Moving Towards Spring!

This is the home my grandparents lived in all their married lives, until they moved in with us last fall. It is also the home that my parents lived in when they were first married, the home that we lived in while we built the house we live in now! Life with Grandpa & Grandma in our home is quite different than life was before! But God is always good and gives the extra grace needed when we need it!


Grandma has Alzheimer's, but even though she doesn't know who they are, she enjoys seeing her great-grandchildren when they visit!


Grandpa also is dealing with considerable dementia, but after some instruction was able to relearn how to play some basic card games, which Caroline enjoyed playing with him. The morning after his 85th birthday in March, Grandpa fell and broke his leg pretty badly and has been in a local hospital/rehab center since then.


Long winter evenings are great for reading...


Oh, yes! Liberty Day is a big part of our lives each spring! :-) It was a bit crazy to pull off this year, but God sent "friends to fight our battles with us" and we are SO grateful for our church family jumping in and picking things up, bringing meals over, and providing other support along the way! Other dear friends joined the forces for the week of the event and we could never have done it without them! Many, many thanks to all those who participated in hosting/supporting/attending this event - the hand of God was quite evident in you all!

Dr. Joe Morecraft and Dr. Phil Kayser were our guest speakers this year and they brought an incredible set of messages to those who attended. (Contact Josh about ordering a set of the recordings. He's in the midst of changing/updating/restructuring his whole website, so he doesn't have the order form online right now, but you can still email or call him about an order! They are excellent - you need to hear them!)

Despite an engagement elsewhere in the country that weekend, Patrick Henry did make his flight back to Chicago to be present for the evening!


Ah, one last photo! :-) On Friday, April 15, we hosted our monthly dinner and games night with the families in our church. Since it was April 15, we of course had a tax and money theme! Quite a fun evening, even if illness shrunk us to a rather small group that night!

Merry Christmas!

Hoping your Christmas was as incredibly fabulous as ours was!
May the Lord bless your family as 2010 comes to a close and 2011 draws near!

Whose Birthday Is It?

...........It's Trenor's!

Happy first birthday, buddy!!

Happy 6th Birthday, Caroline!

Our sweet Caroline Joy celebrated her birthday with us yesterday. Her mother, Sara, baked a pretty special crown cake for the little princess!

We love you, Caroline! Happy Birthday!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Carving the turkey


Filling plates


Cuddling the new sweetie


Bundling up to go home

We have much to give thanks for this year and pray that you are rejoicing in God's goodness today as well. A very happy Thanksgiving to you all from the Erber family!

It's a Girl!!

Welcome little darling!!

Charlotte Anne DeLadurantey was welcomed this afternoon by her parents, and a few VERY excited siblings - whose primary comment was on how little she was, and how many kisses they were going to be giving her... Mama and baby are both doing well, and we're so excited to have another niece/granddaughter in the family - and a special extra someone to give thanks for this Thanksgiving!!

Visiting the Northwest

Mom and I (Jessica) just got back home after spending about 11 days in the northwest - Washington and Idaho. We spoke at a couple of Mother/Daughter teas in Washington, and spent the "in-between days" visiting with our dear friends, the Bradricks. But then we tagged on a few days to visit with Jonathan in Idaho! It was great to be able to see him, get to know some of his friends, and see what his days are like. On Sunday afternoon, he took us up to the top of Moscow Mountain, which was absolutely beautiful! We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to spend time out there! Oh, if it only were closer!!

September

Ahhhh, September! A full month, in its own way. Some travel, lots of projects, and saying "goodbye-for-now" to Summer! The one trip that we took was to the Providential History Festival in Omaha, Nebraska. The Festival was held at the Strategic Air and Space Museum. So in addition to the festival itself, we also got to browse a thorough assortment of military airplanes. Very interesting place if you are ever looking for somewhere to spend a day! :-)


The Festival itself was well organized, and very enjoyable! There was a lot of variety in the presentations, plenty to look at, and - of course - always people to talk to! We look forward to going back again next year, and hopefully entering a presentation or two, as well!


I mentioned that we said "goodbye" to Summer this past month, and we are very definitely into autumn around here! But, the boys did get in one last epic water fight before the pool got all closed up for the season!



The End of Summer also brings the final days for garage saling!! Jeanine, Sara, Abbey and I (Jessica) went out for a day of such shopping, and packed the vehicle as full as we could with fun finds! We were literally balancing things on our laps by the time we left the last garage sale. It was very fun, and the best thing is that we really didn't spend that much money! Yay!


Projects. That's another thing September was full of! Fall cleaning, furniture refinishing, painting, remodeling...






September is also a birthday month around here! Camille requested a "Castle Cake" for her birthday, so when all the cousins got together to celebrate she got a "Castle Cake" and everyone loved it!!



Technically, the next picture was taken on October 1, so it doesn't really belong in a "September" post, but I'm playing catch-up so here it is! :)

A number of us got to attend a concert featuring Alasdair Fraser (fiddle) and Natalie Haas (cello) perfoming Scottish-style fiddling! The two of them work/blend together SO well! We really enjoyed the concert!


That's all for now!

Happy Birthday to our buddy - Josiah!

Today was Josiah's Birthday Observed.

And here he is doing one of his very favorite things - traveling!



We love you, buddy!

Summertime...

Just some pictures of what we've been up to over the summer... It's hard to believe that August is almost over!

Visiting Grandma in Florida - waaaay back in June.



It's been a delightfully warm summer this year (last summer was SO cold!), and so the pool has been in much use this season!


I (Jessica) got to spend nearly two weeks of July out in Washington state for a friend's wedding. It was an absolutely wonderful time - both exhausting and refreshing, but completely delightful to spend time with friends who are like family as we prepared for, enjoyed, and rested after the wedding!! More wedding photos can be found here.

During June and July various ones of us also traveled to Ohio, Texas, Kansas, Idaho, Arizona... and I think that was it. A bit here and there, but not untypical for summer! Most of the travel was related to conferences and Resounding Voice.

For most of July our camera was AWOL - but it returned in time for "The Big Game" last Saturday!

Our church's team won and Jeremy, Josh and Joseph were all candidates for the team MVP award (which ultimately fell to Jeremy's lot - for the second year in a row!).

The game was great, but we also had a bunch of fun visiting with friends from church... and old friends that go "way back" who came into town for the weekend!

Not only was there softball to watch but the cutest collection of kiddos were present, as well!



For those interested in more pictures from the Big Softball Game you can visit Wendy's Blog and the Yen's Blog - yes, they have Cute Kiddo photos, too, but they also managed to document the game itself more than we did!


We have also been busy this summer getting our house ready for Grandpa and Grandma Erber to move in with us. We're getting close to moving time! It will be a big change for us and for them to have them here, but we look forward to what God has for us in this new season of life!

And He's Off!

This morning Jonathan left for Idaho.

Jonathan and Joseph replaced the brakes on his car last night. It was very hot outside, swarms of mosquitoes were biting, but they got it done.


Some greasy guys getting the the car ready to go :-)


This morning we had to say our sad goodbyes. Some of us won't see him again until after Christmas.



Please pray for Jonathan, he's got a long, lonely drive ahead.



Drive safe! We'll miss you!