Valentine's & Fishing...

I love this guy so much, sometimes I wonder if I could ever love him more! But I always end up doing just that as time continues to go on. I'm so thankful for him & grateful God brought us together.

Raindrops on the window

We’re on the couch

Fire in the fireplace

Best seat in the house

Feet on the dashboard

Wind in my hair

As long as you’re beside me

I’ll go anywhere

When God made you

He already knew

That we were meant to be

With love as deep

As the big blue sea

We were meant to be

Our love will bend

But it won’t break

When we give more than we take 

-jj heller

I love the lyrics to that JJ Heller song. The last line there especially makes me think of Josh. Whenever people ask him for marriage advice he always sweetly says, "Outserve your spouse. Outlove your spouse." And I'm always so humbled when I hear him say those words, because he truly lives them out. He gives so much more than he takes, and he always inspires me to do the same. I'm so thankful for his heart and the man he is, and that he always points me to Jesus.

My love language is time and words of affirmation (from The 5 Love Languages). So pretty much any birthday or holiday Josh knows that I love the gift of time, with a cup of tea, and a card full of sweet words. :)  So for Valentine's Day, that's just what he did! Plus we went to the movies and he got me a gift and we played some competitive cards. ;) (Thank you Mom for watching the kids!) And because I know his love language, I gave him inexpensive chocolates. ;) Ok, maybe that's not one of his love languages, but I'm sure it met a deep need somewhere in his soul.

Jude recently worked hard to get to the next Awana book and was so proud of himself for for doing it. He asked if we could celebrate with some frozen yogurt. I was so glad he asked because I was looking for a reason to go!

Josh and I got to help out in Ben's Awana class last week and I just adore those little kids at his table! There are two little girls that are so funny, the things they say make me wish I were taking video for their parents. They're so adorable! Anyway, I was helping at Ben's table and the kids were learning about Abraham, and I looked over and saw this... I think Ben was a bit confused about which Abraham we were learning. ;) Or was he? #smartaleck

We've continued to enjoy our regular spades time with Matt and Jana. Lots of laughing is usually involved.

One morning the kids were excited to show me this new discovery they had made!

Selah and I love seeing all of the flowers begin to bloom around the farm this time of year. I stepped outside one afternoon to snap a few pics of what's coming up. I love that spring is just around the corner!

Today we got to see the honeycomb from my dad's bees. 

It was really neat to see all of the honey they made last year!

Last week we went out to Josh's parent's place on the river. The kids love this area by the creek.

We walked down and visited Great Grandma & Grandpa. They were out gardening and so cute. It's always fun to stop and chat with them.

Grandma Chris watched the kids while Josh, Mike and I went out on the river to fish for steelhead. We had a great time! It was so peaceful and beautiful. Mike spoils us by getting the boat all ready to go, and all of the gear perfectly in place so that minutes after getting into the water we're ready to fish. He rowed the whole time and perfectly maneuvered the boat, stopping at all the right spots. At one point he said, "there's always a steelhead in this hole," and it felt like less than five minutes later I had a 6 lb. steelhead fish on!

Here's a little two minute video of our time on the river: http://youtu.be/eKsiP2IkGaQ

Such fun! Thank you Mike for the great day, and boat time! We cherish your words of wisdom.

Winter Days

The longer we're stuck indoors through the winter, the crazier we get! See for yourselves. ;)

Thankfully, spring is drawing near!! I love seeing these begin to bloom outside the dining room window, and all around the farm.

I also love seeing the snowy hills and mountains on clearer days...

Selah is well loved by all of our animals around here. :)

We were in the barn the other day and Lucy was like a moth to a flame with Selah out there. Not pictured in these shots are all of our chickens just off to the side, watching her too. :) It's funny because I loved riding our horses and petting our cats and dog when I was growing up, but I was never an animal adorer like she is! I love that about her. She has a way with animals for sure.

Jude's been wearing his weighted vest each day and it really seems to helps him (sensory integration for his vestibular system). We played catch with this Beaver footfall in the living room for a long time trying to beat our record of never dropping it. We only got up to 96 continuous throws, but had a great time.

We discovered something fun and new about Jude this past week. We know he loves math, and we often give him math problems for fun, but Josh decided to give him a little harder algebra problem last weekend and he solved it no problem.

So a couple of days later he and I were hanging out in the hall while we were at our CC school (he was having a rough morning and wasn't ready to be in class yet.) So I asked him if he'd like to do some algebra for fun and he said yes. So I would write a math problem down and he would solve it in his head. We did this for a little while and he solved all of these in his head! It will be interesting to see at what math level he is challenged. I'm kind of dying to find out. Go Jude!

My cousin Ian came to visit and brought his son Lucas with him for a guys weekend. His wife and daughter stayed home for their girl weekend. I love having Ian around! He, Josh and I stayed up super late talking and I loved every bit of it!

Cousins!

When Josh and I were dating (like 18 & 19 years old) he went on a mission trip to Nepal for about a month. When he came home from that trip he took me on a date to the Beanery and bought me a chai latte, like he had tried in Nepal. It was soooo yummy and I've been hooked ever since. A couple weeks ago on a cold day he took me out for a chai latte and something about the moment took me back to that day in the Beanery and we reminisced about it with hearts in our eyes. :) I love this guy like crazy!

We also spontaneously went into a building that I went into often as a young girl... both sets of my grandparents were entrepreneurs. My Granddad and Grandma created and owned the Inkwell in downtown Corvallis, and my other Grandparents created and owned Corvallis Security company. This was the security office and my brother and I use to love to visit here and play my dad's arcade video game in his office. Any time I hear the song, That's what Friends are For, I think of riding in this elevator. ;)

Our friends Ann & Michael came over for dinner last Friday night. We had such a great time with them playing games, chatting about schooling our kids at home, and eating yummy Thai food. Michael is a wealth of information for us because he was schooled at home (he and Ann both grew up in Spain), and Michael is getting his PhD in Computer Engineering. They are so encouraging and we love to learn from them.

The kids watched Kung-Fu Panda 2, all piled on the couch. :) Selah and Elena are two peas in a pod.

After CC school each week the kids love to play foosball. 

This is Selah's friend Selah. They love that they share the same name. :) In fact, there are 3 Selah's in their CC school! What are the odds?

The kids helped us pick up leaves after trimming some hedges last weekend.

We've been trying to give our kids more grown-up-like-chores lately, and when I came across this recently it made me laugh. Too true. ;)

Alright, I'm ready for some sunshine and the weekend! Happy Friday!

Mary's Peak

Back on New Year's Day we decided that after two and a half years of living in Corvallis it was about time we ventured up to Mary's Peak. I had memories from my childhood of sledding up there, and so many people hike up there in the summer. It was a blue skies day, so Josh and I thought it would be fun to do a simple winters hike in the snow and enjoy the view from up there with the kids.

We listened to Weird Al on the drive up (our kids' favorite these days) and enjoyed the scenery while singing along to "Crazy Al" as Ben calls him. 

Once we were close to the top traffic stopped. We rolled down the window and asked people on the side of the road what was up. They said there was a bad icy patch up ahead and a lot of people didn't have their chains. We had ours, but one guy told us it wasn't worth trying to get through. So we pulled over and decided to just do a short hike in the snowy areas around us. The kids had a great time and were happy to just have some snow to play in for an hour. We'll have to head up there again this summer for a hike, and maybe try for snow again next year. :)

There was so much precious laughter...

At one point I looked over at Ben and he was filling his hat with snow. 

And then he put it on. ;) I love his adventurous spirit.