holy week

A friend of mine pointed me towards Ann Voskamp's blog this week. The quote from above is from Thursday's post and her words gently reminded me of the gravity of holy week, of our savior who suffered and therefore knows our suffering. When I read her writing I remembered His wondrous love. It seems every holy week I am in need of a reminder like this. It's why I love Palm Sunday, Maunday Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday so much.

And then I read Beth Moore's imaginative story of what may have happened between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. If you have a few minutes I highly encourage you to go and read this retelling.

a request for prayers

 "Calvin is now resting in the Pediatric ICU. The surgery went well. Once started the plan to go forward with the graft proved successful! This was what we were feeling God said the plan would be. This is also the less traumatic to Calvin's body."

This came in last night. Please continue to keep Calvin in your prayers. He will be sedated until Wednesday so this fight isn't over, but the surgery went well and for that we are all so grateful. 

Earlier this week my favorite miracle, Calvin, turned two years old. I wrote last time about Calvin after he walked into my kitchen with his mom and dad. You can read all about that visit here.

Today Calvin is going back to the hospital for another surgery. And in the words of his dad, this is the most complicated and medically dangerous surgery yet.

His dad wrote the following on his Caring Bridge site:
"Over the past weeks as the surgery date keeps getting closer we have felt the weight of the situation set in heavier and heavier.  We have been called upon by God to bring up this little boy and take care of him.  We know he is God and continually have had to give him up through this process time and again.  Although we didn’t have to wait like Abraham did for Isaac, we do feel Calvin is a promise and we have to bring him to the alter again.  I never would have known the weight that comes with this if he wasn't my own son, being a father puts a spin on it.  I feel these past two years have brought me closer to understanding God’s love for us, that he sent his son to be in our place.  

With that all said, a peace about everything has been given to us.  Please pray for continued peace, health, strength and endurance to keep up with this race.  Specifically for the surgery pray, for wisdom, that God’s hands will perform the surgery, a hedge of protection and quick healing for Calvin.  We are calling on you, our prayer team, to pray, enlist more warriors to join us in petitioning heaven for this little boys most complicated and medically dangerous surgery yet.  We thank you for standing with us.  The surgery will start at 3pm on Friday and is planned for 3 to 4 hours.  We will update once we have news to report.  Please comment and let us know where you are praying for Calvin, it comforts us to know our friends are with us."

So today, on Good Friday, please pray for little Calvin. And for Scott and Emily, his strong and courageous mom and dad.

a pop of color

Mara helped me decorate the Easter Egg Tree yesterday. There was a house in our old neighborhood that did this every year and I loved it. It was so cheery in the midst of a brown and grey (and this year, white) spring. The eggs are simple...I hot glued the strings to the top of the eggs. And the eggs are the kind that open but have a hinge so they stay attached if they open. We're excited for EASTER!

spring break sledding

My folks came over today with Mara, Sonna and Svea. Everyone went outside for a bit while we took turns pulling the sled. Elsie really seemed to enjoy the ride.

elsie sledding from Becca Groves on Vimeo.

Mara is spending the night now for a special sleepover. When the little kids went down for their naps Mara and I decided to make chocolate milk. And when we poured the milk we were surprised by a few soggy croutons that splattered into our glasses. After a bit of investigation and recollection, it was determined that Ivar was busying himself during lunch while no one was looking. He was the only one sitting by both the salad and the nearly full gallon of milk.

Thankfully we had another gallon and had a good laugh while drinking our chocolate milk.

tapping our maple trees for syrup

We spent Saturday outside with the kids, tapping our maple trees. You might remember when we went to Murphy's Landing to learn more about making maple syrup. We did not know then that in one years time, we would be tapping our own trees!

At some point this winter we decided to give it a go and were thrilled to find a cluster of silver maple trees in our woods, as well as many in our back yard. We have tapped twelve trees so far.

Above you can see Rory drilling the hole, placing the tap and gently tapping it in. We used plastic bags with metal rims instead of the traditional bucket.


Tapping a Sugar Maple Tree from Becca Groves on Vimeo.

From the start, our maple sugar flow rate (sap) was about one drop per second. We think it might speed up as the weather gets warmer. The sugar maple sap is basically water: only 1-2% sugar content. It will take several days and maybe weeks to get enough sap to make maple syrup. After we have collected enough sap we boil off the water until it is a high enough sugar content for syrup. It can take 50 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup! Now we know why the stuff is so pricey!

For the boiling process, Rory is building our own wood burning evaporator at the end of our driveway. I promise to document and share the whole process...