Happy Easter!

We had a great day!  We pray you all had the same!  Jordan is healing wonderfully.  She had X-rays on Wednesday and you can hardly see the break.  She can now step on her foot!  Yeah!  Thank you for your prayers!  We are enjoying the warmer weather and getting ready to plant.  The onion and leek plants should be here next week and then the season will begin!  Farmer's market meetings have started and were making plans for many special events!  Have a great week!

Praising the Lord....

This is Jordan's van after she hit into this train on Thursday.  She came away with only a broken bone in her ankle.  We praise God for protecting her during this accident.  It looks much worse than it was.  She was traveling east under 30 mph on this sunny day.  It was a small, country road where the tracks angle across the road.  She had looked both ways and didn't see the train.  It was sunny, the train was short and there were some trees so anything could have been a factor.  She heard the train first and slammed on the brakes and slowed down probably to about 10 mph when she veered into the ditch.  The second train car caught the front of the van and spun her around. The train was only traveling about 25 mph.  She showed some quick thinking and we are proud of the way she handled it.  It is awful strange to not see a train, but Jordan was not distracted this day, her cell phone was in her pocket and she can't text on it anyway.  She had just come from a music lesson and just turned onto this road and there wasn't a great distance before the tracks.  People have commented how could you miss a train but it is possible.  We know Jordan, she is a very cautious driver and she knows she looked so some other factor like sun or the trees prevented her from seeing this on time.  There are no other warnings that the train was coming except they blew their horn when they saw her.  She is doing so wonderful and we are praying God could use this to witness His Glory to others.  With different speeds on either vehicle's part or any other factor different, this could have turned out very differently.  God knows why this happened and God can use it for His purposes. 

Moriah goes skiing for the first time....

 Moriah, Gideon, and Rebekah getting ready to brave this very cold day and go out on the slopes skiing!

 Moriah went down the bunny hill a few times before going on the lift.  Here she is coming down another successful run down the bunny hill.

 Got a shot of Isaac coming down Hawaiian Cruise.  He is in the tan jacket.  It was a bitterly cold day!

 Emily, Yenta and Clara taking a break to eat lunch and warm up a bit. 

 Moriah coming down the slalom on the bunny hill.

 Rebekah had a good day despite getting off to a rocky start.  She left her bag of gloves, hat, and snow pants in our laundry room.  I gave her most of my stuff so she was able to keep going.  It was too cold for me so I just went down the bunny hill until Moriah got good enough to go on the other slopes by herself.

 Emily just makes skiing look good.  She had to borrow a coat from someone.  We do not own the right kind of coats for this!  She came in after 15 minutes of skiing and said she was ready to be done.  It was just so cold, did I say that already?  She came in to warm up a lot but we did manage to ski until 5:00 p.m.

 Here's Caleb!  He had to purchase a ski mask from the store there and then he had a lot better time coming down those slopes with the cold wind.

 Emily is the first skier, with Moriah the second one coming down this hill.  Moriah did a fantastic job her first time out!  She came in the lodge to ask if she could go on the lift herself.  I said she could if she wanted. 

Here's Clara all bundled up and ready for another run!

16th birthday for our son Isaac!

 Jordan made him this wonderful gluten-free cake with delicious home made frosting.

He got the Lego mindstorms (with his brothers) for a gift.  You build robots and they move and do things!  Pretty fun and takes legos a step further to learning how to program them with a computer, ipod or smart phone.  Had fun with some friends at his birthday!

Merry Christmas!

I kind of forgot about this blog.  At the beginning of November, Emily and I started a new cleaning job.  It is three days a week and although it doesn't take much time out of our day it makes it a little more busy around here. We had a nice Christmas over at my mom's.  Jordan was sick at home with a fever and had to miss out on Christmas Eve.  Christmas Day was at home just our family and she felt much better after sleeping the whole day before. 

 Lane and Lena!  Cutie Pies!

 My three sons!

 Lena, Moriah and Rebekah all dressed up for Christmas.  Lena likes to be a clown during picture time :)

 My brother and his lovely wife!

 Hunter and Caleb are waiting to see what they got!

 Emily surprised Mom with this picture.

 Levi and Lane!

 Brayden waiting also for the present opening to begin!

 Kev!

I'm sitting in the spot I always sit on Christmas, Christine joined me this year. 

 Emily, the photographer, got a watch for Christmas!

 Grandpa Sam sitting in his chair in the corner watching the goings on!

The girls got American Girl dolls.  Several times a day Moriah lets us know how wonderful, excited, happy and elated she is to have Marie Grace.  She thinks she is beautiful and loves her ringlets and can't believe she has her!  It's been fun around here to see someone so taken by a gift!  Rebekah got the Rebecca doll and was very happy as she'd been dreaming of that for a long time.  Lena likes her doll, Caroline, very much and also loves the husky dog she got.  She threw him at me last night and told me he likes to be played with a lot and it was my turn to play with him!  She's so funny! 

The ball and such...

 The annual Roise Ball was held again in a little bit warmer weather.  It's something we look forward to all year.  It was Rebekah's 2nd year.  She looked so lovely this year as did all the kids.

 Rebekah and her best friend Maggie.

 Emily taking a turn around the dance floor with a longtime friend of the family.

 Isaac loved all the dances. 

 Jordan, so poised and lovely.

 Goofy guy!

 Dads talking while kids danced!  Love it that we get to be a part of the whole thing!

My bubba boy!  He's taller than all the kids now and just has a few inches to beat his dad!

We are so busy with school, cleaning jobs, Jordan's lessons and nanny job and the other things that get a family going!  The boys have been working at Grandpa Sam's some cleaning up and some fencing.  That's where they are today with their dad.  Jordan is gone to Josh and Annie's (her nanny job that is every other weekend from Friday to Tuesday), and the rest of us are cleaning bathrooms, washing floors and decluttering.  These things get left far too often and it gets away from us too quickly.  We have a wedding to attend later so we don't have too much time to do it :)  I keep hoping with gardening over we will slow down and get to stay home but it doesn't look promising.  We still have some gardens to clean up for winter and to cut down all the raspberries!  Snow will come too soon.  Blessings to all.