Every now and then, you just have to take a few days or 7 and just walk away from your normal routine. Go someplace away from it all. And just disappear off the map. Or at least off the map most people know.

I realize my life as a stay-at-home mom sounds REAL taxing, but there are days, particularly days when it feels like all I do is laundry and vacuum (and throw up)..

And even more vital for my beloved husband who hadn't had a real break from work at ALL this past year.

And cuddle with his kids.

In my family, we're so so so blessed to have what you have heard me casually refer to as the Farm. And it just happened to be free this past week, so we packed up our bags, our dog, our many many library books, my knitting projects, a few clothing items, our toothbrushes, lots of art supplies for Kyle, some groceries and got the heck out of dodge.

All the way to Monticello, past the horse farm and curious cows and down the dirt road to our favorite getaway house.

We came on the heels of Josh and Lauren who left us milk and eggs in the fridge. Thanks!

So our week is ended and we are once again settled back in our own home, suitcases packed away.Until this weekend. When we'll head down once again to share Labor Day with the whole clan!

In other news...another blessing that we've been keeping to ourselves the past few months is that...

I'm pregnant!

We should be welcoming Baby Number 3 into our family sometime around the end of February, first of March. I'm currently 11 1/2 weeks pregnant, we've seen the heartbeat on an ultrasound at 7 weeks and heard it galloping along yesterday at our OB visit. And I've been horrendously sick for the past 6 weeks, so if you're wondering why I haven't posted as much or just have generally dropped out of sight...that's why. Extreme nausea and exhaustion will just sort of kick you out of service.

And for those of you speculating that it must be a girl if I'm that sick, well, you may be right, but I was also sick with both of my previous pregnancies, so I don't think those wives' tales mean anything in my case.

I will answer a couple of questions in advance for you:

1) we are not finding out what we're having. Didn't with the previous two, won't with this one.

2) we do not even hint at possible names, so don't ask.

3) you didn't ask, but I'll tell you that I'm currently planning a home birth with this one. Had 2 previous easy deliveries completely without any meds using the Bradley method and after much research and deliberation, have decided to pursue a different course this time. We'll see how it goes.

Keep us in your prayers over the next several months. We're super excited and so very blessed.

The Send Off

The college students and the kids

He starts school next week and I can't wait to see how things go for him. I am so proud of our brilliant young man and so so so blessed to have been his surrogate mom for the summer. What a blessing it is to open your house to someone...yes there were moments of inconvenience, but mostly, I would say it was the best decision we ever made. We now have another son, a friend and a deeper love in our hearts for the tiny country of Rwanda and its many wonderful people.

The day our air stopped working, we had a friend who happens to be an a/c guy come out and give it a quick fix. What I hadn't mentioned in the previous post was that I had planned to cook a big farewell dinner at my house that night in honor of Rene who was going to Hendrix the following morning. My parents and sister, Rachel, were planning on coming. And I knew I would be heating up my house even more with a hot oven!

I decided to go ahead and take a leap of faith and begin cooking. While my children napped peacefully upstairs in the cool air, I put together our meal in my 85 degree kitchen. And the crazy thing was, I adjusted just fine to the temperature. I wasn't even sweating. I was actually singing praise songs. Our air was fixed just in time for dinner to be served.

Woke up the next morning and it was off again. Had a repair guy come out and fix it.

Woke up the next morning and it was off again. Called our original guy to come back out and he gave us a new motor for a fraction of the cost quoted to use by the other repair guy. And so far...it's continued to work. We are thankful daily for the cool air!

I kid you not. 2 seconds after posting the last entry, I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my stomach. Interesting. Yeah, it does feel a little warm in here. I go check our thermostat. Set at 79 and it's...81 in here...and climbing. I run to a vent and hold my hand over it. Air is blowing, but it's not cold air. I run downstairs and outside to see if the fan thingies are blowing...the upstairs one is, but not the downstairs. I run upstairs...yep, still cool. Downstairs...nope.

I call Kyle, almost laughing at the irony of what I just wrote and the events currently unfolding. I've been waiting, for almost 2 years now, for our a/c to just die. I don't know if it just did, but whatever it's doing, it's not working. So, that's what you get for putting your faith out for all the world (or my few readers) to see. A real life test.

My prayer warriors, I need you now. Meanwhile, this is where the rubber meets the road, isn't it? I say I trust God's promises to provide and now I have to live it out. I do trust you God, but I don't think this is nearly as funny as You do. It's 100+ degrees outside. Ah well, thankfully we have places to go if it gets too hot!

I don't know about you, but there are some promises that I rely very seriously on. Such as Kyle's promise to love and cherish me till death do us part. Or my bank's promise to guarantee my funds up to a certain dollar amount. Or even the simple promise that when I make an appointment somewhere, that hour is mine. Designated for me. I expect certain things based on certain promises.

The reality is, a promise is only as good as the one who makes it. I trust Kyle to keep his vows more than I trust the FDIC to guarantee my funds. I trust the appointment holder significantly less...but there's still hope there!

Within the past few weeks, I've seen some men seriously abandon their promises to their wives, leaving them far beyond high and dry. Some seriously despicable actions by people old enough to get their head out of their rear end and do the right thing. Men whose wives JUST gave birth to their child...men who apparently don't care about this because they run off to another woman without so much as a backward glance. Clearly, their promises meant nothing since they lack the character and integrity to back them up.

Some other promises that I've been relying heavily on are ones found in Matthew 6 where Jesus tells me not to worry about my life, what I'll eat or what I'll drink or what I'll wear because He knows what I need and He'll provide all those things for me if I seek HIM first, not the answer to all my needs. God's promises to provide for me and take care of me, I take very seriously. Why? Because if there is ever anyone who has proven himself big enough to fulfill those promises, it's Him.

I can personally vouch for God's power and might. I have seen Him perform supernatural miracles in my life. Seriously. Things that just don't happen in real life, except through God's handiwork. Like when I was dying to quit work and stay home with Brooklyn, but there was no way. Because we had just bought a big house that necessitated both our salaries and there was just no way, financially, short of selling our house, that we could afford to have me stay home. No way. I do our budgets, I know exactly how much it takes to live on and I knew that we would require an additional 40% increase in Kyle's salary if mine were to disappear. And all I could do was pray...knowing that only if God allowed it, could it ever happen. There was no way Kyle would be getting that many raises in time.

Except that I underestimated the bigness of God. Within a few weeks of our laying out these needs, desires and requests before God...out of the blue, completely "randomly", nowhere near his annual review time, Kyle received a 50% salary increase. He had not spoken a word to his boss or anyone else. NO ONE knew the dollar amount we had been praying about. Only God. And then, to have this completely unexpected answer, in an amount even GREATER than we'd been praying about...it left no doubt in my mind. God was big enough to do anything. Anything. Truly, nothing was impossible with Him. The only impossibilities lay in my finite mind. I was forever marked by that event...and since then, others have happened, just as miraculous.

So I know what I'm talking about. God is big enough to stand behind His promises.

He's big enough to work in the life of my husband...to strengthen him and turn him from a good man to a GODLY man...because as great as my husband is, I know that he's only able to keep the promises he's made because God equips him and strengthens him to do so. Just as God alone is able to give me satisfaction staying at home raising my children. And gives me the ability to honor my promises to Kyle.

In short, I have been paying attention to promises and those who make them. And I'm humbled that a God so big and awesome makes such wonderful promises to me. And keeps them.

August, Kyle, Rene, Brooklyn, Ashley, Evergiste

Good news! This morning, the Orkin guy came by and said they would fix the damage to the house. In fact, the moment he left, the carpenter they will be using called and said he plans to start on it immediately. Great news! I can't tell you the relief I feel!

These past few weeks have presented me with multiple opportunities to rely on God and His promises to take care of me and my family. But it's interesting...as I was doing my quiet time this morning, I saw things from a slightly different perspective. I'm currently using Beth Moore's 90 days with John as part of my daily Bible study. And this morning, the passage we studied was in Acts where Peter and John encounter a beggar at the Beautiful Gate. The beggar was asking for silver and gold, which was absolutely the most reasonable thing for him to be asking for. Silver and gold would go a long way to meeting his most basic needs: food, shelter, enough to get by for another day. He certainly couldn't go do any other kind of productive work.

And yet. As logical as his request was, as much as that was the MOST he could have conceivably asked for...there was more God had planned for him.

But when Peter held out his hand, he offered him not money, but something far beyond what the man was expecting: a new life. The Holy Spirit, through Peter's grip, gave the man the ability to walk - strengthening his feeble, crippled limbs. The man was suddenly leaping about, praising God, no longer confined to a life of begging, but liberated to new life.

A point that Beth made today was this: is there someone out there who's been begging God for trivial things like silver and gold when God wants to raise them to their feet to jump, dance and praise Him. Made me wonder what God might be trying to accomplish in my life through all these trials lately. I have definitely been asking him for the daily provision...to help us get through everything...but maybe I'm missing the point. I find myself asking what I'm not seeing. What does God desire to do in my life beyond the obvious? How can these situations be turned into jumping, dancing and praising God?

I don't have the answer yet, but it seems a good question.