Corey Says

My aunt Sharon quoted this from Corey Jones. I don't know Cory personally but the statement was so insightful for me this morning that I thought I'd share it.


If God won't change the situation allow Him to change you in the situation. In the end this change might be the bigger miracle and the greater evidence of God's power. It was true of the three Hebrew children who went through the fire, Daniel who spent the night with lions, Joseph who went through captivity and enslavement in Egypt, and Paul who went through suffering and imprisonment. God didn't spare His own or deliver them from the trial but rather transformed them as they trusted Him through it. God didn't even spare His own Son who went through suffering, humiliation, and crucifixion. It seems that God's way and God's desire is to display through our lives that He is able to bring us through and raise us up from the midst of the struggle rather than deliver us from it, revealing to everyone that our God is the God who raises the dead!

"We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead."--(2 Corinthians 1:8, 9)

Hehehehe!

I would've soooooooo done this!!!

Riley

I'm really angry and disappointed with Riley right now. It involves something that happened last night. The issue itself was a pretty serious safety problem, for both him and the rest of the family, but the part that made me so angry was that he looked me in the eye and lied to me, repeatedly.


I'm pretty good at reading people but I totally would have believed him if I didn't know the truth already. I want so badly to be able to trust him. It worries me that he's so good at lying and it still comes so easily for him.


So as of last night, Riley is back to being with an adult at all times. I love the kid but this will definitely make for a challenging summer :-(


On a good note, one of the benefits of having lots of kids around is that it's nearly impossible to hide the serious stuff because someone is always willing to rat you out ;-)
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Expect the Unexpected

 This weekend didn't go as planned. My brother drove from Rapid City to Brookings and was going to pick me up on Friday afternoon. We would drive to Minneapolis, pick up his kids and turn around and come back.

.

He had a few glitches on his end before he even left Rapid but he still made it to my house by 4pm. I grabbed my backpack and we took off. We had been driving about an hour when I noticed Jody playing with the buttons for the windows. Turns out, the power windows weren't working. Which wouldn't have been a big deal........if the air conditioning was working, which it wasn't. Soon the radio randomly shut off, then all the gauges and interior lights went down and stayed down. Jody pulled over onto a gravel road just off of the highway to see if we had tail lights and blinkers. We didn't. He got back in the truck and started to put it in drive when the entire engine quit.

We were somewhere near Tyler, MN in the middle of nowhere. There had been a detour so we weren't even on a well-traveled highway. After looking at lots of things with fuses, wires, etc, Jody told me to call AAA.

They had a bit of a glitch finding us but eventually got there, put the truck up on the flatbed trailer and gave us a ride all the way back to Brookings.

Special thanks to my parents for being wise and thoughtful enough to give me AAA Plus for Christmas. I've utilized it three times already. And because it was AAA Plus and not just regular AAA, they towed us anywhere within a 100 miles, allowing the truck to be towed all the way back to my driveway!

We spent Friday night at my house and then I left at 6am Saturday to go get Jody's kids while he worked on his truck. That was filled with a few glitches too but the short version is that he suspected the alternator and that's what the problem was. He was able to take it out, buy a new one and replace it.

By Saturday evening, he had the pickup put back together and I was back with the kids so we had a cookout. I bought the ingredients and my brother was the chef. He's one of the best cooks I know! He also made a killer pasta salad. And no cookout in our family is complete without watermelon :)

Stranded

I'm headed to Minneapolis with my brother to pick up his kids. An hour out of Brookings, we lose all lights and gauges. I know it's going to be a while when my car-expert brother opens the fuse case and sticks his head up under the dash board and says, "What the heck is this!!!"
Now the truck won't start at all and we're stuck in the middle of nowhere. :-(

On a positive note, I'm with my brother, so no worries. Plus, my parents got me AAA for Christmas, so we'll be towed all the way home. :-)

Highlights

Some of the highlights from yesterday:


*Zeke's front tooth broke off again. The one that Anthony broke last summer and it cost us $$$ to get fixed last time.


*Sophia delivered to preschool by 8:30am, through a downpour.


*Zeke to Camp Adventure by 9:00am, through a downpour. A lot of streets weren't even drivable.


*Another flash flood, which involved basement cleanup.......again.


*Trip to Lowes flood prevention materials.


*Anthony having a major meltdown, about a lot of things but really because baseball was cancelled.


*And my personal favorite: while working on another DIY project last night, the impact drill I was using slipped off the screw and went into my thumb right below my nail. It hurt so bad I almost cried. Seriously. I had to ice it for a half hour to get it to stop bleeding. My left hand is kind of out of commission today. It hurts all the way down past my wrist :-(


On a good note, my brother is on his way here from Rapid!

Taylor Says

Sophia came up to me tonight and said, "I love you mom!"

I replied, "I love you too!"

She quickly responded with, "I love you more!"

It spontaneously became a little game and I countered with, "I love you to the moon!

She said, "I love you more!"

I told her, "I love you to Jupiter!"

She said, "I love you more!"

Suddenly Taylor yells from the other room, "I love you to Uranius!"

Steve and I promptly burst out laughing!