Happy Mother's Day!!

Noel Piper has written this: "[We've] heard it too often, somebody pontificating, 'Every day should be Mother's Day,' or 'everyday should be as significant as Christmas.'  God knows we need "especially." And it's true. God himself appointed special days for his people and gave them ceremonies to set those days off from the others.  The ceremony of a special day keeps it from slipping away like an ordinary day."

Though we often talk about the honor that should be shown our parents every day, we need opportunities to celebrate the life of our precious mothers! 

Thank you, Momma!  For being a godly wife to Daddy, a cherished mother, a wise teacher, a good friend, an excellent homemaker; for loving children; for opening your heart to little Hope; for your unfailing support; for striving to meet the standards which God has set.

I love you Momma!!

~Clara~

Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. 

Proverbs 31:28-29

Family Trip Part 1

Our family traveled to the West Coast for two weeks in March. Every couple years we fly to California to visit family and friends and this trip we added several other activities, pictures of which can be seen in posts to come(hopefully:)! The west-bound flights gave us many beautiful views out of the windows, with minimal cloud cover as we flew over the mountains. 

The farm fields surrounding the Sacramento area.

The second day in California, we drove up to the Lake Tahoe area to spend the weekend with grandparents and other family members. The snow was beautiful and it was snowing most of the time we were there.

At our favorite sledding hill, Daddy constructed a jump, over which we broke at least two sleds. :)

Whee!

This is one of the sleds which ended up broken by the end of the day!! Oh well, it was fun while it lasted and we had a blast together!

For quite a while before the trip, Philip said that he wanted to dig a tunnel in the snow when we were at Tahoe. Not only did he dig the tunnel pictured above, but he also made an impressively large, two-room snow fort with a tunnel connecting the two rooms! 

We spent two days skiing at a nearby slope. The first day Daddy, the two younger boys, and I skied along with Grandpa, Daddy's brother, and a cousin. It rained the whole morning on the slope making very wet and heavy snow, so we returned to the cabin around noon to play games by the warmth of the wood stove. 

The second day skiing, Mama took the older boys out and it snowed the whole day! They made some great runs and several of the rest of us went to watch them. The snow actually began to stick sometime in the afternoon and, by the time we made it "home" again, everything was covered with the beautiful white powder. 

The next day we spent most of the morning packing up and then played in the snow. We had great fun sledding down the drifts made from the snow that had fallen from the roofs of neighboring cabins. We left in the afternoon to travel down the mountains and on to our next destination.

Watch for more posts about later adventures in the trip!

~Clara~

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. 

Genesis 8:22