Father's Day

Hello! 

 Today is Father's Day and I want to publicly thank David for his fathering of our girls. Yesterday when we went to lunch I told him some of the things that I think made him (and make him) a great dad. The first and biggest thing is that David always comes back to Scripture for his instruction in how to do things, like be a father and a husband. Scripture is his teacher and his authority, in a humble sort of way. This has made him be good at asking forgiveness and forgiving. It has made him open minded, because he's not easily sucked into legalistic narrowness, but understands the beauty and largeness of God and His grace. It has made him faithful to me and his family, which gave a great sense of security to the girls - and me too. He's lots of fun, and the laughter that rang (and rings) through our house was usually started by him. He's kind and good, has always worked hard to provide for us, is honest, friendly and fun to be with.  I'm glad I married him and I'm glad he's my kids' dad!

I'm so blessed to have my own dad in the land of the living, nearby and going forward in a busy life! His sense of fun and adventure as he and mom live(d) the Christian life, following the Lord happily, gave me such a wonderful and rich background. One of the strongest legacies he (and his mom) gave us was that he was and still is interested in us. This isn't the kind of interest that tries to force us to do what they want us to, but is open to new ideas and approaches. More of a cheering section, with knowledge. It's wonderful and I am blessed to have my wonderful daddy!

On a more mundane note -

Just to catch up a little, since my computer came back;

1- I finished the next magazine (July/August) in record time. It's going quicker each time and I only have 2 more to go to finish out the year. They're not selling like hotcakes, but we've sold about 65 of the May/June edition, so I feel good that it will be an encouragement to that many people. And the magazines will continue to be available on the website continuously.

2- We're selling our trailer! We realized that we don't use it enough to make it worth the space rental, etc., although we're going to miss it! We've had lots of fun in that trailer. We're going to keep having fun, but we'll do it a little differently.

3- When we get money for the trailer, we're planning to put it toward redoing the backyard, according to the plans Philip drew up for us, which will be really nice! Can't wait!

4- Gretchen and Chris and Anders have spent the night here twice in the last month because she came back to work at the La Habra salon a couple of Saturdays. So we've enjoyed having them here and we baby-sat Anders on Friday night while they went out to celebrate her birthday and Father's Day. He's such a smart and darling child!

5- David has been painting the driveway side of the house and the last part to finish is around the side door. The paint was so bad that he just stripped it off, and we decided that he didn't need to worry about the vinyl flooring on the little porch, since it really needed replacing. So now we're working on replacing it, and we finally found a smallish piece I liked. Today I made a newspaper pattern and soon we'll cut the material, smooth the floor and finish the job. It's nice to be fixing things up! Next I want to plant white iceberg roses in front of the front porch!

6- Yesterday we went to see UP! and really enjoyed it. I liked the way they showed the progression in age of the couple, helping people see that older adults are really young people trapped in an old body. It was a nice story.

7- We've been teaching Sunday School every other month and today was our last teaching time for this school year. Actually David does the teaching and he does such a great job, but we're looking forward to having the summer off! 

8- We've gone to mom and dad's for dinner twice this month, once for Luanne's birthday dinner and once to have dinner with a Chinese family that is returning to Hong Kong after completing their schooling. We had their son in our Sunday School class. It's amazing how much mom and dad do, consistently!

9. I have three more weeks of work before I get three weeks off. We're looking forward to our vacation in Colorado and to having Madeline and Abigail fly out for a week in August! It's going to be a true blast! Sewing dresses, Disneyland, the beach, and more!

Thanks for reading!