right now

Valspar "Sea Seeker". Being used in the Master Bedroom.

Clean. Paint. Unpack boxes. And repeat.

How life looks right now for us.

Happy for the blessings of family and home.

Lately...

...we've been getting lots of swim time! Morning, noon or night, it doesn't matter when :)

....the machine has been pretty busy. I made two more dresses and a skirt for the girls. More on that on Finished Object Friday :)

I had an adorable little helper ;)

This past Wednesday we went out for breakfast and then on to the closing! Woohoo! We are officially homeowners again!

Totally HEART this picture of Courtney!! She was helping me make Poetical Egg Salad Sandwiches for a sunday school get together.

....and one last picture - the girls playing with Playdough :)

I don't have a picture of the Lemon Creams I have made twice now, but if you go HERE, you can see pictures and get the recipe! Double YUM!!

Hope your week has gotten off to a fabulous start ;)

Summer Recap

Anybody out there? We've been a tiny bit...make that ALOT absent in our bloggy home! With good excuse though :)
We relocated our real home from beautiful mountains to the sunny south. The dust still hasn't completely settled, but God has still been showing Himself faithful to us through this transition time!! Most of our things are still in the boxes waiting to be unpacked.....

We left our handprints and a chunk of our hearts behind......

Before leaving PA, we squeezed in as much family and friend time as possible! The cousins were in town so we made an attempt at a Grandparents/kids picture. Nana purchased all the matching outfits for the kiddos :)

Aunt Jess was a huge help packing up our house (THANKS!) and lovin' on three of her nieces....

I just love this picture of Jaron's grandparents with the girls!! They are sweet people. Grandpa calls the girls his "Dollies" and Grandma usually has a twinkle in her eye!

The church threw a surprise going away party for us...unfortunately I don't have any pictures of that. I need to get some emailed to me. We also went to Hardings for mini-golf and ice-cream with the youth group. It was fun and bittersweet and now I'm regretting not getting a group picture!!

I did get a picture with one of my best friends, Vonda :) We have laughed, cried, commiserated, schemed and planned...and boy do I miss her!!!

We also spent a week in NY at our church youth camp. One of the days Vonda and I took our girls to Otsiningo Park! We ate lunch first and then hit the playground. The girls had a blast! We wore them out good ;) while I tried not to think of how this wouldn't be happening for a long time....

It also happened to be Katrina's 6th birthday so we were celebrating that too. (Pictures to come from her party!)

Can you tell we were trying to fit in last minute fun things? HA One of those things was blueberry picking. Another good friend, Nellie joined my MIL, the girls and I for that!

When we got to Uncle Bud's farm, we found out that Pastor Byer, Jeffrey and Janessa were already there :) The kids enjoyed playing together, running in and out of the blueberry rows!
I tried to get a decent picture of the four of them, but you can see that I wasn't very successful :)

I did manage to get a good one of Jeffrey :)

After picking blueberries, we took our picnic lunch to Roadside Rest, filled our tummies

and dipped our toes in the cool, mountain water :)

A few days later my parents flew in to town and helped us move. Dad and Jaron drove a 26ft Penske Truck with a Uhaul trailer attached (yeah, we have a lot of stuff, apparently!) and Mom, the girls and I drove the Jeep. I should have taken pictures of our "caravan", but really just couldn't bring myself to do it. Our 'travels' went well and without mishap!

That pretty much wraps up our VERY eventful summer .... we'd love to have you stay tuned for this new chapter we have started :)

First. Second. Third.

First.

We are moving! Wow, huh!?! Now you know why the 'ole blog has been quite sporadic. And will continue to be for a little while. Until the 'dust' settles.
We are excited about this new chapter and also sad about ending this current chapter. But, most of all we want to do the Lord's will! So if you think of it, would you send up an extra little prayer for us as we go through this transition time? It would be much appreciated!!

Second.

Amongst all this 'moving stuff' we have been squeezing in little bits of fun here and there. One of our favorite family activities is going to tractor pulls. Some of the trucks and tractor are noisy and loud, so the girls wear foam ear plugs; like the ones you see Courtney wearing. When I got ready to take this picture, she put her hands under her chin and just 'cheesed away'.

Jaron's uncle pulled a tractor that belonged to a friend of his. Unfortunately he didn't get that far - the clutch went out.

These next pictures are of one of my "favorite" pullers (pullee?), George. He has several tractors he pulls, this one is called The Big Moose. This guy has been pulling for years and really knows what he's doing! We first met him, when we rented from his ex-wife. Here he is just gettin' ready to start down the track. He always puts off an impressive smoke display. We've seen him blow smoke rings or fire right out of the stack and sometimes bring the two front wheels right up off the ground as he takes off!

In this picture he was passing 150 feet. The weight in the sled was completely to the front and he was still going strong!

still goin'.....

See the "Full Pull" sign?

Made it!! Past 300 ft!!

Third.

Benji was able to stay over for a weekend - that was a real treat! He helped Jaron and we stayed up WAY too late!! Just like old times! HA
The girls were just THRILLED to see him! and even more thrilled when he helped them catch fireflies! We put Courtney to bed then the rest of us went outside to catch bugs, yeah sounds like fun, huh ? Really it was pretty neat! Just something magical about a bunch of little twinkling lights on a cool summer evening!

and now...back to the boxes :)