Dad

This has been a whirlwind of a couple of weeks. Many of you have kept us in your constant prayers and for that I am thankful!
We found out about 2 1/2 weeks ago that my Dad has kidney cancer. I think it's fairly safe to say that most everyone understands the weight and devastation that is associated with the word cancer.
We also found out that my Dad was only born with 1 kidney. So, not only had cancer completely taken over his 1 healthy kidney, he didn't have another one to take up the slack. There was no way to save any part of his other kidney as three quarters of it had been taken over by the cancerous tumor. The tumor had also spread into the vessel. The only option he had was to have the entire kidney removed and to then start dialysis immediately after surgery.
I cannot begin to express the deep sadness and fear that crept into my heart. Fear of the unknown. Fear can completely take over if one is not careful.
This past week, I left my husband and children to travel to where my parents live so that I could be there for my Dad's surgery. We have been inundated with prayers and offers for kidneys. I'm not even kidding about that! It seems like every time we turn around, someone else is offering a kidney! Dad will not be eligible for a transplant until he remains cancer free for 2-5 years. So, while kidney transplant is an option, we have a little while before that will be on the horizon.
I am thankful to report that his surgery went even better than expected. The surgeons removed the entire kidney plus all of the tissue and fat around it. They were able to easily removed the tumor from the vessel. It was a successful surgery.
The hard road has just begun for my Dad, however. He has about a six week recovery ahead of him just from the surgery. He also has to be on dialysis for the rest of his life or at least until he gets a transplant...if that even becomes a possibility.
My Dad had not retired yet, so this medical situation has forced him into retirement. While, he will admit that he does indeed want to retire...he certainly didn't want to retire like this. My parents have some major adjustments to make and a pretty large learning curve ahead of them as they try to figure out the diet that he must be on as a dialysis patient.
As for me...I couldn't stay as long as I would have liked to stay. My children need me too.
I am so thankful that the surgery went well, but I am sad that I can't be of greater help to them as the walk this hard road.
I'll end with my favorite thing that my Dad said after surgery this week.
"I'm just glad I woke up!"

Journey Interrupted

So, it has been officially announced that we are leaving NC to plant a church. I am going to use my blog to journal some of what we have been going through and how we came to this decision. The following are just some of my thoughts about packing up and moving after being here for almost 12 years! About 11 years and 9 months ago we moved to Wake Forest, North Carolina so that Rich could acquire a PhD in Philosophy of Religion. We had an almost 1 year old son and had to sell our home and sell or get rid of about half of what we owned, so that we could fit into about half of the square footage of the home that we sold. We left vocational church ministry so that Rich could pursue the PhD, which would lead him on a different, but excellent path. We added 3 more children to our family. After about 5 1/2 years, Rich graduated and he began teaching for several institutions on line and also had several opportunities to teach in the classroom. About a year and a half after that, we made the decision to stay in Wake Forest. We bought a house and after living in this area for 7 years, I finally felt like I lived here! We found a church that we love. In many ways, we feel that this is the church for which we had been looking for more than 15 years. We fully committed, dug our heels in, and saw biblical fellowship being lived out. We were finally "home".
We felt completely content and grateful for how the Lord was working in our lives and the lives of our children.
Then one day in November of 2013, our world was rocked.
Rob Connelly pulled Rich aside at church one Sunday evening and asked Rich if our family would go to Martinsville, VA to plant a church.
My first reaction was…"well, no! We live here!"
However, over the course of a year, lots of meetings between Rob and Rich, God completely changed our hearts.
So, we are doing the unthinkable.
We are selling our home, moving to a part of Virginia that is completely unfamiliar to us, to be the church in Martinsville, VA.
Why?
Because the church needs to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. We are the church.
Because God has made it very clear to us that He wants us to go.
We prayed that He would put up barriers or road blocks if we should not go.
We prayed that He would unite the hearts of our family.
God did not put up barriers.
God completely united our hearts.

Please pray for us. This is not at all what we expected to be doing. Our journey…the one we thought we were on…has been interrupted. Our course has changed from what we expected! We are excited about what God is going to do in Martinsville. We are sad about having to say goodbye to friends that have become our family.

I would like to invite you all to find out more about the church plant and how you can be praying for us! Click on the link below:
Mission Martinsville

A Family Trip To Busch Gardens

We had the opportunity to visit our VA family in September and got to go to Busch Gardens for the day while we were there. We had such a fun day!

Rosalie and Jonathan

Aaron and Lauren

We went on a Friday toward the end of September - we hardly had to wait in a single line! It was fabulous!

We call these three the triplets. Jonathan, GraceAnn, and Rosalie are inseparable when they are together. I love how much they love each other.

Bricksburgh

Our boys never tire of legos. They have collected so many  legos over the years that they are now forming new creations out of them and building entire towns.

This town is called Bricksburgh

I'd much rather they build with legos than stare at a screen!

Trip to Kentucky

My Mom grew up in the beautiful Northeastern mountainous part of Kentucky.  I grew up spending every vacation my Dad ever got traveling to Kentucky to visit all of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Since I got married and moved away from all of our family, I've only been to Kentucky a couple of times. Understandably, whenever Rich and I have the chance to travel, we travel to where our parents are. The older our children get, the harder it is to go away. So, my children have grown up not knowing their extended family. My Mom has been wanting us to go back to KY with her for a long time...and we finally made it happen!! We spent 4 days visiting with extended family...and it was an AMAZING 4 days! We had such a great time! We stayed with my Aunt Linda and Uncle Jeff. (My Mom's sister. She is 13 years younger than my Mom and only 9 years older than me) She has 3 teenage daughters that are 14, 16, and 19. Mariah, Madison, and Mackenzie were incredibly with my 4 kiddos. From the time we got there until the time we left they paid so much attention to my children that all four of them did NOT want to leave! The girls played with them in the pool, taught them card games, gave them their phones so that they could play games on their phones, and so much more!

Mariah works at a yogurt shop and we had the opportunity to visit Mariah at work and enjoy some frozen yogurt. My children had never gone to a frozen yogurt shop, so this was a brand new experience for them and they could not believe the buffet of toppings that they had to choose from to put on their frozen yogurt! 

On one of the nights that we were there, Linda invited the entire extended family to come over for a cookout. My children had no idea they had so many cousins! It was such a blessing for me to see all of my cousins and get to meet their sweet children! It was so much fun to watch the huge group of cousins play cards and spend time with each other. 

The children enjoyed swimming in my aunt's pool each day. Jonathan went from not being able to swim at the beginning of the summer to becoming a very good swimmer! He swims under water, jumps in, and recently showed me that he can do 3 flips under water without coming up for air! This is the same boy that still didn't believe that arm floaties would keep him from sinking just last summer. This is the same boy that screamed like a girl when a drop of water touched his face last summer. We've come a long way.

I love how all 4 of my children are bombarding my aunt while she tries to relax on a float.

We were so excited to go spend a few hours with my great aunt and uncle. I can't remember the last time I got to see them! Going to see Aunt Ginny and Uncle Gay was one of my most favorite things to do growing up. They are still as fun as they always were and I'm so grateful that my children got to meet them. They still grow a huge garden each year and we were able to eat some fresh veggies from their garden while we were there. While we were chatting Jonathan starting melting down with tears because he was hungry. So I asked my aunt if she had a tomato. Jonathan loves tomatoes. She cut up a tomato for him and he ate every bite! She also sent him home with one. He was one happy little boy! I'm so thankful that we were able to spend those few days visiting family. My children were already asking me when we were going to come back before we even left. 

Fourth of July in PA

 After we went to Runner's Camp. We began to prepare for our annual trip to PA, for the fourth of July! I am finding that these trips are so much easier than they used to be! No diapers to change, no nap schedules to work around ... and all the children are pretty self sufficient in the pool. 

My sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Lisa and MJ. 

My nephew, Ryan. He will be 16 this year! They were playing a frisbee game. Fun times!

Great action shot of Rich playing the frisbee game. (can't remember what it's called)

Our cousin, Alan.

Love this shot of Martin. Can't believe he's 11! 

My father-in-law ...

and mother-in-law...

and Rich's aunt and uncle Bill and Debbie.

...and a little ham.

Uncle M.J. and the children

Love this shot of Rich and his sister, Lisa. (and how Jonathan snuck into the picture somehow!)

And the Fourth of July just would not be complete without Dilly Bars.

Little girl has Daddy wrapped around her little finger. True story.

We also were so thankful to be able to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Rich's parents!

Love this sweet shot f Ryan playing with Rosalie.

My now 12 year old niece, Nicole! 

Family Night by the Fire

It took awhile to get a good fire going - most of our wood was damp. We finally got a good fire going, though and we had a great night!

Some of our neighbors joined in on the fun too!

We roasted hot dogs - and had a our meal outside. It was so much fun! I usually make hot dog buns, but the decision to roast hot dogs was too last minute of a decision for me to make them ... and then I forgot to put them on the list. But it just so happened that I had made fresh flour tortillas that day - so we improvised and used those instead! And they LOVED it that way. They liked it much better than using hot dog buns! We had so much fun eating outside and enjoying the spring-like weather! The children had already spent the entire day playing outside - so this was a great way to end the day!

Sickness

Toward the end of December, I came down with a fever and a cough. Although I didn't go to the doctor - what I had behaved like the flu, so I assumed that's what it was. The strange thing about it - is that no one else got it. Unfortunately, it caused some plans to have to be rearranged and it was upsetting to me.

We had to miss church on the Sunday before Christmas - that was disappointment #1. Disappointment #2 was that I was too sick to sing with the worship team for the Christmas Eve service.  Disappointment #3 was that I was too sick to even go to the service. The service that was planned - in my thinking - was going to be the perfect ending to our Advent Celebration that we did at home. I was so excited at the whole concept of this special service and how it so perfectly complemented all of the scripture study that we had done all month long. 

Once I got over my disappointment, I counted my blessings that the time we had studying the scriptures together all month long was good, rich, and fulfilling. I counted my blessings that no one else got sick!

Fast forward to about 11 days later ... Martin came down with a fever. My first thought was: YIKES!! At the rate of each one getting sick every 11 days ... we will never be done with this!! The next day Aaron was struck down with a fever, closely followed by Jonathan. Rich had something entirely different ... just a bad cold. While I never want my family to be sick - I can honestly say that I am thankful when everyone gets sick at the same time. In a family of 6 - it can sometimes take FOREVER for one virus to make it through the whole family. 

I'm glad this one - whatever it is - is sweeping through quickly!

Our Trip To Pennsylvania

We went to Pennsylvania last week for our annual 4th of July family gathering. We had a great time hanging out with loved ones, swimming in the pool, and eating some great food!

Martin snapped this picture of us ... it's so cool to have a child that can take pictures of us now! We might actually get to be in some of the pictures now!

This is a classic Jonathan look! I love this strong willed, control freak of a kid!

It took him about 3 days ... but he finally decided to let go of the side of the pool. He's slowly figuring it out.

Martin learned how to dive this year! It's certainly not a perfect dive yet ... but he's working on it!

Gathering around the table chatting ... it was pretty hot the day of the party ... especially for those who weren't swimming!

Rich's Mom and Dad.

Rich's Mom, Aunt Karen, and Uncle Bill

My nephew, Ryan. Ryan is such a fine young man. He makes good grades at school while also being a dedicated and excellent athlete. We were able to go to one of his baseball games while we were there. I am so thankful that we were able to see him play!

Oh boy ... she makes her Daddy and I melt!

Rosalie was a little fish this year! She LOVED being in the water!

Aaron, Martin, and Jonathan never wanted to get out of the water. Aaron and Martin suffered a little with sunburns. They had so much fun, though!

LOVE this picture of my niece, Nicole. She was so sweet with Rosalie. Rosalie just LOVES her so much. Every morning, R wanted to wake her up because she couldn't wait to see her! Nicole turned 11 while we were there ... and we were so excited to be there with her to celebrate her birthday!

Josh was throwing Martin ... (no wonder my kids love our trip to PA so much!)

Even Rich got in the pool this year! Fun times!

Gotta love a teenager who will wear his little cousin's hat!

Our trip was so much fun! The children always look forward to going each year and celebrating the 4th of July with family. It's always special to be with family!