Bear Lake

This is a summer trip that we've been taking for years.  Austin, this was your first time.  You enjoyed being with your grandparents and uncle Derek.  You also enjoyed the water and boating.  We ALL enjoy relaxing at Bear Lake.

Riding bikes

                                          D and Alisha

                                          Waiting for the tennis courts to open.

                                          Bumpa, Austin, and Abu

                                         These are the condos we stayed in.

                                          Playing on the slides

Feeding the birdies

Tubing fun

Boat riding

                                                 Tired out little guy.

 

Fourth of July

This July 4th we had a typical pool party with friends.  It was fun for all to enjoy some friendship and sun. 

Dad wanted to give you a mohawk.  So that afternoon he did.  You look so cute!

                                          Little T

                                          Nate and Dada

                                          you and momma

                                          Nate, Melisa and sweet Raelynn

                                          Tyson, Abbey and precious Kennedy

                                          Mom, Monique and Melisa

                                          Janna, Rory, Abu and Bumpa (Grandpa)

Hello and Goodbye...until we meet again

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made, your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  -Psalms 139:14)

I know that it is wonderful to be made from God, but life brings us limitations...death.  I know that little lives grow and the old ones die.  That makes sense.  It brings joy and comfort to know that they are with the Lord.  But death with lives that aren't old are so much harder to rejoice in.

Life is beautiful and fun, but there are times when it hurts and we feel lonely and sad.  Maybe we feel like we don't have a purpose but we do.  Even through life's difficulties we know that it will draw us closer to Him.  Remember you were fearfully and wonderfully made.  

This week was emotional, within a couple of days there was new life (your cousin Ryan was born) and today we laid a friend to rest.  Both were a celebration of life with total opposite emotion. At age 33, Kristi Davis battled cancer for 6 years and then on Sunday she went to be with Jesus.  So many of us prayed and hoped that she would be healed, but that particular prayer was left unanswered and so this is why I write to tell you about her.  Let me first begin by explaining that I don't know her like I do like my best friends but she is a person that I admired.  Her greatest quality was love, she loved children and she worked as a speech pathologist and volunteered her time to a ministry that brought teens to Christ through fun fellowship.  (This is how we met her because daddy also volunteers for Young Life).  She had so much love that her and her husband adopted two children.  Right now this is why my heart aches.  She has a family that loves and needs her.  This is the part that can't be understood.  Today someone said that maybe in days, months or years we will understand.   I do believe that.  I know that God does not forsake his faithful ones.  We aren't able to understand his plans because they are not ours.  I know that we will get to see the bigger picture, but right now it just hurts.

Austin, your life is just beginning and we will never know how much time we have here on this Earth, but our time is precious.  As your parents we have and we will teach you many things, but tonight as I have thought about Kristi, Justin and her boys I have decided that the most important thing that I will teach you is Jesus.  I want you to know him and when you do you will accept him into your heart and when that happens you will want to be like him and when you are you will be a great man of God.

Hello Lyles

Every year daddy's good friend comes back home for a visit.  And every year his mom invites all of us over for one of her delicious dinners.  It is always a fun evening and it usually stretches well into the night.  

babies on the bench

 Us moms laughing because the babies don't want to smile for this pic.

                                          Moses and Faith moving their feet in the dirt and bark.

                                         This is you after your first bite of chocolate cake.  We think all the sugar made you a little hyper.

                                          Lyles just kicking back watching you be silly.  You are always much happier when you are naked.