What a year!

We've received a handful of lovely and thoughtful Christmas cards this year, but time has run out and, once again, I have not made it around to sending any.  However, all of our family and friends are on our minds and hearts and in our prayers during the Christmas and New Year holiday season! We're so thankful for those of you that God has allowed us share this life with (whether we see or talk with you regularly or not)! We love you all, wish you a merry Christmas and happy New Year, and pray God's blessings on you!

I always enjoy reading year-in-review letters in cards, and I kind of look at this blog as an expanded version of that.  This morning, I decided to look back through our 2015 memories as an act of thanksgiving and praise.  The Lord has really blessed us with so many wonderful learning and growing experiences and memories made in this past year. So this is just my little look back and way of saying thank you to Jesus and giving all the glory to God for the many ways He has blessed, protected, taught, and led us this year!

January:

• It seems so long ago that we were celebrating the new year with great friends!
• And it was just hilarious eye-rolling-irony that our year started with the TARYN toilet seat.
• I had an ESWL to blast a kidney stone that was with me all through the holiday season last year, and was really thankful to see that thing go!
• At the RES honors assembly, Caeden was recognized for being on the All-A Honor Roll for the first semester.
• We had an organizing weekend at home, and the girls decided they were putting their Barbies away. You wouldn't think it would be a big deal, but [for momma] it was a pretty big visual  of their childhood ending.
• One Monday night was spent in the ER after wrestling after Caeden sustained an elbow injury. Fortunately, it was not broken, and his healing process went quickly and better than expected!
• Much to the pain of their mouths and daddy's pocket, both girls got braces. 

February:

• The 1st of the month came with a beautiful big snowfall on a Sunday morning.
  
• Many February days were fairly "everyday," which we enjoy--being home together for meals, homework, and regular family time in the evenings. They may not seem grand, but these are the times I treasure most!
• The month ended with an awesome adventure.  Jeremy signed us up for The Maple Sirup Experience through the SF Activities Club, and we had a great day in the cold at Funk's Grove and Sugar Grove Nature Center.

March:

• We celebrated our precious Sylvia's 12th birthday!
• Sylvia's JH team hosted a volleyball tournament.
• Annah participated in her 1st solo/ensemble contest.
• The kids and I spent their Spring break in Indiana.  They played music for Great Grandma C at the nursing home, colored Easter eggs with G'ma L. We explored the beautiful Fort Wayne Botanical Gardens, and Sweetwater Sound with cousin Tessa and Krampa and Gram. We had some great playtime, and an Easter egg hunt with cousins and their cousins. 
• Sylvia's running dream began with her first track season, and we all enjoyed Sylvia's 1st track meet.

April:

• We celebrated a blessed Easter Sunday with our PoC family.
  
• We loved watching our Sylvia run and throw discus in many more track meets.
• We had a fun time celebrating young wrestlers at the RYWC banquet.  And, I can't even explain how proud I am of Jeremy's work with these kids and families!
• We laughed at Caeden's funny list of excuses for an assignment at school--SO like him!
• And, we enjoyed another great Ridgeview Spring Concert.

May:

• While my parents visited us for a couple days, we stopped to see Jeremy at work and he tookus to see the SF museum in the corporate building where he works.
• Both girls played in another great ISU String Project Spring Concert, which was Annah's last. She has been part for 4 wonderful years, and we're so grateful for many wonderful experiences with String Project! 
• Sylvia's track season came to an unexpected halt with a hip injury.
• Sylvia played her cello beautifully in the String Project recital.
• We attended one of our favorite events of the year, the school art show, where all the kids' artwork from the entire school year is on display throughout the building. So cool!
• So many great friends and family sent cards to help us celebrate Jeremy's 40th birthday!  
• Annah was recognized for her outstanding academic achievements at her 8th grade promotion.
• Jeremy and I had an incredible trip to Cozumel, Mexico to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary, while the kids stayed in Indiana and had fun times with family there, like fishing
  
  with Gram and Krampa, and trying glasswork with Great Aunt Needy.

June:

• We were so happy to have a visit from Ashley! And the girls learned some things from their grand idea to "pamper themselves" with a home spa day.
• Caeden made a tough decision not to play baseball this summer and try swimming instead. He jumped right in at his 1st swim meet!
• Annah and Sylvia went on the experience Jesus trip with their youth group.
• We celebrated Jeremy on Father's Day.
• We were thankful for 9 years getting to know a lovely friend when it came time for Annah's last violin lesson with Ruthie.
• We had an awesome visit from the Willetts, our dear college friends from Capital!
• The kids and I saw Inside Out at the drive-in.
• Annah marched with the HS marching band in a little local parade.

July:

• We continued to enjoy Caeden's swim team experience at a home swim meet.
  
• A great time was had by all when we went with friends to see Drum Corps International at Rockford.
• 4th of July, we spent exploring the Rockford Riverwalk.
• We celebrated some more at our church family picnic.
• There was some time in there for a little bit of "lazy summer" with an unscheduled week.
• Annah and Sylvia took a Safe Sitters class.
• I took the kids on a trip to Indiana, and we visited the Fort Wayne Children's zoo, celebrated Great G'ma D's 99th birthday.
  
• Jeremy and Caeden had summer wrestling camp. 
• We celebrated the swim team and Caeden's achievements at the end-of-season swim team party.
• Caeden built a LEGO fortress to enter a contest for LEGO Magazine.
• Sylvia went to String Camp.  

August:

• Annah really felt like being in high school was real when she had her first week of marching Band Camp.
• Jeremy planned a surprise road trip family vacation!  We went through Nashville and checked out Opryland Hotel, visited Larry and Ruth, and finally revealed the plans for "TSSV15--Top-Secret Summer Vacation 2015. 
  
  The kids couldn't have been more excited, arriving at our destination, seeing the sunset on the beach, spending Monday on the beach, still being in Destin on a Tuesday. And we were still enjoying being together on Wednesday, and Thursday, our last day on the beach. That Friday we had to leave sunny Florida. We enjoyed heading home full of gratefulness for a wonderful week of memories made together!
• We had a great end of summer, and the kids went back to school.  This is the year we have on in elementary, one in junior high, and one in high school!
• Our church youth group began a new band!

September:

• Caeden chose his band instrument!
• A great Labor Day with great friends!
• We celebrated our church's 3rd birthday!
• Caeden played in his guitar teacher's open house.
• The Marching Mustangs had a preview night to perform their show before their 1st marching band competition.  It was pretty exciting to watch Annah in high school marching band! (Incidentally, that is where her parents met 24 years ago.)

October: 

• It was fun watching Annah experience her first Homecoming week, and Homecoming dance, as a high school freshman.
• We celebrated Caeden's 11th birthday!
• Sylvia attended the Popper Cello Workshop at ISU. 
• There was a whirlwind trip to Fort Wayne for Caeden's birthday gift--Brickworld!
• I redesigned our new church website.
• Annah loved being part of the fall play at school--Spook House! 
• We celebrated Annah's 15th birthday!

November:

• Our kids and my students played music for the Colfax Holiday Shopping Event.
• The girls both had the great honor of performing in the ILMEA Concerts.
• We traveled to Indiana to celebrate Thanksgiving with the Crabill, Lopshire, and McEowen families.

December:

• The RHS Winter Concert was fun as usual.
• The girls were hired to play in a string quartet for a beautiful advent dinner.
• Pastor Todd and Kim blessed the PoC staff with a lovely Christmas outing.
• We enjoyed another great Ridgeview 5th-8th grade winter concert, and the String Project winter concert, and playing at Kidder Music and Evergreen Place.
• Wrestling season!

A gift to Evergreen Place

My heart is so full!  My friend Joyce is a director at an assisted living community in Normal, and since she has worked there (several years), her family has put on a Christmas concert for the residents during each holiday season. Joyce's daughter Allison is one of my students, so Joyce invited me, my kids, and my students to be part of the program again this year, and we had the most wonderful time sharing Christmas music with the residents today!

Joyce, Ashley, and Allison sang Carol of the Bells.

Mikaela played piano, and later sang a sweet medley of Away In A Manger.

 
Addie played a piano solo and sang Here With Us.

Lindsey played We Wish You A Merry Christmas.  It was her first time playing piano in public!

Nikki played Jolly Old St. Nicholas.  It was her first public performance on piano too!

Allison sang a few songs, my kids all played their string instruments, and Annah and Sylvia sang their duet...

Joyce's family shared several songs, and we sang carols together as a group too.

I wasn't able to get many pictures or video (some were shared with my by parents of my students), but it really was a wonderful experience!

 The residents really liked hearing from all the kids at different ages and stages of their music.  And, I just loved being able to help my students and kids share Christmas music with the sweet people who live at Evergreen.  They were so appreciative and welcoming.  I think this was my favorite part of the Christmas season so far!

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(And it's kind of funny...It is about 61 degrees today, so our red and green Christmas clothes are too warm, and we drove around with our windows down while doing some Christmas shopping after!)

Great Great Experiment of Gentleness

We did church differently today.  Over the past 3+ months, our church has been learning about the great great gift of the gentleness of Jesus through the book of Ephesians.  Today was the culmination and collectively but separately putting into place what we have learned...which we called The Great Great Experiment of Gentleness.  We did not meet in our church building to worship together today, but we "did church" following these steps of the experiment:

Step 1: Listen to the Holy Spirit

Step 2: Obey His missional impulses

Step 3: Complete the Experiment

Step 4: Send your results to the church office

So, although I still don't like the fact that most youth wrestling tournaments are on Sundays, that is how we were able to attend the tournament this morning.  It was neat to be able to encourage the kids and spend some time getting to know those families better! That was the first part of our "experiment."

When we got home, I warmed some soup I made yesterday, and we went out into our neighborhood to sing Christmas carols and deliver it.  When folks did answer their doors, we sang Joy to the World to them and gave them the warm soup.  I had planned to give the soup to 3 elderly couples who live right near us, but some of them either weren't home or didn't answer their doors.  We knocked on several doors, but at several houses no one answered.  But, some of the folks who did answer mentioned that they hadn't been feeling well and would enjoy the soup this evening.  I thought it was pretty neat that even though the people I "planned to bless" weren't all home, the Lord led us to those who could really use the warm soup right then.  God is so cool! His ways are much higher than mine!

The final part of our gentleness experiment day we spent at home enjoying family time relaxing together.  There were some lightsaber and dart gun "fights," and we watched the second Star Wars movie. It was a great, great day.

"Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. 3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace." 

- Ephesians 4:2-3

Clinton Challenge

Very early this morning, we set out for the Clinton Challenge.  

While the coaches were in their meeting, the kids took the initiative to get started stretching and warming up.

Caeden wrestled in the 11-12 age group today, and had some tough 7th grade opponents.  

He won his first match 7-4!

I think Sylvia enjoyed watching wrestling today.  Annah started and finished 2 books.

I love watching Jeremy coach wrestling.  It is HIS THING!

Some of our favorite families and kids are part of the RYWC!

Caeden's second and third matches were tough too.  Although he lost both of them, he wrestled well, and his coach/dad and I are both proud of him.  He was both mentally and physically exhausted when he finished that 3rd match and received his 3rd place trophy.  

Pivot SuperAwesome Christmas Extravapalooza

Annah and Sylvia spent the day from 9am-9pm at the PoC Pivot Youth SuperAwesome Christmas Extravapalooza!

They met at church this morning, and were treated to a yummy breakfast.

 They all got awesome new Pivot hoodies too!

They used money the church has collected in the benevolence fund over the past few months and shopped for Christmas gifts for 3 families in our city we learned were in need this year.

They went back to church and wrapped all the gifts.

Some of them sported "ugly" Christmas sweaters for the day...

They spent the taking a big van from place to place for meals, games, and scavenger hunts hosted by families in our church.

 They took "awkward family photos."

They sang a carol at the door of each home they visited.

At their last stop they had a gingerbread cookie decorating contest. 

Sylvia earned 2nd place for her gingerbread man with Converse shoes.  

Many thanks go to our wonderful youth leaders who keep teach these kids how to develop a relationship with Jesus and always throw in a ton of fun too!

Star Wars Day

For about the past year, Caeden has grown increasingly focused on the release of the next Star Wars movie.  Lately, it feels like he has talked or thought about little else.  This morning, the date of the release of Episode 7, he came downstairs in his Anakin Skywalker costume and wielding his lightsaber.  

It reminds me of this day, almost 7 years ago...

We are watching the first 6 episodes as a family before we try to battle the crowds and see the 7th in the theater.  Tonight, Episode I.