New Beginnings

My last post was at the beginning of summer and now my girls head back to school in one week.  I had great plans this summer of relaxing, going to the pool everyday, and just really enjoying time with my kids.  It has been a great summer...but I wouldn't say it was relaxing:)  

We started the summer off with Kyle heading to General Assembly.  First time as a head pastor, he did miss many of the WI friends that were there last year.  As soon as he got home our church hosted a VBS for special needs adults and then I headed out to MN and SD for a friends wedding.  It was a great get-away and always a special time with friends.

The girls enjoyed going to 2 different VBS's this year.  I'm that mom, the VBS hopper:)  The first one Elayna and Aubrey went to was huge.  There were over 500 kids attending.  The girls had a blast.  Mari was old enough to go to the second one.  We are still singing VBS songs:)

We had a special visit from Kyle's grandparents for a long weekend.  His grandfather spoke at the senior luncheon at church and then again at the men's breakfast.  It was great to spend time with them and have them get to know our girls better.  

One thing that we wanted to do before the summer was over was go to a beach.  We squeezed it in:)  We headed to Myrtle Beach after church on a Sunday and came back home late Tuesday night.  We had a great time as a family and enjoyed mini golf, swimming, and the beach.

Trip to Sweet Frog

Putt Putt...the girls loved it

Sisters

Myrtle Beach

More Sweet Frog:)

As soon as we got home from the beach Kyle's parents came for a visit.  His dad was able to go to work with him two days and they enjoyed a game of golf.  The ladies spent time together watching old home videos, swimming, and spending time downtown.

One thing that did happen ALOT this summer is torrential rain showers.  I have never seen rain like we got here in the early summer.  After many days of rain we got a really hard rain (3 inches in an hour) there was flooding everywhere and the ground between our church and the road broke open.  It started out as a 12 foot sink hole...it has grown to about 50 feet.  Bids are still coming in to get everything fixed and most are around 100,000 dollars.  It is a mess but we are now known as the church with the sink hole:) Free advertising, okay not free. 100,000 dollar advertising!

The sink hole

We have done our school shopping and are ready to start school real soon.  Aubrey will be in kindergarten and Elayna will be in 2nd.  They are excited to be in school together.  After lots of thought and prayer I have decided to go back to school also.  I will be going for my RN degree.  This semester I was able to get into all online courses...hopefully that will be a good transition into school.  I hope to have all of my schooling done by the time all of the girls are in school.

We have started our search for a home as our lease will be up in January.  This past Friday we went with a Realtor to look at several homes.  We found one that we really like and it is within 5 minutes of the girls school and less than 10 minutes to church.  Kyle has spoken with a mortgage company and we are discussing an offer.  We are so excited to be closer to things.

Our biggest news happened just hours after we finished looking at homes.  We were downtown planning to get supper when I got a phone call.  Department of Social Services had an emergency removal of a sibling group (girl 8, boy 7, boy 4) and wanted to know if we would take the children into our home .  We were shaking with excitement and fear and we said yes.  Within 2 1/2 hours three little kids were standing at our door.  So we had six kids in our house over the weekend.  This morning the kids social worker called and told me that the children will not be going back home and wondered if we would consider taking them long term.  I knew that this question was coming and it still took me off guard.  Well as of 4:30 this afternoon we are a family of EIGHT.  We don't know what this is going to look like but we know that we can love these special little kids.  We ask that you will pray for us.  Pray for me and Kyle as we learn how to parent new children through hard feelings.  Pray for these three kids as they are dealing with really hard issues. And pray for our girls as they adjust to these changes. 

So that is it.  God is good and is stretching us and teaching us to rely on Him.  I told Elayna tonight that change can make new emotions come up and that can be scary.  But we know that God is still in control and we need to go to Him for comfort.  That is what I will cling to.