The Little Businessmen

Can you believe that they actually made $5.00 that hot and sultry day? Of course, their first sale wasn't until 6:30 PM, but hey! They made a sale! (Thank you dear neighbor who happened to see them and stopped by specifically for those two zucchini!)

Now Timothy wants to sell rocks. Either that, or his homemade board games. Maybe I'll let him do that so that they can leave this house and I won't be the bad guy for making them disappear. Anyone need some rocks or a board game or two or three or ....

Peaceful Turmoil

Peaceful turmoil? Is there such a thing? If there is, this is what we're going through right now. Fred's mom hasn't been feeling well since they came back from their winter stay in Phoenix. She has been through test after test, scan after scan, doctor visit after doctor visit. She's been brave and she's been strong, but now we know the source of the conflict and the peaceful turmoil is beginning. It's pretty certain that Mom W. has liver cancer.

While we all hoped and prayed that it would be something much more simple than this, it seems that God has placed her on this path and we are all walking with her. We know that Mom is holding the hand of her Saviour, and that gives us the peacefullness - that, and the many, many prayers that are being offered for all of us. We can rest in the peace that all is well with Mom's soul and whatever happens from here will not be something that we have to endure alone. However, because we are human and we are suffering because she is suffering, there is turmoil. It's not easy to watch someone you love endure such pain. It's not comfortable to think of what the near future may hold. It's not easy to make difficult decisions when your emotions are so closely tied to the situation. This causes the turmoil as well.

During this turbulant time in our lives, please pray for our family, for all of us. Pray for Mom as she endures the pain and soaks up all this precious time with her loved ones, that she will say what she needs to say, bless those she wants to bless, enjoy her family to the fullest and rest in peace during the long and painful days and nights. Pray for Dad as he watches Mom, unable to help her. Pray for his comfort and his heart. Pray for each of the children, their spouses and their children. We have a wedding coming up and babies to be born in the next few months, and it's hard to balance the joy of these events with the sadness of wondering if Mom will be here to enjoy them with us.

It is a time of peaceful turmoil that is a time of trusting in the Lord like never before. He IS our peace and He wants us to cast our burdens on Him, because He cares for us. Thank you for lifting our whole family up to the Lord in prayer.

Are We Home Yet?

Our family LOVES to travel and to be on the go, but I think we've hit our travel threshold for awhile. Usually the constant question is "Are we there yet?" but lately it's turned into "Are we home yet?"

In the middle of July we left for our annual church camp in Harrisonburg, Virginia, but before we even got there, we started our adventure. We headed down to the middle of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg to be exact, to meet up with my cousin Tim who is assistant manager at the coolest store ever: Bass Pro Shops! We spent a LOT of time wandering around the store while Tim showed us the neat things in every nook and cranny of that place. From there we headed to Maryland to meet Robin, a fellow Watkins associate. Robin, her husband and two lovely girls live on a cattle and sheep farm. We spent our way-too-short visit with them on one of the hottest weekends ever!

Finally we headed down to the Eastern Mennonite University that our church rents out every year for one week in July for our church "camp". It's really not a camp. It's more like a conference because of the air conditioned facilities and all the amenities of a university campus, but it's always been called "camp" since waaaayyyy back, Webster Springs, WV was a real "camp". Anyway, we had a wonderful week at Camp, despite the 98F/38C temperatures. The boys enjoyed it, too, and you could tell because I ran out of Band-Aids in the first three hours that we were there. They got a lot of playing accomplished in those first few hours!

After Camp we headed to Grandpa and Grandma's in Ohio and spent the evening with Uncle Roger, Aunt Amy, Daniel and Ryan as well. Five boy cousins cooped up in a house while a major wind and rain storm beat down outside = lots of noise and activity in an otherwise quiet home of the grandparents.

Finally, we were on our way home to Canada for a few days while we washed clothes, mowed the lawn and repacked for our next adventure! Several months ago, Fred came across a fantastic deal from a golf resort up north - with the condition that we listen to their time share presentation. No problem for us! Since we've never really taken a family vacation like this and since we are not easily swayed by those kinds of tactics, we headed up to the "We Saw The Beach" (Wasaga Beach) area for a mini vacation. That was a LOT of fun! We spent our time swimming in all the pools, going to the beach, splash pads, recreation centers at the resort and touring around the local ski resort/tourist areas. On our way home from there, we stopped by Uncle Henry and Auntie Jo's cottage since it was so close. We enjoyed a BBQ supper with them, but didn't get to go for a boat ride or for a swim in the lake since it rained. Oh well. Time for home anyway!

Today is a holiday here in Canada. These Canadians love their holidays! We had plans to maybe go to Storybook Garden in London or down to Niagara Falls. Those plans scaled back to just going to Riverside Park's splashpad, but even that took a back seat to just being at home!! I'm the only one who left the house today and that was to go grocery shopping. We are HOME and are going to stay put ..... for awhile anyway.