Many of you know of our daughter’s fascination with hair color. She’s been black, blue, red, green, blonde, multi, and her gorgeous original color, honey. But now- she has tried this one:
It’s already starting to fade, so most of you won’t see it. ‘Cept here. 
!
Caleb came from Brainerd for our Friday night last night. He was going to drive back but the couch looked too inviting. So he and our girls stayed up chirping til late. This morning, they were trying to explain to him how orchids have a face. He wasn’t seeing it:
see? there's the nose, and those are it's ears....
But he’s off home again now. And the kitties were born last night- check the garden blog. And I’m off to haul horse poo.
I was just going to check something online and my husband had a site up that had this staring at me. I thought it was amazing and exactly what I needed to hear today, and to put on my wall, and to remember, every day, so I’m sharing:
1. Make, keep, and maintain friendships with both men and women.
2. Be as honest and as real as you know how to be.
3. Find out what you need and go get it.
4. Know who you are, and go after your dreams.
5. Eliminate all passiveness.
6. Be committed to discipline.
7. Be a man and never apologize for it.
8. Do things you love.
9. Hug people (all the time).
10. Pursue encounters with God.
Nothing like having it all summed up, huh? LOVE IT. It’s from the www.puritypursuit.com website, I believe.
and ps. The “be a man and don’t apologise” part- adjust if you’re a woman.
More horse pictures – Maddie took these the other day while the horses were getting their hooves trimmed. They look “wintery and scruffy” – So – horsie pictures:
Scout not very happy....
Maddie's "Tink"
Ilsa's "Faith" out of Tink and Titan
Fanny - Ilsa's loan mare from Joel
Phil's "Scout"
Wellington
The kids have been out every day riding. It’s been crazy beautiful here! The 10 day forecast is saying 50-60′s !! Weird. We get blizzards in April here. So we’re not really sure what’s happening, but we’re enjoying it !
waiting
Wow, we’re actually experiencing SPRING in northern MN…..hmmmm…..wonder how long it will last?
It was gorgeous yesterday. 55 degress +. The greenhouse was over 80 ’til we opened it up. Phil and Ilsa and Maddie have been riding their horses almost every day, and the other day they took Eli along just for fun. I don’t think they’ll ever do that again. Because once he experienced riding a horse by himself, he will never let them leave him home again, ever.
He said to me later, “Mom! NOW I KNOW why Ilsa and Maddie do this EVERY DAY!!!!” He’s hooked. Here’s some pictures:
Maddie on Tink, front, and Ilsa on Fanny
"Mom....Mom take my picture. I loooooooove Reno."
Our big cowboy...except his legs aren't long enough to fit in stirrups
Big sister Ilsa was always right there to help if needed
Phil and Scout- Scout has gotten so BIG!!
Maddie and her beloved Tink.
Ilsa ready to grab Reno if needed....but Eli & Reno were doing pretty well!
Makes me want to ride too!
Wellington left behind....
Faith & Wellington pacing the pasture
Ilsa's filly Faith- out of Tink & Titan- she's so lovely!
Pretty girl Faith- she was wanting to play with our dog Jack
We just got back from the coast. We came here a week before the conference we’ll be attending for several reasons- a family vacation, our daughter was here, and extra time for a trip to the coast. If we hadn’t wanted to go to services at bethel tomorrow, we would have stayed a few more days. We really feel like we just dipped our toe in.
Sensory overload. Driving across the mountains the first time, I’m seriously freaking out. Woooo-hoooiing in the car. My kids don’t get it. My husband does It’s just so overwhelming- the mountains, the lakes, the trees, the vegetation. The windy road. Knowing at times if you veered left you’d be off in a canyon. Green water, rapids, glowing moss, evidences of past forest fires. Flowers and trees in flower. Elk. No deer, just elk, lots of elk. Right there on the road.
We get to the last ridge and the clouds start rolling in from the ocean. Our next few days are cloudy but no rain. It isn’t MN nice here. The locals aren’t thrilled at us tourists with California plates driving slow, pointing, and picture taking. Several times I am sworn at. Wow. So not used to that. I am sensitive, but even my husband is saying, what the heck? But there also were the super helpful, friendly people at the hotel, and the happy hippies at the hippie grocery store….sweet.
Remember that movie- I can’t remember the name- about the college graduate who gives away all his money and leaves his family and goes to Alaska to live on his own? And he starves to death? True story? I think it was called Into the Wild. It was disturbing. This kid had everything, except real relationships. So he went looking, and found himself in a place he couldn’t get out of, eating a bunch of berries that killed him. So young, so incredibly sad.
I saw a lot of young people like that here, on the coast. Walking, biking, traveling in converted vans and buses, sleeping in tents, hitchhiking. I wondered where they were all going, where their families were, if anyone was wondering where they were, missing them. There were so many. And this, I was told, isn’t even the “busy” season.
We saw great stuff too. Before we left, we prayed as a family, asked God to give us “clues” of stuff he wanted us to find on our trip. Phil got “red barn,” Grace got “orange” someone else got “woman with grey-ish hair in denim shirt.” We all got a bunch of stuff, these are just a few. So we’re driving, and BOOM- out of the blue sky, we come up on a place called the Red Barn. We pull over. Inside, there are orange walls. And a woman with grey-ish hair in a blue-denim-ish shirt comes out to greet us. (yeah, I know! crazy! but fun!)
So I tell her, uh, we have your name on this paper….I show her all this stuff. Got anything we can pray for you for? YES!!! she says. She comes out from around the counter, and our family gathers around her. We just all pray for her, blessing her. No great healing, no huge word. Just, “God is thinking about you and sent us to tell you that.” It was awesome, amazing. We exchange phone numbers & emails and hugs and off we go, after buying Eli 2 squirtguns.
Then, more scenery. A winery. (Wine a little. It will make you feel better.!!) A stop and a hike. The coast, a hippie grocery store, a nice Howard Johnson hotel that gladly takes us all in. Super duper chlorinated pool and hot tub, stinging eyes, bedtime.
We hit the road in the morning, exploring Trinidad and having to run back to the hotel for clothes. Our kids got completely soaked in the surf- who knew? We had a few random things for them to change into….and Phil and I made a dressing room with a our bodies blocking the view of kids changing. Hilarious. Screetches of “don’t look!” and “for pete’s sake, I changed your diaper a million times, I’ve seen your behind!!” hitting innocent bystanders.
Then, lunch at a little funky cafe. We all order fresh fish. Wow.
Off to the Redwoods. By the time we get there, we have two hours before dark. Not enough time to hike to the cathedral, but we make it about half way. Take a few pictures. I spend the rest of the trip trying to figure out how to explain redwood trees…
The only thing that came close was on the way home, I was listening to Revelation Song, the Kim Walker version. She sings the first part of the last verse three times: filled with wonder/awestruck wonder/at the mention of Your name. And I realized that that is the Redwood trees. Standing among them, I was filled with wonder, awestruck wonder. They were whispering His name, the name of their beloved Creator. I swear you can almost hear it if you stand there and put your hands on their trunks. Nothing compares. They are larger than whales…..in pods of dozens…..surrounding you. They made me feel small and mighty at the same time. They made me want to laugh and cry. I didn’t ever want to leave them, because I could hear their song, and it was so so so beautiful.
But we had to go. It was getting dark. And tomorrow we head back to Redding. Goodbye trees. I still have this sick feeling in my stomach knowing they are three hours away and I won’t see them again for a long long time.
The drive home was even more beautiful than the drive over. I don’t know why. It just seemed we could see more all at once. We stopped at one point to pick some willow reeds (can’t help it, it’s spring here and Grace fell asleep under a tree. Everything has that “it’s been raining for a month green” going on- and with the moss and the recent rain and sunshine, it all had an ethereal glow. I kept expecting to see the lamp post and a white stag bound across the road.
So now, I sit in bed thinking about all of this, listening to cheesy music from a movie downstairs and the rain and thunder outside. The Kings and Queens have stepped back through the wardrobe, and all is as it once was. Crazy sensory overload- it’s all out there. Crabby coastal Californians, happy hippies, someone’s wandering children, magnificent singing trees, oceans and oceans of ….ocean. Ooooohhhh I wish I could sit in it one more time
