthday party for Holly at her house. The next morning, on the 4th, hours before everyone was to arrive, Dave and I ran around to all the home improvement stores shopping for patio furniture! Talk about last minute. We did end up with some great deals, but we definetely exhausted by the late afternoon. And then, another 4th of July party at our house! The weather was perfect, although just a bit cool. This didn't stop Olivia from swimming around the pool. We can always count on her to swim no matter how cool it is! No one else was brave enough to don a suit and jump in. We grilled out, sans chicken thighs!, took a walk around the neighborhood, shared thoughts on the importance of this holiday and then later went downtown and sat on the bridge to watch the fireworks. I made a 4th of July ice cream cake I was very proud of and everyone enjoyed!

Early summer Fun

here are a few pictures showing what we have been up to the past few months. We have been working on the pool, went canoeing on the river with Christie, Rob and Jacob, Dave has been fishing a few times and Kona had her first experience with fish. The yard is coming together and Dave has been doing more of him fantastic landscaping. I am only in charge of weeding. Apparently I am a "random planter" and most of my plants don't live. Oh well, something to work on. We also have a garden this year and have tomatoes, cucumbers, a pumpkin, a squash and some green peppers. How tasty! I love my husband, but he can kind of be a hill billy... I do not dress him when he wears his river gear.

Madison Bratfest!

At the end of May we went up and visited the Taylor family in Madison. We spent the day in Madison, visited Ben's college house by UW, had a brat at Bratfest, my fav!, and took Mo for her first experience of Trader Joe's. She totally loved it! It is always great seeing the Taylor family and we look forward to seeing them real soon.

Tosca!

This past weekend I sang in the chorus in the RSO's production of Puccini's Tosca. I sang in the chorus for Boheme 2 years ago and was very excited to be chosen to sing again. It is quite the experience to sing with such wonderful, professional opera singers! These singers have performed in opera houses all over the world and it was a great opportunity to have them here in Rockford. We housed a couple from the production staff and enjoyed spending time with them again. Here is picture of myself with fellow chorus members Karen and Beth. I also had the pleasure of working with my friend Abbe on the Opera. Ms. Abbe graciously donated her time to be an extra in the show and it was much fun watching her shine in her spotlight performance! Abbe would like to thank me for giving her this opportunity... even if initially she said she would "never speak to me again," I know deep down she loved it. :)

Thanks Dave and Dad for coming to see me!

Happy Mother's Day

So we had Mother's Day a few days late this year. But we went all out on a dinner for my mom this year. She LOVES lobster and so we decided to cook her a lobster dinner. Rob shipped lobsters all the way from Maine and then cooked them along with other scrumptous sides! It was very tasty and a great time in honor of our wonderful mother. We also sang her a song..."Make Me A Blessing." Although it wasn't our best performance, the thought and the words to that song were much more important and meaningful. Make me a blessing, make me a blessing. All of my life, may Jesus shine! Make me a blessing, to some one today.

Hawaii!!

At the end of January we had the opportunity to visit Hawaii with the Solverson's for a bit of much needed R & R. This was a wonderful vacation! We snorkeled and I took that picture of the turtle underwater, Dave showed us his skills in surfing, and we just enjoyed the scenery and sunshine ( my personal favorite!)

Winter Recap

So it has been too long since I posted. ekkk... that is no good. Here are some pics that recap our winter. My brother graduated from NIU College of Engineering with his Master's and we threw him a party, my friend Kelly is getting married this spring and was in town for her bridal shower. We went sledding and got an insane amount of snow.

On a more somber note, I had my third misscarriage and D & C this winter. There was nothing wrong with this baby either, so in February I went to a fertility specialist who thinks I am low in hormones and will try this with me next time I am pregnant. This was a very trying time for me, but I know the Lord makes no mistakes in what he gives us and that has been a small encouragement to me.

Family Reunion

It was the worst possible day to drive, but our second cousins drove up from the Peoria area anyway to get together for the first time in a long while. It was decided a number of months ago we all needed to get together and see each other and it not be at a wedding or funeral, so the menu was set and they all drove up. We had a great afternoon of food, fellowship, fruit basket upset- at which Aunt Jean was the most fun, and games. Our favorite game was "Name that Hymn" which the girls won thanks to the superb musical memory of the Philip's women. It was great to see everyone and we look forward to getting together again real soon.

Dan and Jo come to visit...and our HS Reunion

Dan and Jo came to visit beginning of November and we had the opportunity to attend our HS reunion with them. Little Jed is so cute and Issac has really grown up and become quite the little charmer! It was so much fun to hang out and take homecoming pictures with them before the reunion. We can't wait to see them in Hawaii this coming January!

The reunion was very interesting. It was cool to see everyone and how we have all grown up and married, and to see who we have married.

God Makes No Mistakes

Haven't updated this in awhile, but I did want to share that I did have another miscarriage at the beginning of October. This time I was only around 7 1/2 weeks along, but the tests have revealed that again there was nothing wrong with the baby. So we are having healthy babies, I just can't seem to continue carrying them. The doctor says I will need hormones next time, but he will be running other tests to make sure there are no other problems. Just continue to pray for us as we wait on the Lord's timing for a little one.

WEEK 1 OF HUNTING SEASON NO DICE!!!!!

Well it all started last week at work when the steel fabarctor said they were out of truck loads of steel to send us. So I was given Tuesday through Friday off! Knowing how fortunate I was to hunt opening week of archery season , I was obviously very excited to have all this time off. So I hunted Monday evening, Tuesday all day- swaying in the tree during a wind storm that evening, and then I started getting burned out on Wednesday. Thursday morning the temperature dropped, which allows more deer movement, so I saw three or four deer, one of which was an eight pointer, but it was too dark to shoot. I also saw a doe and a fawn the size of our Kona bean! Thursday night I was back in the woods again and again I saw two does walk under my stand but it was too dark to shoot! By Friday it was getting just too hot! So, I still hunted Friday morning and Saturday morning, but have officially declared a hunting holiday for myself until the weather cools down.

For the record, Keri thinks I am nuts.

odds and ends

Just some random pictures of what we have been up to in the past few weeks. Dave went paintballing with all the guys and thought it would be a great idea to bellycrawl across the field to take somebody out. Well he had the last laugh when he wound up with tons of chigger bites all over his body! Anyway, you can see the tons of tomatoes we got from our garden this year! my goodness... and this was the second picking. We ended up with over 100.

We are also refinishing a dresser... this has changed from my weekend project to my summer/fall project.

Here is our whiteboard... Dave is getting a little excited for deer hunting season...

And lastly, hanging out at Jer's football game. Dave really likes to be the center of attention!

Dave's Birthday

A few weeks late, but better than never! We celebrated Dave's 29th Birthday with his family a few weekends ago. Dave loves cake... especially Kim's cake and he really wanted Dan to know just how tastey the cake was!