March 2024

March 2024
Over the years, we've always compared our family life to a wagon train heading west. Just as everyone had to do his part to get to Oregon years ago, so everyone in our family must do his/her part to make our journey through life successful. If somebody climbs in the wagon and lets the others do the work, we just don't make any progress. We all have to pull our weight and work together. Along the trail we find lots of pebbles that make for a smooth ride and some bigger rocks that jar us a little; we hit the occasional pothole that can slow us down. But if we purpose to search diligently, there are countless gold nuggets and precious gemstones along the way as well. This journal is an attempt to preserve some of those precious moments for our children, and our children's children, as together we travel this trail called life.

Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. Psalm 16:11


Wednesday, April 21, 2010

4-18-10 Sunday in Detroit

Stephanie read to the littler ones so sweetly.  She did a great job keeping them occupied and clean while the rest of us got ready for church.

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We thoroughly enjoyed our pre-church singing.

Mark Bahr had the morning service, and Randy Gasser had the afternoon message.  One of the TakeAways (don’t remember who) was the exhortation to walk JOYFULLY, with GRATITUDE for our salvation through Jesus’ blood.  Yes, it’s basic; and no, we should never forget that, but in the busy-ness of life we get side-tracked and need to be reminded.  Which is why we’re so glad to have a day of reminders at church to bring us back. We also enjoyed fellowship with those in Detroit; it was nice to visit with those we haven’t seen in years as well as meet others we have never met before.  Our fellowship is a blessing.

After church, we went back to Jason and Carrie’s for a real quick change of clothes; we were on the road around 2:30.

We learned that Joshua loves McDonald’s milkshakes and cheeseburgers but not French fries.  He kept saying “mmm” when he was drinking milkshake from a straw.  It was pretty cute.

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Sarah (and everyone else) enjoyed her McDonald’s too.

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This Amtrak was probably the highlight, although I missed the best picture when one came speeding from the opposite direction.  Yes we knew they were on different tracks, but still I think we all held our breaths when they passed each other safely.  It really looked like they were speeding towards a head-on collision. Now that would have been a sight.

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A beautiful sunset to enjoy.

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And this pic is significant because that’s where Joshua landed for a bit while I cleaned up the nastiest diaper overflow I think I’ve ever faced.  I had to clean the carseat, the bench, the floor, my body, etc; get the picture?  It wasn’t pretty, and it took about 8 hands to get the job done.  Tori dug out the trash bags and the clean clothing, Jesse held Joshua’s busy little hands out of harm’s way, Jacob held the trash bags open, and I did the….well, you know, the cleanup.  The rest of the crew kept their noses as close to the open windows as they could. At least we could have the windows down for the ordeal…it was almost necessary for survival. If the train was the highlight, this was the lowlight.

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And the sunset just got more lovely...

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Okay, I almost deleted this pic; but I want to be real, so here it is in all its beauty.  Ain’t we fine?

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I also discovered a novel way to put Joshua to sleep in the van without 2 hours of crying; I put the Rascal videos on the laptop on a continual loop.  It just mesmerized him until he just couldn’t keep his eyes open any more. When he woke up grouchy (surprise surprise), he was relatively happy (quiet, at least) watching it again. 

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Home to unload the van…

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…put things away, start laundry, bathe Joshua, and put all kids to bed before Dad ran to Morton to do CIT payroll. Us big folks weren’t long in heading to bed then too.  Joshua was the last little to bed…he just ran around the house delightedly, with this goofy grin on his face as he chattered away.  I wonder if he had thought he would never be home again?  Oh it was very good to go, and we had a wonderful time with the Rauhes…but oh there’s just no place like home.

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