This has always been one of my favorite family pictures, taken at a wonderful surprise birthday party Gary threw for me in 2001.

The kids row –
Josiah’s college girlfriend, Abigail, Josiah (son), Tammy (new daughter-in-law), Toby (son), Lara (daughter).
The adults – Gary and I, and my sisters, Joie and Elna.
All people who are very precious to me.
But shortly after this party, Josiah broke up with his girlfriend. Now it wasn’t so much that he didn’t care for her any longer, but he just realized he was a too selfish to really be in a relationship. He told me he wasn’t going to date until after college – it was all just too distracting. And he stuck with that decision.
And I did what any good momma would do with a picture that she absolutely loved.
I got busy cropping.

Time passed.
Josiah graduated.
We left town.
Josiah began dating again.
As he said to me later, everytime he went out with a girl, he just kept comparing her to Abigail. And whoever she was, she (the new date) just wasn’t measuring up. He finally decided to to see if maybe Abigail would consider coming back into his life. Let me tell you, it was a pretty hard sell. Once burned…..you know how that goes.
I certainly don’t know all of the ins and outs of how it all worked out, I can tell you that it worked out well!
Three years ago today, they walked down the aisle and committed their lives to each other.

Today they are living in Lancaster, PA, and blooming beautifully where God has planted them.

And when we get together as a family, we make sure that Abigail isn’t on an end!

Oh, and that favorite photo from 2001?
It’s back to its beautiful original. Full of people all the more precious to me!

Happy Anniversary, Josiah and Abigail! You are a blessing to each other, and to our family!

Whether you’re being serious, silly or smiley, you are beautiful inside and out!
A very Happy Birthday shout-out to our daughter, Tammy!
We are blessed to have you in our family – and Toby is one lucky dude!

Wasn’t it just yesterday that Toby called and said -
“It’s a GIRL!!!!”?
OK, so it really doesn’t seem like it was yesterday, but SEVEN YEARS?????? Now that seems impossible!
It seems that she went from this

to this

in the blink of an eye!
Happy Birthday, Eliana Grace – the sweetest seven year old we know!

Those of you who stop by here often know that we had an AMAZING summer. I totally overworked words like Spectacular, Awesome, and Incredible as we drove through British Columbia, the Yukon Territory, Alberta and Alaska. We were overwhelmed (another over-used word) by the mountains and moose and bear and glaciers and fjords and rivers and elk and eagles (etc, etc) that we saw, not to mention the wonderful people that we met and worked along side of during our time there. It was an outstanding, once in a lifetime trip.
There was only one drawback with our whole Alaskan Adventure ‘09 scenario. It pretty much ruled out getting to our beloved Cabin in Vermont. We just couldn’t do both. But, for the first time in many, many years, our kids and grandkids ALL made it to the Cabin. And while it wasn’t quite the same as being there ourselves, it did my heart good to hear their stories and see their pictures and know that they were loving that little corner of the world that is so precious to us.
Toby and Tammy and the girls went during the summer. This was their first Cabin trip in nine years, and the girls’ introduction to life at the Cabin. Ah, the adventure of it all!




I’m calling this the Turtle Series:



It sounded like (and looks like!) the girls had a great introduction to the cabin, even with all of it’s rustic (i.e no running water) charm!
Josiah and Abigail went up over Labor Day. They brought up friends for the long weekend(always fun) and then had a couple of days to themselves as the week went on. I know they worked hard on some chores, and I trust they worked hard on kickin’ back and recharging too. What they didn’t work hard on was picture taking….
So, moving on to Lara’s trip – Ah, she came in October. When you keep a fire going all the time and get to enjoy the amazing New England fall colors.

Our backyard swing is becoming a favorite photo spot -
Summer -

Fall -

Yes, we missed getting our “Cabin Fix” in person this year, but a vicarious “fix” is better than none at all!
Thanks, kids!

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We’re still at MAF, even though our original plan was to head out yesterday (Thursday). My computer won’t be back at Best Buy until Monday, so we’re obviously hanging around until then. (They’ve replaced the motherboard again – maybe the third time’s the charm?) Most of the Sower folks have left, so it will be a quiet (and I’m told rainy) weekend. Back to the sewing machine I go!