Joyful Journey

Sunday morning I dropped Bob off at the airport early and so attended the early service. Shortly after returning home, I put Sydney out on the screen porch. A few minutes later something caught my eye as it emerged from the woods near the shop. I watched as a red fox, although his or her coloring was brown, made its way across the backyard, through the septic field and off towards the creek. Unfortunately there was no time to grab the camera. Sydney lay quietly on the porch. Guess the wind wasn't blowing in the right direction!

Spring has definitely arrived, the redbud is brillant with color (thanks, Beth!), the flowers are blooming in the pots by the porch and in the yard, and the pine pollen is coating everything, everywhere! Hopefully I can clean off the front porch enough so that we can sit out there without drinking pine pollen with our coffee.

Something bright red in the woods catches my eye. It is a large bird with bright red plummage. No, wait, it's a pair of birds. Grabbing the bird book that we initially purchased to identify birds when Joel was 5, I soon identify them as pleated woodpeckers. Joel and I enjoy watching them "go to town" on some fallen trees and tree stumps. Guess I need to find a book at Amazon.com on European birds! It's interesting to see how a subject studied many years ago still brings hours of enjoyment. Seeing your children continue to enjoy learning is truly a joy beyond measure. (We tried to get a photo, but they are never close enough.) To see an image of the bird click here

"God doesn't always explain His unexpected plans, but asks that we rely on Him." Stephen Davey, June 4, 2006 (Sermon from Romans 15) And so began any indication that our life was about to change. As I took notes during the sermon, God quietly spoke, "Listen, this is for you." I wondered what was in store, would it be tragedy, difficulties, heartache? Sitting there I began to pray for grace. Little did I know what was coming later that week. When Bob returned from his business trip that week, he shared that he had been asked to oversee the Websphere Business in Northern Europe and that we would be asked to relocate for 1-2 years in Zurich, Switzerland. Definitely change. Not the kind I was anticipating. That was June. Then the move was put on hold, indefinitely. And then within a matter of days in February we learned that Bob would start this new job on March 1st. Many details are yet unknown. For more details, check out http://psthimsen.googlepages.co...

...after all, where else do they cancel school even before this VAST amount of snow hits the ground??? To their credit, it was predicted that we would most likely have an ice event in the middle of the day that could cause power outages and dangerous road conditions at the time that schools would be letting out for the day. We actually got more snow than this photos shows, but then it began to rain and it is all going away rather quickly.

As he returned from the car with Dawn's camera, in order to show me their "duck" video from earlier that day, Steven was joined by a small bird who decided that he would rather stay in the house than make his way back outside. We chased him around the house, opening doors and windows, trying to "shoo" him out with blankets. Evenutally we trapped him in the guest room, opened all the windows and he decided to leave our "coop."

Noah Robert arrived this afternoon, the newest cousin for Joel and Steven. At 7 lb. 14 oz. and 21 inches, he's off to a good start. Guess he didn't make entry into the world easy, as he was facing the wrong way. We're delighted that mom and baby are doing well and the big sisters are estatic.