1st Day of School 2018-2019

My sweet girl is starting 4th grade! She absolutely loves school! She is such a sweet student. I'm so thankful to be her teacher! She is doing Heart of Dakota Preparing Hearts for His Glory. She loves math. I love that she loves math and I hope that will continue!

Jonathan begins his first year of middle school! Jonathan will be the first to tell you that he doesn't like school. While this may be true, there are things that he actually does enjoy. He has always enjoyed science and history. He's always been quite good at math. He is absolutely loving have a desk in his own room. He sits at his desk is able to work without being disturbed.

This is Aaron's first year of high school. HIGH SCHOOL! I have two in high school this year. How did that happen? Aaron is taking World Geography, Earth Science, Algebra, Logic, Spanish, World Religion and Culture, and Literature/Grammar/Composition. This year should be quite a challenge for him. He says that his favorite course so far is Logic.

11th grade, people! What in the world? Martin is taking English 11, Geometry, US History, Bible, Spanish II, Chemistry, Economics, and Finance. He doesn't particularly love school, but he's an excellent student. He is meticulous and conscientious about his work. He is becoming more and more responsible every day. Rich and I both rely heavily on him and he never lets us down. He is learning to drive and is very close to getting his drivers license. I'm praying that all of my children will grow in knowledge and wisdom this school year.

The Lava Tubes

Living out west in the great state of Arizona brings with it lots of opportunity for adventure! Before Rich started at GCU and after we got mostly moved in and settled, we decided to take a daytrip to Flagstaff for a fun family fieldtrip! We left the Valley and headed north. We were amazed at how a short 2 1/2 hour drive north brought us to a completely different climate and ecosystem! We left the desert for the gorgeous northern Arizona mountains and forest! It was 35 degrees cooler in Flagstaff!

Our adventure for this day was to explore the lava cave!  The cave was completely dark. We had to have plenty of flashlights!

We had so much fun! The cave is about a mile long. We rested several times along the way. The path is fairly rocky and wet in some areas, so we had to be very careful. It was about 42 degrees inside the cave! That was a nice break from the 110 degree weather we had been experiencing in the desert!

Several times we rested, took pictures, and turned our flashlights off to experience darkness.

We had so much fun exploring the cave. None of us had ever done anything quite like this before. I'm so thankful for this family of mine. The children were thanked us repeatedly for bringing them on this little day trip. (I love a grateful heart!) And it was just fun to be together!

The views on the way and back from Flagstaff were incredible! The landscape of Arizona is so different than anything we've ever known. What a joy it is to experience a different area of God's creation!

Monsoon Season

This is a picture that I took from my dining room window during the dust storm.

This is an aerial shot of the dust storm taken by Lyons Roofing. https://www.facebook.com/LyonsRoofingAZ/?fref=mentions

One of the many things that is new to us is the Arizona Monsoon Season. 

AZDOT defines the monsoon season:

 

Arizona's monsoon season begins in June and continues through September. With it comes higher humidity, which can lead to thunderstorms, heavy rain, lightning, hail, high winds, flash flooding, dust storms and extreme heat.

 In the 3 weeks that we have been in the Phoenix area, we have experienced two large dust storms. As the first one was coming toward us, Martin and I were out driving around. He saw it in the distance and immediately identified it as a dust storm coming our way. It was so unusual looking that I didn't know what to think of it. We made it home just in time, though. I've heard that if you are out driving and caught in one, you have no choice but to pull over because there is no visibility!

In many ways, it just felt like a strong thunderstorm with dust instead of rain. However, the winds were in the 70-80 mph range, so in some areas there was a lot of damage. 

We are slightly giddy when we think about the cooler temperatures that will be coming our way in October! The average high in October is only 89 degrees! I've always imagined that if we ever made a huge move that it would be somewhere with a cooler climate like Alaska or Montana. I still giggle that we moved to a warm climate. It's so completely not what we had imagined for ourselves. Nevertheless we are on a great adventure together and we are going to enjoy the journey!

Arizona

This summer we moved to Arizona. We could never have predicted that we would make a move like this one. When we moved to Martinsville a little over 3 years ago, we had planned that to be our forever home. Before that we planned that the home we bought in NC would be our forever home. Clearly I was wrong.

I wish that I would have blogged over the past 3 years of our time in Martinsville planting Uptown Church. I learned so much through that process. I learned more about myself, about others, and about Jesus and His church. Planting a church is hard and exhausting work. There was little time for blogging.

After moving to Martinsville to plant the church, our financial situation changed and became more and more difficult to bear. In the meantime, Rich got a call from GCU informing him of an opening that fit his credentials, he applied, interviewed, received an offer, accepted the offer and we now live in Goodyear, AZ. Leaving our sweet congregation in Martinsville was heartbreaking, but we had no doubt that this job was God's sweet provision for our family.

The children were all up for this crazy adventure, but they also have experienced sadness and heartache in leaving everyone we know and love to travel and live over 2000 miles away. We have been here in AZ for almost 3 weeks now. We are almost finished with unpacking and are settled in. The Holland homeschool will resume this coming Monday and at the same time Rich will be headed off to GCU for his first day. This will be the first time since April of 2008 that Rich has had to leave our house to go to work. It will be a huge adjustment for all of us to go about our day without him close by!

Since we are so far away from our loved ones, I am going to revive this blog and tell of our Holland Happenings once again. There is much to see on this side of the continent and I hope that we will be able to go on many adventures while we are here.