Happy Birthday Amanda Elisabeth!

 29 years ago Doug and I became parents for the very first, but certainly not the last, time.

Yes, this is the one who started it all!

She's also the one who has encouraged us to keep at it.

And if this beautiful, intelligent, God loving, young woman is any indication, we are pretty darn good at it.

 We can't take all the credit, though.

 Parenting is one case where we have relied heavily on the instruction manual.

Proverbs 14:26
In the fear of the LORD one has strong confidence,and his children will have a refuge.

Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Colossians 3:21
Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

Happy birthday Mandy!  You are a true BLESSING!

Really? Sunshine on the 4th of July?

Around here, regardless of what the calender says, we just don't expect our summer to start until after the 4th of July.  Our 4th of July is almost always WET.  This year we had a miracle. Yes, SUNSHINE!

Here's one for the photo album, a picture of Doug sitting down.

This is the cheap, safe (but sticky) version of fireworks, the volatile  mixture of diet cola and Mentos.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, USA!

The Pool is Back!

    Last year was a pool-less summer for our family.  Last year we were temporarily foster parents to a certain little girl.  The state requires foster parents to have a 12 ft fence encircled with razor wire around the pool to keep children from accidentally falling in.  Well, that may be a slight exaggeration, but the requirements were cost and time prohibitive so we opted to take the pool down until we finalized the adoption.  We had the choice between the pool or Alanna.  We absolutely made the right choice! Now that we finalized Alanna's adoption, we are the ones who get to make the decisions that we feel are appropriate for OUR daughter.  We decided to put the pool back up!  We finalized in December, so we did make the responsible decision to wait until July to put it up.

                                  It was definitely a group effort!                         

The first swim (trying not to act cold)

Don't fall in, honey!

Rickey had to check it out, too