Fun at the Cottage!

You know summer has arrived when we start going to our family cottage on weekends!  The children had high anticipation, partly because this was their first time at the cottage this season, and partly because it was daughter H's first time EVER!

Son G doing a flip off the end of the dock.

Me and daughter H.

Splash wars!

Son G and daughter H carefully struck their poses before splashing.

 Our beautiful daughter G!

Son C.

Little Man.

Son L, playing on daddy's phone under the shade of a towel.

Lunch on the dock.

Our beautiful daughter H!

What resourceful women do when they need both reading glasses AND sunglasses.... haven't you heard?  ;-)

Son C with his perch... he's the first member of our family to ever actually catch a fish FROM OUR DOCK!  (there's usually so much swimming and splashing, we scare away the fish)

Dinner together after a long day of play.

Cozy together on the car ride home.  At least one of these people fell asleep!  Can you guess which one?

Wordless Wednesday

Well, almost wordless. ;-)  The beautiful bride to be, whose shower I participated in last weekend.

Thank you, Lord, for new love.  And thank you for "old" love.

Love is good.

Happy 11th Birthday!!

Our sweetheart of a son C turned 11 last week.  He is still very much in the "boy" stage, and not yet self-conscious about how he looks, or cares about girls, etc.  He is sweet, loving (most of the time!), sincere, loves to play outside, and is amazed by non-electronic things.  I LOVE HIM!

He received a box full of new (to us) Hardy Boys mystery books from his WA grandparents ~ score!!  He only likes the "old" version of Hardy Boys, and we only own about 7 of those.  So he was a happy camper to have so much more reading material!

Hubby and I gave him his very own tackle box for fishing, complete with hooks, bobbers, and bait.

And his very own pole!

 After singing happy birthday to him ON his "birthday minute" (2:18 p.m.).....

.....we headed out to a nearby lake for a family fishing trip!

Little Man.

Son G.

 

The birthday boy!

We had an extra child with us for the day ~ a good friend of our daughter H.  Fortunately she loves fishing too!

Son L.

Daughter G.

My honey. :)

We caught lots of blue gill about this size.

We stayed until everyone had caught as many as they wanted.  Birthday boy ended up catching 12!  We kept 5 of the biggest ones, and filleted them when we got home.  I now have the start of a collection of fish meat in my freezer, which we will add to until we have enough to feed the whole family!

Happy, happy birthday son C!  The day you were born you changed our lives for the better, and we are so very grateful God gave you to us.  May you have a wonderful year being 11, and grow as Jesus grew ~ in stature and in favor with God and man.  We love you!

Wordless Wednesday - four teens ready to serve at Vacation Bible School!

Wordless Wednesday

Little Man's I Can Read Party!

After nearly two years, Little Man and I finally finished this book (and he finished with flying colors I might add!) so we began planning his "I Can Read" party.

He chose his favorite two stories from his reading book and read them aloud to his assembled family members.

He showed them the picture after each of the two stories (which was always a highly anticipated moment for him, after each story throughout the book!)

In honor of learning how to read, hubby and I gave him his very first "real" Bible.  This picture is grainy but shows how excited he was to receive it!  It was not that long ago when the Bible was the primary textbook in schools, and it was used to teach children how to read so that they would be able to read God's precious Word for themselves!

It was very special that both sets of Little Man's grandparents were here to celebrate this milestone with him!  Here he is with my parents:

and with hubby's parents:

The whole gang!

Since that time, he has been reading his Bible almost non-stop.  He is nearly half way through Genesis now!!  May all my children always have this thirst for God's Word.

Congratulations Little Man!