SNOW!!!!

As one more answer to prayer, yesterday our kids enjoyed a fabulous display of winter weather! We were thrilled to see snow fall as we headed toward the Salt Lake area. All 8 kids were ecstatic (we drove up with Amy and CR and their kids) to see snow. Like Kaylee said, "I've never seen snow in a long time!" We thought about it and though grammatically incorrect, her sentiments were right. The older kids hadn't seen snow for more than five years, and Kaylee and Hannah had never seen it before. They were all giddy. Today the weather is warm and sunny and a beautiful 70 degrees. We have enjoyed a day of fun with Gramma, visiting a church in Roy (yep, ROY!), taking a beautiful drive through the hills in Layton, and soaking in the beauty of the orange, brown and green fall colors. The kids have been playing outside most of the day (a luxury we are just starting to enjoy again in the desert, as temperatures cool to a tolerable 90 degrees). CR and Amy and their family are enjoying a week in Park City, and I'm sure it's beautiful there. We hope to spend a day with them this week up at their resort.
Tomorrow we will go and tour the school we are interested in for the kids. We're looking forward to seeing the inside. Today we saw the outside. It is set in a very lush (with trees, not money) area of Layton and has gorgeous views of both the mountains and the lake. We did a lot of oooohing and aaaaahing. :) We'll also spend some more time driving around the area looking for potential neighborhoods. So far, we've also seen a splendid display of roadkill. We've seen 2 raccoons, 2 deer, at least 3 dogs, and some unidentified carcasses. We hope to see some living wildlife while we are here, too. :)
I will post pictures later...of our family, not the roadkill.

Treasured Friend

Maddie and Lindsay
June 07









Today I had lunch with my good friend Joey. I call her Joey, but most of the rest of the world calls her Jo. I tried that once, but she's Joey to me. :)

Do you have a person in your life that you swear is your long-lost twin? Joey is that person in my life. We are both very opinionated and we find all the same things humorous, or annoying, or habit-forming, or fabulous...you get the picture. I'd be hard-pressed to find anything we ever really disagreed on, which means when we get to chatting, it can go on for hours. She moved to Fountain Hills several years ago and suddenly it took a lot of effort to trek the 30 minutes to each other's homes, but I'm so glad we do it. And, as you can see from the above picture, our daughters are thankful, too. They look so much alike that we mistake them for one another frequently when we're together. They're in the 4th grade now, and I remember bringing Lindsay to the hospital to meet Maddie when she was born. Time flies, that's for sure.

I'm so thankful that in heaven there are no good-byes. :)

The next step of our journey will be to go up to SLC to visit family, get a better idea of where we'd like to live, check out potential schools and churches, and so on. We'll be gone for two weeks. CR and Amy will be seeing the area for the first time, so I'm excited to show them all my old stomping grounds. The leaves should be changing, so it will be an excellent time to go. Of course, I'm always a little nervous about the drive up there. We have one daughter who deals with carsickness and another who deals with, well, general irritability. I won't name names. :)

Thanks for joining us on this journey. We're glad to have you along.

A Great Weekend

I spent this weekend with 100 of my dearest lady friends (ha!) at a conference at our church. The topic of the conference was "Loving Well." I want to share with you a passage from Scripture that spoke...no, rather YELLED to me. It was one of the last passages the speaker (Beth Moore via video) touched on. The focus of this particular session was "Loving the Stranger." Considering what we are about to do with our lives, this passage should be our headlight. It is from Isaiah 58, verses 7-11.

Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into the house;
When you see the naked, to cover him;
And not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then your light will break out like the dawn,
And your righteousness will go before you;
The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
You will cry, and He will say, 'Here I am.'
If you remove the yoke from your midst,
The pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness,
And if you give yourself to the hungry
And satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
Then your light will rise in darkness
And your gloom will become like midday.
And the Lord will continually guide you,
And satisfy your desire in scorched places,
And give strength to your bones;
And you will be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.

It is our desire that God would bless our ministry- that we would be like a watered garden! I love that analogy. Here in the desert we see a lot of dried up, dead flowers. Lindsay asked for a flower garden for her 9th birthday, and we named it her Abby Garden. We even put in a sweet fountain that has two little fairies pouring water over flowers. Lindsay is very faithful to tend to her garden. However, it is always so sad when the flowers dry up in the scorching heat and the rose buds give way to empty branches. How thankful are we that with God our hearts cannot dry up like that summer's garden! Instead, He fills us up like that "spring of water whose waters do not fail!"


Lindsay in her Abby Garden. She's all fancy because she had a dance recital that day!

Big Changes

So here's the deal. After much prayer, advice, reflection, joy, and tears, we are planning to leave the Valley of the Sun. In about a year's time, we hope (there's that word again!) to be living among the pines in my home state, Utah. It's funny to think of it, really. When I left Utah, I never had any real intention of returning. However, we have seen very clear leading from God that this is where He wants us. We will be setting up a new chapter of Hope Kids in Salt Lake City with CR taking the position of director. We are going to use the next year to prepare and build up the ministry, as well as using the time to wrap things up here in Arizona. The kids are surprisingly well-adjusted to the idea, and have shown little else than excitement for the change. Ministry and snow are two huge draws to Utah for them. Gramma is another! My mom has been amazingly neutral as we have been praying through our plans. That has made things a lot easier. We know she's been thrilled with the idea of having her grandkids nearby, but has wanted to give us our space to make our decision without putting pressure on us. What a blessing!
Gramma and Hannah

So now we begin the arduous journey of selling our home, searching for another home, making job plans, and, unfortunately, saying good-bye to people we dearly, dearly love. As much flak as I give Arizona for its climate, I can tell you sincerely, the greatest people live here. We have been blessed beyond imagination in our friendships, not to mention that I am the only person I know who cries at the thought of leaving my in-laws! We don't know what the future holds for others who are praying about joining us, but we say with all sincerity, if we could we'd pack everyone here up in our moving truck and take them along, we would.

Hope Kids

After Abby died, we spent a lot of time wondering "Why?" We had our faith, so we knew Abby's life didn't end that day, it just continued in a much better place. In time, we began to thrive in the knowledge that we would see her again, and that when that day came there would be no more good-byes. We firmly believe Abby is with Jesus. It is that hope that gets us through those horrendous times. Without that hope, death would be unbearable! So we started to realize how many children's families were suffering without that sort of hope. I mentioned Hope Kids. Check out their website if you get a chance. The director, Rob, has such a heart for kids and for their families. Hope Kids was set up to provide monthly activities for critically ill children and their families. Giving these kids something to look forward to, to hope for, each month is such a blessing. The events are everything from Suns games to movie premieres, to musicals and carnivals. The kids are given a chance to forget about their situations and just be kids for a period of time. It is an honor to be joining Rob in his efforts to serve families like this. Ultimately, of course, our desire is to serve God with our time and resources. We can't wait to get started!