Holidays

It's been a long time since I've posted on here, so this might be a bit long...sorry. We had a great Christmas break. Matt and Katie and their six children came to Indiana this year. They got to Plainfield on Friday the 14th. We joined them there on Saturday just in time for a huge snow. The kids played outside quite a bit. Hannah's dream since it started getting colder this fall has been to make snow angels and throw snowballs. So she got to do that! The kids all had a huge sleepover at Mark and Julie's house. Mark and Julie told stories, and Mark played the guitar and sang them to sleep. The next day we went to Plainfield Christian Church and were able to go to one of the services that Mark leads worship for. That evening we all came down here to camp where we all stayed in Lakeview Lodge. We ate our meals in the dining hall so there was plenty of room to run around. The kids, again, had great big slumber parties at the lodge! On Monday night, Matt spoke at the area men's fellowship that supports the camp. Then on Tuesday, Mark and Julie had a moving crew come to move them into their new home. So while they were tied up with that, the rest of us took the kids to the Children's Museum--13 kids and 4 adults! We stayed as long as we could, and we had so much fun! On Wednesday we played outside--walking trails, crossing the swinging bridge, playing in what snow was left, etc. Actually at this point it all starts to blend together, so I'm not sure what we did which day...but anyway, we had a LOT of fun having everyone here! The weather was perfect! There was snow, but the temperature got up to "almost warm" some of the time. We went to Plainfield on Thursday afternoon to see Mark and Julie's new house--beautiful! Then we said goodby to Matt's family as they were leaving on their long trek back to Joplin via a couple of extra visits along the way.

Then... We stayed home a few days and left on Sunday after church to go to Mike's parent's house because the next morning we wanted to go to Bloomfild, IA to see his grandparents. It's so special to see them, and we had a great time visiting. Then we went to my parents' home on Christmas morning. My sister Rachel arrived later that day and Sarah arrived late that night. They had snow, so the next day the kids played outside in the snow, and just enjoyed getting to know one another again. Again, all the days start to blend together at this point. Grandpa Humphrey had to be plowing the streets quite a bit of the time, so he took each of his granddaughters with him whenever he could. We built a giant snowman together, fed the two-week old bucket calves, Cutie and Beauty, . Fun!

I guess this is mostly a who, what, where, and when account but at least I got it down. The best part of all of it was just spending time with grandparents and parents and siblings and nieces and nephews. God's love pours out through each person. We love our families and are so blessed to have them as role models and friends.