Flowers

I enjoy puttering with perennials in my flower beds.  This year I hope to keep up with the progress by taking pictures more often.  Maybe the pictures will help next spring when i can't remember what's planted where!

First trip to the beach - 2010

The beaches along Lake Michigan really are beautiful.  We haven't taken full advantage of living so close, but we did enjoy it today!

Paul's Graduation

Paul graduated from Byron Center Charter School May 27, 2010.  We're proud of him and excited about his plans for the future.  He'll be heading to Bethany Bible College in the fall where he'll study global missions.

Congratulations, Paul!  We love you!!

David playing ball

First time at bat for the night and he gets a beautiful base hit!

Hanging out on the deck

One of the things I love about warm evenings is sitting on my porch swing and having my guys hang out with me.  This was a rare moment when I had 5 of them at once.  The picture only shows Paul, Philip, and Andrew, but we were also enjoying the company of Thomas and Sam.

Just playing with technology...

I'm trying to see how smart my new smart phone is when the user is not so smart! :-) 

If i can figure out this mobile thing, I just might do more blogging!

Daniel lost his first tooth!

And no, the Elmer's bottle in the background is not him trying to glue it back in! Don't have a clue why that was on the deck!

May

"The Wedding"

Abby and Simeon were married at College Wesleyan Church on May 9th. It was an absolutely wonderful time! The wedding was beautiful and the time with family and friends precious.

Tony Purkey, Thomas Jones, Simeon, David Turkington, Josh Jones, Paul Jones

David and Daniel Jones

 

Megan Stewart, Kelly Wright, Abby, Lindi Simmons, Holly Carlton, Amity Turkington

Anna and Caroline Norris

Our beautiful family!

She was very happy.....................                                 

                         ............he was rather bored! :)

Trying to catch up!

This may be hopeless...but I'd really like to try to get back to keeping up this blog! Some of the boys have been reminding me that I haven't been doing it, and they seem to enjoy it when I do. If nothing else, it's a good family archive!

So .....backing up to last February! The last entry was about Jack. He's still with us and doing great. He's been a really good pet. I didn't realize how much he'd shed, but other than that, no major complaints!

March brought us a spring thaw. All the snow was gone early in the month and while it didn't warm up much, we did stay snow free for the rest of the season. In March we also found our replacement vehicle for the Geo that had been totaled in the accident the previous fall. We enjoy having a mini-van. We find that our big van is rarely used anymore! A great gas savings!!

March and April were filled with wedding preparations, school, and baseball.

Here's a highlight from Easter.

Update

Yesterday was one of those rare days when everything just works out!

Paul and Thomas's school is out for a long weekend winter break, Stephen had a day off, the stomach bug that has been lingering around our house stayed away, it was my birthday, and we got to spend the day enjoying being together. We had hoped that the day would work out that way, but you just never know! We wanted to do something, but had had a hard time deciding what. Thursday night, something mysterious happened to me as I was preparing to turn 45, because it hit me that the perfect way to spend the day would be by going to the local animal shelters and finding a new family dog. It's been 10 months since Buddy died and I've not been very anxious to replace him. But, for some reason, this past week I'd found myself thinking about it some, and all of a sudden I was ready.

We spent Thursday night and Friday morning checking out all the shelters listings online. We had a pretty narrow list of requirements so we didn't have high hopes of finding something too quickly. At noon we loaded up the whole family to go out for Mom's birthday lunch and then to the shelters to see in person the dogs we'd found online. We warned the kids that we were just "window shopping". This statement led to Daniel telling one of his brothers that we had to go buy some windows. :)

Don't get me wrong on this next part, because I do appreciate what the humane society and animal shelters do, but the adoption process was unbelievable! The evaluation was far more about us proving we were "fit" for the dog than about the dog being right for us. But, we jumped through the hoops until we were able to have the dog of choice come out of his kennel and "get acquainted".

Jack, a 2 year old beagle, was an instant hit! We did go to another shelter to go through all the necessary screenings to check out another dog just to be sure, but there was no doubt, Jack was the winner.

We have a 4 day waiting period so Jack can think this thing through and prepare himself for his adoption, but it looks like he'll arrive home on Tuesday. We'll keep you posted on his adjustment!