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Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts

Keep an eye out for new author, Mara.

My niece has been working very hard at preschool this year. Her mom and dad just sent me this story as proof:

Eaten by a Leopard Seal!

by Mara

Once upon a time two leopard seals ate up a penguin. Then the giraffe and the leopard seals got thrown in the dungeon forever. Then the giraffe couldn’t come out. Then the leopard seals couldn’t come out forever. Then the leopard seals couldn’t ever have his birthday. They didn’t get any presents in the dungeon. Their underwear was stuck to the dungeon. They never could get their underwear off!

Then the little penguin got them out of jail. Then their ears were stuck to the jail forever. They never wanted their mommy and daddy. Then the rat chewed up the leopard seals. They wanted to go in the jail forever. The End.

Great Grandma's Miracle Moth

On the farm my grandmother raised her family on there were two homes right next to each other. The white house was where Great grandma lived (pictured below), the original farm house on the family farmstead. The yellow house was the new house, where my grandma and grandpa lived.

My uncle Wayne was home from Alaska, and they call caught up over coffee in Great Grandma's house, the white house. Wayne and Grandma and Grandpa returned to the yellow house, as Great Grandma climbed the stairs to her bedroom, alone. She went down the hall to close the window when the window lost his grippings and slammed down on both of her hands. Great Grandma was old and frail and with her fingers trapped under this window, she could neither sit nor stand. She was left hunched over.

The window was facing the field, opposite of the yellow house. She cried, “Help me. Help. Help me.” An hour passed. She continued to cry and her voice grew weak and soft. She turned her cries to God. Unable to sit or stand, her legs were growing weak and three more hours passed as she continued to cry for help, “Help me. Help me, God.”

The sun was setting and back in the brightly lit yellow house a moth landed on the living room window. The moth was grey with brown spots, three inches across. Uncle Wayne saw it and commented on how  his nephews would love that moth for their 4H bug collection. So he and Grandpa walked outside to catch it. But just as they got close enough to the window, the moth snuck away and flew towards the white house. Again and again the moth would land and each time they’d just miss it, taking them farther from the yellow house and closer to the white house. And when they came around the white house closest to the field, the moth landed and they caught it.

As they sat to inspect this moth they heard the strangest sqeeking coming from Great Grandma’s. Wayne commented that there must be an owl on the roof. But Grandpa replied, “that is not an owl. That is your grandma!” They looked up and saw great grandma hunched over in the window, whimpering in pain.

My grandma tells me that as they sat on the bed, Great Grandma rubbed her hands and asked Wayne if she could see the moth. And when she saw it she cried and proclaimed, “That’s my miracle. That miracle moth was sent for me. God heard me when I cried.”

We still have that moth and my grandma brings it out and tells this story frequently with her voice proclaiming our all-powerful God who still works miracles today.
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I love that God used a dusty grey and brown moth to be his messenger. Isn't that just like God? He didn't send a butterfly with turquoise wings and a magenta body. He sent a not-so-special, run-of-the-mill moth to perform his miracle. Which is good news for us not-so-special, run-of-the-mill messengers willing to do his good work.


A fabulous family weekend in Minnesota

We are driving back from Minnesota right now, after soaking up a whole weekend of family love. We went home to celebrate Rory’s mom’s birthday and celebrate we did!

I just have to say that I have the best family-in-law. And I fully recognize how fortunate this is. The three Groves boys are so great. Marlene and Madison raised three sons who grew into faithful husbands, all active in their faith and living their life out loud. And it is so fun to be a part of this! Lisa and Sara and I all married into this clan, and I am so proud to call them my sisters. I love every family get together and this weekend was full of them!

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A conversation between Rory and his Papa

Rory: Papa, how many years were you married to Nana again?

Papa: Oh, now that I don’t know. But I can tell you they were good years. (pause) Excellent years. (longer pause) Well no, not excellent. But good years. They were good years and we loved each other well.

Rory looked at me and we smiled big. We got in the car and made a toast to many good years ahead. Not excellent, but good ones.

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Harrington family time in Mesa

So it has been a month since my last post, and I’ve got some catching up to do. First, Arizona. We spent a week in Mesa with the Harrington family and it was the best. All of us live in different states now: Nebraska, Minnesota, Montana and Washington. So to get mom and dad, and us three kids with our families all together for a whole week was the greatest. We stayed at Venture Out, a snowbirds community where my Grandma Bredberg has been spending her winters for over 30 years. We enjoyed lots of sun, swimming, golf cart rides, naps, and eating which all made for some super special family time.

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Little Miss Sunshine

My new skill from Jessica Sprague is turning pictures Sepia and then bringing back the color in just a few select details. This is my niece Mara. I love everything about this girl...especially her free spirit.

Jessica Sprague Classes!

Yesterday I started my second online class with Jessica Sprague. I cannot tell you how much I LOVE these classes and look forward to them starting. I woke up early on a MONDAY MORNING (and I get up at 6:45 anyway!) just to check my email to find out what our first assignment was. In each lesson we create a digital scrapbooking page through Photoshop and I love my sweet new skills. Here are a few of the pages I have created. If you are at all computer saavy or scrappy, be sure to check out http://www.jessicasprague.com/ Love her.

Christmas Calendar


Thanks to Ali Edwards and her template at Designer Digitals, I have this sweet gift for my sister, Annika, this year. All of these pictures were taken while living out in Montana with her last winter. The year says 2009, but this keeps the whole design from being too good to be true.

Lunch with Family!

Today in Denver we met up with Todd and Miriam (Rory's cousins) and their youngest kiddos, Max and Gioia for lunch. I am so grateful for the opportunities we have had on this trip to get together with individual families, one on one. Sometimes family functions are just too busy to actually connect and really get to know each other. I really enjoyed getting to know Miriam while Rory and Todd talked business.

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Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Jon came home!

We have been living in Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Jon's home for the week as they visited more Groves family in Southern California. We loved having a home base for the week that was actually a home. We spent much of the week working, and I got a lot of time in with Rory's cousin Laura. We spent a day at a local farm with a beautiful Victorian home to tour. It was so great to have some girl time on this trip. As much as I love talking politics with Rory (which happens very, very frequently lately)...it was so great just to be a girl hanging out with a girlfriend. We also got lots of time in with her family and had some more birthday celebrating for their family friend Maria.

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Yesterday we went to Alpha and Sunday worship with Jon and Carolyn, out for lunch with Laura and John's family for more birthday celebrating, and back to their church for evening worship. I loved their church and it was a really powerful evening for me... a good night of song and prayer and I felt filled up when we left.

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Happy Birthday Rory Groves!!

Rory is 31 today and we are celebrating! Last year I asked him how he felt turning 30 and he commented, "I have been waiting to be 30 my whole life." So 31 is just one better than 30 in his mind.

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And we got to celebrate with family! We are in Fremont, California for the week staying at Rory's Aunt Carolyn and Uncle John's. They graciously opened their home to us while they are in Southern California visiting family.

Their daughter, Laura, lives a few miles away. I first met Laura while working for Sara and Troy when we came out to California for a women's conference. Laura and Aunt Carolyn met us at the conference and after a few conversations Laura announced at the dinner table that she thought Rory and I would be good together. (This was before I had ever met Rory!) But she was right, and I love her for seeing it before we did!

So here is Rory's cake this year:

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His new product, Weather Defender will come out in a few weeks. It is incredible ... each version I get to see is astounding. This shield is his new logo- so I thought this would be a fitting cake to celebrate his 31st year. I had to go from memory, so the shield isn't exactly the same, but it's close.

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It took me two tries to make the cake! I added extra pineapple to the carrot cake recipe, buttered the sides of a cookie sheet and hoped that the cake would be 1 1/2 inches high when it came out of the oven. (I envisioned a very large shield.) But between the larger pan and the buttered sides and the pineapple addition something went terribly wrong. It came out 1/4 inch thick!

Bredberg Cousins!

On Saturday we met up with my cousins Richard and Karen, and watched their kiddos Ryan and Kristina run their hearts out on their indoor YMCA soccer team. We had a great visit, and told Karen the joys of being the caboose baby. This is their little Kevin, younger than his siblings by a gap of years. Rory and I are both the babies in our family, younger than our siblings by a gap of years and we both really loved being the caboose. I remember one time Mat telling me that I was an experiment baby from Mars, and if I told Mom and Dad that I knew I was from Mars, the experiment would be over and I'd have to go back to my mother planet. Sibling love like this tends to strengthen the caboose baby.

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On Sunday we took the ferry to Poulsbo to my cousin Daron's church. He has started a mission church with his congregation meeting mostly as small house churches, gathering monthly for an all church worship service and service projects. It was really exciting to be there and see his faithful work in action. This picture is dark, but its of him praying with all of the kids before they left for children's church

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We went to their house after church and heard more about the process they are in adopting two orphans from Ghana. Kristin has a great blog...you can keep tabs on them at www.thejagfam.blogspot.com This Friday is the court date in Ghana when Fia and Kwame will legally be their children! Can you imagine how exciting this would be?!! They have patiently waited and waited as they walked through this whole adoption process. My godmother, Ann (Nelson) Kedl just adopted a sweet girl from China and I am in awe of how very "pregnant" parents are during this long and often emotionally trying adoption process. But it is so beautiful and exciting! It is the most beautiful picture of God's kingdom people caring for his children, very literally. Pray for Daron and Kristin this week as they continue to wait with patience and sometimes with no patience. God is faithful!