Meg's Memo

. . .writings from Wilmington.

Saturday, September 26, 2020

Road Trip to Indiana

This week our oldest 3 had their virtual week for school, so we took advantage of that and hit the road! We left early Saturday morning and drove to Indiana to visit Anna. Anna just purchased a new home and she had a list of projects for Jake to help her with. Jake & Anna tackled and completed quite the list! Every morning seemed to begin with a trip to Lowe's. A few of the projects were: fixing the bathroom vent, rewiring the garage, installing a back up sump pump. cutting fire wood, hanging art, re-mortaring any lose stones by her driveway, re-sanding the butcher block countertops, and some other miscellaneous items.

I did school with the kids in the morning and then we played or explored Midtown, Main Street and her local parks. The weather was gorgeous all week - it was like we drove in to fall. 

Anna's new home is absolutely beautiful and we loved spending time with her. Here are a few highlights from our week with Anna, although I didn't take many pictures. We also enjoyed meeting a lot of Anna's friends, going to church with Anna on Sunday, a Wednesday evening dinner party, and breaking in the new chiminea... complete with s'mores three nights in a row. 

Anna's new home

We could walk to midtown - so fun!

Playing on Anna's front porch

Main Street has some fun statues - we could walk there too!

 Notice Wren looking up the girl's skirt - ha!

An afternoon trip to Ikea for new home essentials.

Afternoon coffee time.

with donuts

a REALLY fun park

Night 3 of s'mores



Friday, September 18, 2020

another stone in our family altar

Remember the Israelite's, who wandered and wandered and complained and complained? God kept providing in miraculous ways, leading them, and making a way when there was no way. A couple of times the Israelite's made a stone altar not to sacrifice, but to REMEMBER all the Lord had done for them (read Joshua 4). They did this to teach their future generations of the goodness of the Lord. Well, we want to do the same thing for our children and for our family. We want to recount all the ways the Lord has provided and directed our family, at times even before we could make our requests known to Him. 

I wish I had started a blog "series" of sorts years ago that I would then continue to add to.  Some of the entries would have been:

And today, since these blog posts become our yearly family photo album & journal, I am going to write about another huge provision from the Lord. As of TODAY, our home is PAID IN FULL! Previous posts tell more of the story of how the Lord gifted us with our current home. We were able to buy this house for a steal and then do almost all the renovations out of pocket. This allowed us to have a minimal mortgage since 2012. What a gift this was! 

In the fall of 2014, we followed the Lord's leading and stepped in to foster care. Jake was still teaching at a local christian school, Meg stopped working outside of the home (no second income) while we signed up for more kids with foster care. We had a challenging first placement who was with us for 2 months.  This threw us into the deep end of foster care and showed us how much we needed the Lord's help to do this. Those He calls He equips! Then sweet Benny joined our family on January 20, 2015.

Then one Thursday evening, at the very end of May, Jake & I were talking. Jake mentioned what if the next school year was his last year of teaching. I was a little shocked since he really loved teaching and had never mentioned this before. We talked through his reasons, and what he would want to pursue. Fast forward not even three days and that Sunday morning, at church, another friend came up to Jake and said "our art director was fired on Friday. I gave my boss your name and number." Jake & I were both shocked - we hadn't even prayed any prayers yet for God's direction in Jake finding a new job. God's timing was also amazing - Jake was finishing up the school year in a week and was not under contract to teach the next school year 2015-2016. This was the only time he could accept a new job and not break his contract. God had already prepared our hearts for this change and then he just put the job in Jake's lap. Jake started at MyEmployees on June 15, 2015. Also the week before, we found out that Wren was on the way, and due early December. 2015 was a BIG year at our house - see it HERE. A big year of seeing God's sovereign and faithful hand in our family.

Two verses that come to mind as I recount these gifts from the Lord:

Psalm 118:23 "This is THE LORD'S doing; it is marvelous in our eyes."

Psalm 115:1 "Not unto us O Lord, but to YOUR NAME we give glory, because of your mercy and truth."

Sunday, September 13, 2020

BENJAMIN LEE, S I X

Today we celebrated Benny's SIXTH birthday. 

Benny still loves sharks, batman and LEGO's. He enjoys boogie boarding at the beach, riding his bike, swimming and playing at the park.  Benny is a curious kid and loves almost everything except spiderwebs.

Yesterday, Benny F-I-N-A-L-L-Y had his super wiggly, dangling for a month or more, tooth pulled out so we let him open up his present from Auntie Bek. We had previously tried all sorts of bribery to get Benny to let Jake pull it. So add that to the list, he doesn't like cobwebs and getting his teeth pulled.

The birthday boy playing LEGO's before breakfast.


more presents

20 months, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10

chocolate cake with chocolate icing

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BENNY! We love you.



Saturday, September 12, 2020

Game Day 2020

 


This can only mean one thing - it's GAME DAY.

Thursday, September 10, 2020

a new friend



This guy joined our family late Tuesday evening. 


He is 20 months old and seems to be adjusting well and warming up to us more and more each day.




Sunday, September 6, 2020

Squirrels at Airlie Gardens

We enjoyed a lovely morning at Airlie Gardens for their new Squirrels exhibit. They had 10 different hand painted fiberglass squirrels throughout the gardens. A map was handed out to show you where each squirrel was displayed. Each squirrel is painted by a different artist and sponsored by a different company. We had so much fun. The kids wanted a photo with each squirrel.

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The lovely bottle garden


Wednesday, September 2, 2020

a crepe party

Tonight we had friends over for a crepe party. THE BEST part was the kids did the cooking!