We’ve been busy as busy can be these past two weeks. As many of you know, we’ve been praying about where God would have us go, and when. With Michigan practically shut down, our previous plans for Houghton were put on hold. Our plans for moving to JAARS in North Carolina were also up in the air for a while, but two weeks ago we got the go-ahead. So we began to pack up all of our belongings for the move to JAARS where we will volunteer and receive more training as we wait out this pandemic. Below are random pictures we took throughout the past two weeks. We finished a few homeschool projects, sorted and packed, finished outside projects for my mom, and Josh and I stole away for a date night walk at the State Park.
With Mommy and Daddy super busy with packing and sorting, Yaya (my mom) took the younger two out for a quick session of puddle jumping. She snapped some great pictures for me! What fun! It has been a special time to be able to stay with my mom.
In the midst of all this chaos, we celebrated Aaron’s 16th birthday. We let the kids pick what they want to do for the day as we celebrate. Aaron picked baseball. Because of all the rain, we ended up playing the day before his birthday, which was a beautiful, sunny day. We found a ball field in a park on the outskirts of town, and because of the restrictions we had to play with only us 7 players, but we owned the park for the afternoon. We had a blast, and it was so nice to get out of the house.
With Aaron’s birthday came the monthly measuring of the kids. It is always fun to see how much they have grown. Andrew won the month with the most growth–an entire inch!
Here are some pictures of us packing and sorting. Asher even helped! He pulled out all of our suit cases from the attic (that little whole in the wall that he’s standing and smiling in front of). That’s a lot of luggage! I spent an hour measuring each piece to see what would qualify for the carry-on size and what would need to be checked luggage.
And of course, I wouldn’t be keeping it real if I didn’t share this next part! As you all know, Anna broke her arm a few weeks ago. In all of the care instructions they gave us, the doctor was very specific to keep the cast dry. So back to the day before we start this big trip south–we’ve completed all the packing, sorting, loading, and cleaning. We all had been looking forward to an afternoon and evening of relaxation and rest at the incredible lodge a friend graciously allowed us to stay in while we extracted ourselves from my mom’s house. One promise that I made that morning to Anna and Asher was that I would watch them in the hot tub if they would be good. My plan was to put Anna’s arm in the special waterproof cast protector we got from Walgreens. But I had packed Asher’s life jacket, and because I was so worried about him drowning, that I forgot about Anna’s cast until after she splashed her arm down into the water! Praise the Lord, however, the doctor was available, and they cut off the old cast off and had a new one on before the afternoon was up. God’s grace for the Mom fail! Thankfully it did not cause her pain, one tough cookie!
