It's getting to be that time of year...

 . . .when the boys come out to play.  

  Hard to believe in  just . . . one . . . week . . . softball season begins! I can't wait!  The guys went out to break-in their arms a bit tonight: 

There was a little sport who also took a little batting practice with the guys:

So... The countdown has begun... Let us know if you need a copy of this year's schedule! We'd love to see you at the games... 

My father is a brave man...

That's one of the things I always appreciated about growing up in my family... My dad wasn't afraid to let us try stuff. Now, my dad tried way too much stuff in his childhood.  Let me tell you...if he filled a blog with his stories, it would NOT be boring! Like when he tried putting a motor on his bicycle... or when he tried rolling the cars in his dad's junk yard... My dad probably had ADD long before it was a medical diagnosis... Back then they called kids like him a "handful".  :-) Anyway...by the time I got my driver's permit, I had already had lots of time behind the wheel of cars and other forms of transportation... I could always swing a hammer and I was never afraid of power tools. I'm so thankful that my Dad is still here to share a few of these experiences with Beth, too! (Better him than me...) 

Something pretty...

  For the last few days, these have been brightening my dining/living room and filling the air with a sweet fragrance...  

Aren't they beautiful?

I thought I'd share them with you...

(Thank you, Norma!)

He is Risen!

Hope you had a blessed Resurrection Sunday!

The last in a week of birthdays...

 Today, I got to celebrate my 33rd birthday with my family. For parents, grandparents and friends who are interested in the details of the day, read on... For the other two or three of you...we're not that interesting, so you may not want to bother...  :-) That said, I was thoroughly spoiled... I managed to tweak my back again bowling last night, so I figured I had an excuse to move slowly this morning, take a very long shower, snuggle up and finish a book, and take my time getting ready. My hub took half a day off work to celebrate with his girls...and he also took his time getting to work this morning--which worked out perfectly. Our birthday date began when he got home. These have been sitting on the hope chest in the living room for the last two days tormenting me... 

Well, not really.  I'm terrible with surprises...  And I'm extremely good at figuring out surprises...almost too good.   My family on the other hand loves surprises...  And they also love wrapping very tiny gifts in very elaborate packages to make the experience last.  I, on the other hand, am terrible at keeping surprises, and would rather hurl many gifts at a person in the form of a single box packed "treasure chest style".  It's toooo paaaainful to wait for them to open several packages!  It's so fun to appreciate how different people enjoy loving and giving. So, here I am with many of my small (and not-so-small) treasures from the day: 

After gifts, we headed to Rochester and my husband let me indulge in browsing a couple furniture stores.

Hey, it never hurts to dream...  ;-)

A distinguished gentleman was trying out this couch:



And then a sweet little girl joined him: 

 She decided she felt quite at home on this couch: 

And you maybe can't tell from this picture, but somewhere under all those pillows, she had actually buried her father:

And there's not much more to that story.  There weren't any couches that inspired me.  Well...there were...but they were around $3000.  So, no couch for my birthday.   (It's okay.  I'll get over it.) Our intention was to go to HuHot for supper. Good grief...  You'd think we could bring ourselves to do something out of the ordinary for a birthday, wouldn't you? Well, we ended up at Noodles... 

Yes, we are that boring. We just weren't in a buffet mood. But since it was my birthday, we went all out... We ordered our meals:   and bread: 

and even potstickers:

We were stuffed.

 Then, my family let me browse upholstery at a couple of fabric stores: 

I told you I was spoiled.

 Wow.  Lots of beautiful fabrics to choose from.  I might just get up the courage to try upholstery one of these days. (And this might just be the last time that I visit JoAnn Fabrics in Rochester.  But it's my birthday, so we'll keep this blog post pleasant...) I figured after enduring fabric stores, my hubby deserved a few minutes to dream... So, we walked around at Menard's where he checked for sales on landscaping materials. Mike and I usually forego birthday cake and ice cream on our birthdays, but we did have an early supper, so we decided to stop by Panera for dessert. 

Their orange scones are amazing by the way. And that, my friends and family, is the story of my birthday.

Proclamation:

 Last night, we declared an evening of celebration: 

In the midst of difficult times, it can be so important to pause and reflect on all the prayers that the Lord has answered and the many good things that He has done.

I think so often "we" (Christ-followers in general) will reserve praise until we're "in the clear".

It's all too easy to focus on the hard road ahead rather than looking back and praising God for what He's done along the way.

Well, we've seen our God accomplish some amazing things in our family in the last couple of months. 

And while this blog is not the place to detail them for you, it is an excellent place to point out that He is fully able to do what seems impossible...

  Not only that, but I am so thankful for the faithfulness of people who have given of themselves in so many ways, and for those who have chosen to bear the burdens of others.

It's truly been a privilege to see God's hand at work.

And so...

We celebrated!

We had a pizza party...

Holly made the most amazing homemade donut holes--they were still warm.  Mmm...

And my husband's photography skills never cease to amaze me:

Pretty much every person in this picture looks simply awful!

It's only fair posting this because I'm in the picture.  ;-)  Ha!

Even Gabe looks bad in this picture--and it's hard to get a bad picture of Gabe!

Well, for those who weren't in this picture, be thankful...

Here's a much better picture of a couple of peanuts that I love:

After the pizza party, we headed off to dollar bowling in Pine Island.  

We had 14 people on 2 lanes...

It took 3 hours for everyone to bowl 2 games!

(Note to self: 1 game is probably good.)

I don't know if Stepher's got a strike here, or just an impressive spare...or if everybody just loves Stephers...but they appear to be celebrating:

 

We were joined by a couple of Rowe girls--Missy and Amy (pictured with Holly and Stephany):

The Rowe family...  Wow...they're such a blessing.

I could say so much more, but their praise will be in heaven.

I'm glad they could join us!

And I'll leave you with a sweet picture of 3 of my favorite little girls:

Cousins and friends...

So, it was a good night.

Oh, and Ben, we missed you!!

Living BLOOD!

 We also got out our little lab microscope tonight... 

The handheld microscopes are 30x (which is actually ideal for most nature/household exploration).

But when you want to see things just a little closer, an inexpensive lab microscope goes up to 900x.

My favorite discovery this evening was when Mike pricked his finger and put a drop of blood between the slides.

(Now, for some of you who have a medical background, this will be old news...)

So, he let me be the first to put the blood into focus.  Sure enough--there were a bunch of orangish-pink red blood cells.  Amazing!

But then, I realized--the cells were MOVING!

I jumped back and was like,

"Whoa!  That blood is alive!"

Then, I was like...no...that hardly seems possible, so I look again...

It was totally moving...  And then there were these smaller whitish blobs that almost seemed to be navigating their way through the other red cells.  I was so excited!  So, I googled it, and sure enough...  They call it "live blood microscopy" and the blood is ALIVE for about 40 minutes after the finger prick!  And we discovered it by accident...

I always knew that the life of the flesh was in the blood...but I never knew that the blood itself remained alive after leaving the body.

AWESOME.

And I saw it with my eyes tonight.

How cool is that??

This is definitely going to be our next "after Bible study activity"!

Ha!

A microscopic world to explore...

 Tonight, Mike and Beth brought up a sample of pond water... 

We got out our science supplies and started to explore...  Here Beth is searching for life in her little drop of water: 

Mike was examining some sort of pond scum that was pretty interesting:

Hunting for a little wiggler:

This is the elation of a little person who just found a mosquito larva:

She named him "Freak". A word of advice:  Never name a scientific specimen. (When you name something, you grow attached to it.) Yeah...Freak gave his life for Science... Anyway... It was pretty amazing all the plant life, mosquito larvae, and other tiny organisms we got to explore.  We don't think we found any tadpoles, although we did find something reddish-brown that swam around with a fairly long tail.  You could just barely see it with the naked eye, so it was just the right size to be pretty amazing under the microscope. By the way, I highly recommend these little pocket microscopes from Amazon.com: 

They're usually between $4 and $6 (free shipping on Amazon Prime).  They're not super high quality, but for that price, they're practically disposable.  Ours have lasted just fine for a couple years now, and they open your eyes to a whole new world!  Chapped skin looks like gaping wounds!  It really does help you see and appreciate the miracle of creation in a whole new way... We've also enjoyed these "Hands on Science Kits".  We did the magnetism adventure last year, and this year have been working our way through the microscopic explorations.  They're mostly made up of simple scientific instruments along with basic household materials that you could probably piece together on your own...  But this family has done the work for you...  So, we definitely recommend the Home Science Adventures for children of all ages! 

Birthday week...

Today...

We 3 Amundsons:

spent the day celebrating this guy:

Mike and I have birthdays 5 days apart.

Sometimes, we use it as an excuse to celebrate all week long.

Last year, we were in Oklahoma on Mike's birthday.

Not such big plans this year.  We've already been shopping and celebrating for a few days...so we decided to take it easy today.

But, after church, Mike did enjoy a free bowl of Noodles for his birthday...

Do you want one on your birthday?

Follow this link and sign up!

Free NOODLES: 

After lunch, we stopped by Trader Joe's where Mike got to pick his birthday supper...

(chicken and veggie brats, barbeque chips...and 70% dark chocolate)

And then we visited Grandma--because she needs her Sunday cookie.

We came home and Mike opened a few cards and gifts:

And got a call from Sam ...

(who needed a favor and had no clue it was his birthday)

So, Mike is officially 34 years old.

ScAnDaLoUs.......  I know...

And for the next 5 days, I get to enjoy being 2 years younger than he is.

And then, on Friday, we'll be celebrating again...only this time, it's me that will be a year older...

Yeah, it's distressing.

So, Mike's asking for that birthday supper...time to fire up the grill...

Then, we shall examine some pond water under the microscope...

...and I suspect there may be some bowling in our basement tonight, too...

So that's the latest birthday update...

And that's all for now! 

90 years...

Yesterday, we ventured off to Wisconsin to celebrate Mike's Grandma's 90th Birthday: 

This lady amazes me! She lives independently in a beautiful townhome... still drives around in a little red sports car... is still busy with church groups... and has an active social life.  I didn't have any living grandparents, so when Mike and I were married, I was very thankful to inherit two beautiful Grandmothers, and we are so glad that Beth has been able to know and love two great-grandmothers.   Grandma has already been celebrating her birthday with friends and family for 2 weeks when yesterday's party rolled around.  She decided that if this is what it's like to turn 90, she'll do it every year! One of the highlights of the day was meeting the most recent addition to the family, baby Lucy: 

 

 Beth adored her and had so much fun getting acquainted with her:  

 There was a beautiful cake... 

Mmm...

And lots of gifts...

And we always attempt some group pictures...

Here's Grandma with all of her grandchildren by birth and marriage (except the baby who was napping):

And here's our attempt at getting everyone (except one missing family member) in a single picture: 

Grandma has always dreamed of getting a complete family picture--but someone is always missing.  Maybe someday, Grandma--you keep trying! And I'll leave you with my favorite picture from the day: 

I'm not biased, of course...  ;-)