Insta-Blog

For about a year now, I've been narrowing my Facebook friend list.  I still use FB regularly to message church friends and school parents.  I love it for staying connected to old and current friends.  But, lately I am getting tired of the ads, the politics, the everyone seeing everything.  So, I've been testing out something new-- Instagram!  One week in and I am loving it. Much more private, much more personal-image-based.  And you get all those cool photo filters and tools! :)

Here are the pictures I've posted to Instagram over the past few days.  They tell the story of our week...

I was totally spoiled on Mother's Day!  The girls had the adorable idea to put on a fashion show...with all new clothes, shoes, and accessories they picked out for me!  They were thoughtful about my favorite colors and patterns and picked things I'll wear to work and church.  It was super fun to see what they thought I'd like and also fun to get some things that I would not have bought for myself!  A favorite was the matching turquoise Converses Delia got me, because she wanted to be "shoe buddies".  I know this kind of thinking probably has an expiration date! :)  The girls also made me some sweet things at school. Above shows Ella's newspaper article, featuring her writing and drawing about my famous stroopwafels and the quote I apparently say the most: "Focus, Ella!"

  

The update on Delia's arm is that she's just going to stay casted for a while longer.  Our surgeon is confident that, even though she is being very slow to heal right now, in 9-12 months the bones will have found each other and grown back together.  We feel nervous that Delia's arm is not going to be at 100% for a whole year yet and we are preparing for what our Rehoboth trip and Mount Hermon will look like with a cast (no crevice hike, no ropes course), but what can we do?  We trust our doctor and believe that God is certainly capable of regrowing bones!  Last Saturday we had a little fun and pulled out all the old casts.  This picture is already outdated.  Another orthopedic appointment on Thursday saw the removal of the green cast for a new, coolest-one-yet, pink polka dot cast!

We are entering our last full week of school!!!  Even though we've been doing lots of end of the year stuff and I put up the last bulletin board of this school year, it still doesn't feel quite real.  How fast this year flew by!

Big news for Dave!  On Wednesday he lead his last Youth Group Faith Night ever!  He took his seniors out for pizza before the meeting and our family snuck in an hour before they came to celebrate this important milestone with Daddy.  For 12 years we've given him to the Youth Group every single Wednesday night.  We're excited to see what this day of the week looks like when he gets to be home with us!  It was definitely a bittersweet night.  Dave is happy to be done and excited about pieces of the transition that are coming together perfectly and providentially, but he shed some tears as he spoke words of blessing over the students on his last night.

Each week it seems we watch our 11 year old Lily slow down more and more.  We know hard decisions and sad goodbyes might be getting closer for our family.  For now, we just love her and take care of her as best we can.  More than anything lately, Lily seems to appreciate a good rub and snuggle, so we oblige!

Even though I haven't posted in a while, you can see that life has still been full of big and small events!  If you'd like the abridged version of this blog, find me on Instagram! :)