Just so Thankful

Cadence Contagious Gratitude Sunday, we attended an intensive workshop in gratitude: a birthday party for our grandson Cadence, who turns four on Thursday. The formula was simple: 1. People gave Cadence gifts. 2. Cadence delighted in the gifts. In true four-year-old style, his excitement could not be dampened. A modest stack of books, $20 in spending money, […]


Gift Wrap and Graveyards

His Ways, His Timing Yesterday we celebrated our daughter-in-law Rachael on her 28th birthday. On our way to the birthday festivities, we stopped at the cemetery nearby to pay our respects at the grave of my husband’s firstborn son, Sean. He died on his wife’s birthday four years ago. Thursday brings the second anniversary of my mother’s […]


What God has Joined Together….

Elaine, Rob, and Judi …Is Sometimes more than Two! My dad said to me, the other day, “Elaine’s [my daughter] marriage to Rob has been good for the whole family.” I didn’t ask him what he meant, because it seemed obvious to me. Rob and his family are awesome. He has a younger brother, Ricky, who […]


Late Bloomers

Our Wedding Day: Kevin, Rachael, Cadence, Elaine, Jeffrey, me, Phil, Rich, Ayden, Ryan, Jordynne, Rebecca, Jeff A Full Three Years! Three years ago today Rich and I exchanged marriage vows. Life has brought us quite a collection of milestones in the past 36 months: October, 2007    A dear family friend dies    We’re evacuated from […]


Forecast: Showers and Sacrifices

Foreground: Judi, Elaine, and Rob Background: April and Janice Love Rains! It reigns, too, of course. But at a baby shower–especially a baby shower for my own daughter–love saturates the air. Saturday we gathered at the home of Elaine’s parents-of-her-best-friend-since-she-was-three to celebrate baby Sawyer’s arrival, expected later this fall. Our hostesses, Janice and her daughter-in-law, Nici, […]