Special Day

This is a special shout out to the one who gave me life, nurtured me, fed me, clothed me, and tried to give me advice although being the standard hard head I am I didn't listen. But most of all, she gave me love and now it is time to continue to give it back to her.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY CAROL KRIEG!!!!

Another Wild Weekend

WOW! I just had another wild weekend with the Scouts.
It started out on Friday afternoon with the temp at 82. By the time we made the forty minute drive to the campsite in Zion, IL. (Illinois Beach State Park) on the edge of Lake Michigan, some really nasty looking clouds had rolled in and light rain started. Well, being the hard-headed one that I am, I decided to go ahead and start putting up my tent. I was almost completly done when there was a bright flash accompanied by a loud POW! Lightning had struck a high tension power pole only five hundred feet away. Needless to say, I made a hasty retreat for the truck (the scouts were still in the vehicles). I think that God is trying to tell me something about lightning in Zion because I nearly got struck about four years ago working on a tree for Candy's Grandfather, but that is another story.
Back to camping. After the storm passed (about twenty minutes), the winds stayed harsh and the temps dropped to around 45. The whole weekend was chilly and very windy (gusts up to 40 mph). Sometime Saturday morning, the Leader's dining canopy had gotten caught by the wind and decided to take a roll through the campsite. Not funny at the time, but hilarious now.
We had to take the new scouts on a nature hike so they could find and identify 10 different plant as well as 10 different animals. I learned somethings as well: 1) Illinois Beach State Park was the first nature park in the nation. 2) We have Prickly Pear Cactus growing in our area. 3) Sand being whipped by 40 mph winds HURTS!!
Well, I guess that about describes the event. Unless you want to throw in helping 10 Scouts around the age of eleven to learn the proper way to handle and sharpen knives and axes. Or helping them to learn how to build fires. All in all, it was a fun filled weekend and I would gladly do it all over again.

Lots Going On

It has been such a beautiful week! Right now I am sitting in the living room with all the windows open. The breeze going through the house is GREAT! It is FINALLY spring! I'm sure we will still have a few more chilly days, but I think we have finally turned the corner. Now we just have to deal with all the rain. We have been blessed not to have any flooding and our sump pump has not failed. Many folks in our township and townships around us have had to deal with severe flooding. We just had so much snow this winter and then many days of rain that the ground cannot take anymore.

We had an earthquake this week. This is the second one since we have lived here. Neither have caused any damage since they were centered so far away, but we could feel the shaking of the bed. Kind of interesting.

Jake is in the final stretch of his Cycling Merit Badge. He has been on several rides including a 30 miler yesterday. It has taken a lot of work but he has stuck with it. He has three more rides over the next few weeks and will then have a 50 mile ride on Memorial Day weekend. Oh, did I ever mention that he passed his swim requirements that were making him so nervous? He passed and is moving on to bigger and better things. He took a two day trip to Springfield, IL this week to learn about state government, Honest Abe, etc. He had a great time.

Hannah enjoyed her two days with no Jacob. She completed her AWANA book this week (6 weeks early, she'll remind you) and has been helping her two friends pass their sections. She is becoming such a social butterfly. We are having to keep our eyes on her and helping her tip-toe through the minefield that makes up 5th grade friendships.

Lily has been enjoying the nice weather. She has been playing outside everyday and is ready for school to be over (I'm a bit nervous that she is sick of school and she is only in pre-K). She just this minute walked in the door upset that the neighbor boy just decided to leave and go play with the other neighbor. She slammed the door and said "I am so upset. Kobey doesn't want to play with me and that hurts my feelings!". Everything is the end of the world. If this is her at 5, I hate to think about age 15!

Kermit had Assistant Scoutmaster training this weekend. He is now officially 'Trained'. He is glad to hear that as it took a lot more training than he anticipated.

I celebrated my 10 year anniversary at Hewitt this week. That is not said to highlight me, but to say I am daily grateful and awed at how God has provided for us through a job that I had no background in, was never qualified for and never had to interview for. He truly is Jehovah Jireh, our provider. His faithfulness in spite of our daily struggle to live for Him is truly amazing.

Kermit and I completed our Crown Financial bible study this week. It was great. The neatest thing was to see how God works. Kermit and I have talked about introducing this study to our church for about three years but things never quite worked out. As we started it 10 weeks ago it was obvious that God's timing is perfect and there was a reason he waited until now for us to all take the course. It was amazing to see how God could completely transform hearts and lives in a short 10 weeks. Ain't God Good?

A few prayer requests -
Pray for my grandmother (Mary) - she has been really sick over the last two weeks. On top of that she found out that her sister (my Aunt Myrna) has breast cancer and that her brother (my Uncle Herschel) has leukemia. Then, this last week, my late grandfather's grandson, Jason (from his first marriage) was put in the hospital due to a pancreatic infection. He has had to have several surgeries and they still don't know whether or not he will pull through.

So, please pray for my grandmother, my aunt, my uncle and my cousin.

Spring Break

So it is spring break week. I took off the week hoping to spend some time with the kids and do some spring cleaning. Well, my sister's sitter for the week fell through so I have had her kids (4 under the age of 11). Then, my brother's sitter fell through as he is in the last two days of building his new house. So...I also have had his kids (3 under the age of 8). I have spent my spring break with a total of 10 children. Needless to say, I did not get my spring cleaning done! But, it has been a good week and I have been glad to help them out.

Kermit spent Easter weekend the way he normally does...helping out with out church's tomb reenactment. I'm not sure if I have blogged about it before or not, but our church does a reenactment each year of Christ's tomb. We begin at sundown on Friday and go through sunrise on Sunday. There is a 'tomb' set up on the corner of the church lot (on a busy corner) with two 'roman soldiers' standing guard. We have 2 guards on duty around the clock and open the tomb with bright light shining out at sunrise on Easter morning. Now, for all you theologians out there, we know that Friday burial and Sunday resurrection is not accurate, but work with us here. We have been doing this for about 8 years and have had a huge response from local community and beyond. Each year we have dozens of folks stop and provide our guards with hot chocolate, cookies, Whoppers, etc. We have believers stop with encouraging words and folks honk their horns to let us know they have noticed us. But most importantly, we have the lost stopping and asking questions. Some out of genuine curiosity and some to try to prove that we are wrong in our beliefs. We welcome them all and thank God for the opportunity to share the TRUTH of Christ with them. We have received letters from as far west as California, as far north as Canada and as far south as Florida. Sometimes the little things we do can make a difference.

Oh yeah, I said all that to tell you about Kermit's weekend. He took off on Friday to help build the tomb and stack the firewood. He had signed up for several guard shifts over the weekend. Little did he know that we would have a snow storm on Friday (10 inches) that would keep a few of our men from getting back to town to take their shifts. So, Kermit ended up taking a few of those shifts to help out (as did a few other men, thanks Dennis and Ed!). This meant that Kermit ended up working from 6-10:30 on Friday night and 6am to 6pm on Saturday. Now, during those times he had a variety of different people standing shift with him (including Jake), but Kermit did the full 12 hours. Needless to say he was beat. He was tempted to grumble a bit, but then a woman and her son drove up and said 'We look for you every year. We were sure you wouldn't be here because of the snow!" He quickly decided it was all worth it.

Jake has had an interesting week. He has had to deal with our ever changing plans (since we can't go anywhere with 7 extra children) and he spent two days at the orthodontist getting braces. Yes, we now have to brace faces in the house. He has top and bottom and has a pretty sore mouth. He has also had to deal with 'the cousins'...namely Simon and Caleb. These are the only two male cousins that live in our vicinity. They are 5 and 4 and they think Jacob is just about the neatest thing on the planet. I'm sure I don't have to explain how 13 year olds feel about 4 and5 year olds that follow them everywhere calling their name (Jake calls it stalking). I have been really proud of how he has tried to include them and play with them. His biggest challenge this week has been having to help clean house. It's supposed to be spring BREAK, don't you know.

Hannah has had a fun week with the cousins (since they are almost all girls). They have played and she has started trying to teach them all how to play piano. She did a bit of complaining earlier in the week when we cleaned her room (including under the bed). It took awhile but she saw the value once it was done. She has not wanted to help clean it up since then. Today she woke up with a fever and the aches (it started with achy eyelids). She spent most of the day sleeping.

Lily LOVES having the cousins over. She enjoys having everyone over to boss around...oh, I mean play with : ) She is so sensitive and cries every time Gracie (brother's daughter that is 8 days older than Lily) tells her "you're not my cousin anymore". She also insists that no matter what, she did NOT make the mess (everyone else in the world did) so she should not have to help clean up.

With everyone grumbling this week, we are all learning a new verse (really learning it, not just paraphrasing it). I pray the Lord will write it upon our hearts and that we can make it the true test of our attitudes about work and serving others.

"Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men...It is the Lord Christ whom you serve." Colossians 3:23,24

BEST DAY EVER

Cold but GLORIOUS!

This weekend, Jacob and I went on a camp-out with the Boy Scouts for the annual "new Scout" camp-out (where the rookies get to work on rank requirements). We didn't leave until 6:00 pm on Friday (just in time for the temps to start dropping) and got to the campsite at about (Jacob's guess because I didn't pay attention) 6:30-6:45 ish. The mini-mountain that we were camping on top of had been covered with snow and ice until.........about 23 kids and 5 Leaders showed up and had to go up and down over and over and over and well, you get the idea. The temps on Saturday hovered right around 35-38 which means that NOTHING, not even mud, stays frozen. Saturday night the temps dropped to around 25 or maybe lower. Sunday morning's flag ceremony (12 rookies each practicing raising and lowering the flag) in the wind {temps around 25 before figuring wind-chill} was COLD!!!

Now for the glorious part. Both nights, there was a definite lack of cloud cover mixed with a half moon with about a million stars thrown in for good measure. It was ABSOLUTELY AWESOME!!!!
Then, on Friday night as everyone was TRYING to stay warm and get some sleep, there was something that kept on making a weird scream-type call (I thought maybe a cub was calling its mom){I then remembered the hibernation rule} which the Scoutmaster (Forest Preserve Patrol Officer){Game Warden for you Southerners} told me it was a variety of owl.
Saturday night was a replay of Friday night but with a distinct WHOO-WHOO-WHOO of yet another owl. I thought that it was such an awesome thing that God created such beauty just for us to enjoy.

Heat Wave...Briefly

We had a heat wave on Sunday. We actually hit 55 degrees! I am not kidding when I tell you that our neighbors were outside in their shorts and t-shirts playing basketball. It was strange seeing them playing ball in their shorts with snow all around. By the end of the day our 3 feet of snow was a good bit of the way melted. We were able to leave the house with not coats for the first time in months. Of course, the weather today is starting as rain and then the temp will drop to 30 degrees and we will get about four inches of snow. I guess the groundhog was right.

All the temperature changes have been having their toll on Lily. She has had the sniffles and a sore throat.

Happy Birthday Lily!

Today is Lily's 5th birthday. We celebrated with the whole family yesterday and she spent the evening begging to log onto the web so she could play with her Webkinz (her very first). This morning she got up and begged to wear her new dress and then received her favorite gift...something she has been asking for so she can be just like Jake and Hannah...her very own Bible. Her face lit up and she ran to tell Granny and Papa thank you. She was so proud carrying it into church and would not let go of it for anything. If only she could read more than basic words!

After church we let her pick a place to eat which was pancakes at Walker Brothers. She then asked that we go to the YMCA to swim...so we did. It is now the end of the day and we are all pooped! It will be interesting to see what the next few days hold. Lily decided that 5 year olds should not suck their thumbs. We are cautiously hopeful : )

Happy Birthday, Lilbit!