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Well, we’ve survived our crazy month of June. I guess I should wait to write that until midnight rolls around, but close enough I guess. This month has been full of moments. Moments when I wanted to crawl into bed and not leave my house ever again, moments when I wanted to get out of my house for the rest of the day, moments where I wished I was not in our car driving somewhere yet again, and also those kinds of moments I wished had never ended. Ah, life…how glorious it is!
The important thing to note on this post is that our family is home (finally) for three of the next four weekends. Erik and I are really looking forward to some lazy summer weekends and time together as a family. Speaking of Erik…he returned this past Saturday at midnight from his mission trip in El Salvador. (Oh..and I was feeling quite dumb when I looked at my last post and realized I wrote that El Salvador was in South America instead of Central America!!) Anyway, he had a great trip and was happy to have had the chance to do this. He’s got quite a few stories to share…maybe I should have him write about it here?? We’ll see. It was sad to hear about how many kids there were in the different government orphanages with no hope of ever being adopted. It was very hard to hear about the corrupt government taking from these kids who have nothing and giving to others who probably have most of their needs met. While I was sad for the kids he had to leave behind I was also happy to hear that he encountered hope there and not just depair. Maybe once he gets his little disposable camera developed I’ll get some pictures of the trip on here.
Well, what was my little self up to this past week? Here’s a small list of things I did.
1. Spent a lot of time with both sets of parents and Grandparents
2. Girlie and I went camping with my Dad and went on hikes, too
3. Read Bridget Jones Diary (fun to relax, read and drink coffee!)
4. Woke up, nursed Girlie, gave baby to parents, went back to bed 
5. Shopped and got myself and Girlie a few things on super duper sale
6. Ate a lot of good food….it was all bad for me of course
7. Watched a sheep die…arg…a story for another day
8. Quizzed Miss Girlie on what a sheep, cow, goat, horse, dog and cat say….so cute
9. Missed my hubby every day
10. Went to a wedding dance and busted a move
11. Went on a hike at the camp I used to work at, where Erik and I met and married
12. Went swimming with my cousins,aunt, and a poor sad shivering Girlie
13. Perfected the art of diving on a long car trip with a one year old…it’s all about the basket of toys within arms reach that you can hand back to her when she’s crabby! Thanks to my friend Andrea for the heads up on this one
Well, nap time is over which means blog time is over. More later now that I’m back to reality or whatever that means!
Sorry for the two people out there who read the blog. It’s been suffering lately with a bit of mistreatment. What can I say, but life is darn busy these days. I wanted to post a quick photo of the new walking, one year old Girlie. Yes, that’s right folks, the Girlie is a walkin’, chocolate cupcake eating, machine! She started walking last Friday evening and hasn’t stopped since. We celebrated her first birthday yesterday, wow, that was the fastest year of my life!
Girlie was not too thrilled to be wearing the birthday hat…
she thought it made her cheeks look too chubby
A few prayer requests to share with you-
Erik leaves tomorrow morning for San Salvador in El Salvador (South America). He’s heading there with 18 other folks from our church on a Mission Trip with Orphan Helpers
Erik’s prayer requests are the following. Safety for group, that they are able to touch the kids and help them feel love from all the volunteers and God, and that they are able to do their mini-vacation bible school well in SPANISH. (Did I mention Erik doesn’t speak Spanish?!)
My prayer requests–they go a bit like this. Yep, same stuff he said but I’d like to add these. 1. Pray that the plane doesn’t crash (yep, I’m a bit of a paranoid one) and 2. That he’s not kidnapped or hurt in any way. (What can I say….I’m a mellow freak out lady and I love the guy!)
Oh, yeah, and please pray that I do well as a single Mommy all week. Fortunately, I’ll have a lot of help as Girlie and I will be in Minnesota all week long where she’ll be given many kisses by the Grandparentos.
Well, that’s it folks. I hope to maybe post something during the week, we’ll see how often I manage to get online. Enjoy your nice summer days next week!
For all of you East Coast/Southern folks experiencing the crazy heat wave, sorry for this whiney post about rain. You’re probably all wishing for thunderstorms while we’re cursing them. It’s just that Wisconsin (along with many other midwestern states) seem to be flooding away. As I write I’m hearing huge crashes of thunder, lightening and the rain pounding on my roof yet again. Many towns here in Southern Wisconsin are sandbagging and hoping to spare their homes from the rivers that have crested and are now getting dumped on again. It can be so frustrating to watch this destruction and heartbreak for so many people.
My Mom called me this morning to tell me one of my neighbors, Dale, died in an accident due to the flooding in Minnesota. He was driving to a friends house to borrow a sump pump (used to get water pumped out of your flooded basement) and either died from a car accident or drowning. No one really knows much yet except that it was 1:30 in the morning and the road he was driving on was washed out due to the downpouring rain. We’re not sure if he sustained injuries from crashing into the flooded road or whether he drowned somehow. Dale’s been married many years, has three children and two small grandchildren. His wife, youngest daughter and parents are in Norway on vacation and I’m guessing on their way home soon. It’s really hard to believe it when things like this happen. It made me want to find my Dad and give him a huge hug, because you just never know what can happen next.
So…the point to my very sad post? Please be praying for Dale’s family and for the small community that he lived in, for my tiny home church where he was so active and where he’ll be greatly missed. And also, please pray for all those experiencing the flooding in their towns, homes and businesses.
My prayers for them are this today. From 2 corinthians 1:5 “For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.”
Well, I have the best hubby ever. He just downloaded some pictures for the blog from his super speedy internet at work. I thought the best way to show you all what we’ve been up to is via some pictures. I’ll add a few captions so you know what allthe big events were. Happy day to you all!
Here are the two girls enjoying a nice hike on our big camping weekend the end of May.
Erik with the little munchkin
The tent was a big hit with Girlie
Please oh please don’t laugh at my crazy fro hair…I was camping people!!
And I swear it was a high humidity day. Stop laughing already!
Notice the passed out baby in the backpack carrier…as you can see she’s very fasinated by nature.
On the right is my Godmother Connie and on the left is my Mom Dee.
They’re enjoying torturing the poor baby. This was Girlie’s first haircut.
Connie also gave me my first haircut….awwwww.
Here’s Girlie dancing with her Grandma and Grandpa Brekke. She helped them celebrate their 35th Wedding Anniversary by dancing up a storm and also by staying up very late that night. It was a great celebration for the whole family and many of their friends who attended as well.
Daddy dancing with a very pooped party girl.
She got the little pioneer girl bonnet as a gift that night.
Girlie loves her soon to be Auntie Juli…they’re buds.
We’re blessed to have families that enjoy each others company. My parents came for the big party that night also and helped out a lot with their Grandbaby.
Before we headed back to Wisconsin we had a little tour of Grandma and Grandpa Brekke’s farmette. Here we were talking with Blue the horse. Girlie was letting Blue know that she enjoys eating grass, too.
When I first downloaded these pictures onto the computer the babe when nuts over seeing the cows again. She’s even given us a few moos when we ask “what does the cow say?”. Of couse she refuses to do this when we ask her to show off her skills in public or over the phone to Grandparents. Little stinker!
Here we are chatting with Faith the Uni-Goat. She’s got one horn and crazy amounts of energy. Faith enjoyed nibbling on baby toes and fingers that day. Girlie giggled a lot and seemed to have a great time meeting all 3 of the goats. We just chatted with Grandma and Grandpa Brekke earlier this weekend and found out that two more goats have joined the ranks at the farmette. Fun fun!
Grandpa Brekke joined in on the tour and was telling us all about their four chickens. Girlie looked a bit puzzled as to the funny noises they were making, but liked watching them also.
Here’s Daddy with is baby girl on the tree swing.
As you can see we’ve been having a lot of fun! We’re blessed with great families to visit!
We made it home from our weekend trip to Minnesota last night. While there we attdended a wedding and baptism and also watched a huge band of storms rip through Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois. My parents place was not damaged at all, they just got a lot of rain. After the storm on Saturday night we all were awestruck at the clouds. They were huge and well…check out these pictures I took below.
This is the view from their driveway. Everything was bathed in pink from the beautiful sunset that night.
I guess all the moisture in the air is what made these clouds so puffy.
They were simply amazing to look at!
After we left the Twin Cities Sunday afternoon we hit rain about two hours from home. We were in this downpour of rain the rest of the drive home. Right as we drove into Madison we left the storm behind us. This was what we saw as we drove into town, the cloud looked like some alien coming to attack!
According to some weather reports we got 6 inches or so of rain. Just north of us in Lake Delton (Wisconsin Dells area) there was a lot of damage. 90% of the lake has flooded around the dam and over it’s banks into the Wisconsin River. A section of a major road has washed out and four houses were swept away with all the water. 30 counties in Southern Wisconsin are under flooding warnings and from other reports I’ve heard Iowa, specifically Mason City, are experiencing a lot of problems also. What a mess!! Thankfully we don’t have much to worry about at all. We had a few tree limbs down and our mini lake again and fortunately are now home safe and sound.
