what a wonderful family

the past couple of weeks have been pretty wonderful.
I took a long weekend last week to visit Gram and Gramp in Illinois. I had a wonderful time just talking and sitting with them and miss them so dearly. I can only hope that they truly know they are always in our hearts and minds. Illinois was very cold to say the least. Cobi thinks I still haven't gotten warm from the trip, but really, it got colder here too. :)
Chatting with Gramp in the morning-

From Chicago 0210

See, lots of snow-

From Chicago 0210

Gram and Gramp-

From Chicago 0210

Grampa being a goofball like usual- :)

From Chicago 0210

The three of us-

From Chicago 0210

now back home. this past weekend we cleaned up the backyard and are ready for the chicken coop. come on irs, we've got plans. :) after finishing up all the work we had a couple of great couchsurfers who we enjoyed getting to know. then caught a showing of avatar with kirin. it is a great movie, check it out if you haven't seen it yet. then were blessed to visit some good friends for a nice family dinner sunday night. we really are amazed at how lucky we are to have such great friends.
had an impromptu couchsurfer last night and we were very happy to give this young man a resting point on his journey.
Thien Bao's birthday is coming up so am getting a package off to him this week. we made coloring books of maps of the US, Idaho and some flowers and other fun designs. we're sending those along with some colored pencils and a few little trinkets. we hope he enjoys them and has a wonderful 6th birthday.
as we settle in for the week, we wish our family and friends a wonderful early spring. much love~

Love is in the air

Our February is speeding by already so thought I better take a minute to play catch up before spring arrives. Not in a terribly "writer" minded mood but can't see that i'll have time to blog in the coming couple of weeks. If you want to know more about anything we're doing please shoot me an email.

We have already been making plans for our yard and garden and will soon be building raised beds for veggies. In preparation we are starting to clean up the yard and finally got a compost bin in place to get some good soil ready for the garden. Yes I already have the garden and yard sketched out for the season, no spring fever here, just planning already!

This past week we finally received our information regarding our sponsored child through SOS villages. His name is Thien Bao and he is 5 years old, soon to be 6 on March 10th. He lives in southern Vietnam and we are thrilled to welcome him into our family.

From 02042010

On Wednesday I completed hospice training and testing. I am now going to be assigned clients within a week or so and am both anxious and excited. The application and training process were extensive and it was a great accomplishment to have finished with them and gained such valuable knowledge. I'm thankful to be able to give in such a way.

On Friday Jordan went to the Valentine's dance at her school. She looked very lovely and had a wonderful time even though she said the music wasn't very good, too much contemporary pop music is what she complained about. Hey, I can't help it if my daughter has good taste in tunes.

From 02042010

This weekend we've just been mellow around the house. I'm packing in preparation for a trip to Chicago next weekend and we've been making our valentine cards so the kitchen table is a mess. We've a couple couchsurfers coming up in the next couple of weeks as well as some dinner plans but not much else.
Hope everyone is having a great late winter as we are and that you don't have spring fever too terribly bad. Much love and joy.