Beautiful Spring, beautiful times

Time to catch up here before I forget what all happened this past week.  

First I want to share this view I had last evening.  I had just come over Seven Mountains and was greeted by this view of the sunset as I headed toward State College.

I'll go back now to this past Saturday.  We packed up food and lawn chairs and a hot dog wire and headed down to Sam's place.  It was a gorgeous, warm day, just perfect for roasting hot dogs over a fire and eating watermelon and playing in the stream.  Sammy and Bianca were excited to see a frog. Can you see it?  It was so well camouflaged.  We had a wonderful evening.  These kids were born for the outdoors!

On Sunday morning we had our regular online church services.  We had such issues with the GBRV service on Google Hangouts.  For some reason I was unable to connect from my phone, so I was using Dick's phone instead.  Meanwhile he decided to connect from his iPad, but as soon as he connected I got kicked off since it was the same account!  And it was time for me to play the first song in the service.  He was scrambling to connect on one of the devices and I may have been freaking out a bit.  I decided to just call into the service from my phone and by the time I got back into the meeting they had just skipped over my first two songs because I was "absent."  UGH!!  But the pastor had me play them later in the service instead.  

That evening we went over to Anthony and Lori's and sat around a fire.  It was a cooler evening than Saturday had been, so the fire felt wonderful.  I went down to the pond with Austin while he tried to catch some frogs.  He is so patient and observant of every little sound and motion.  But there were no frogs that evening.  Hunter showed me a new toy he calls Robie.  It reminded me of Jeremy's Alpha from the 80's!  Anyone remember it?

It was so good to sit together and talk and take in the beauty all around. 

Here are some pictures I took while walking this week.  I love Spring! (When it actually feels like Spring, that is.)

The bottom right picture below was another amazing sunset one evening this week.  I caught it just before it slipped behind the mountain.

I'm in charge of posting things on GBRV's Facebook page, and I was being prompted by Facebook that there hadn't been any new "likes" this week, so it was time to post something.  Bossy Facebook!  So I sang "In the Garden" and posted it.  It's amazing how many people say that it's a favorite.  I have known this song all my life, but I have a clear memory of the time it became very personal to me.  I was a teenager and experiencing real hunger for the Lord and a precious, intimate relationship with Jesus.  Our church was doing a service at a very small "old people's home" and we sang this song.  I felt like I really understood the message of the lyrics for the first time.  

On Wednesday morning we had an online appointment with Dick's endocrinologist.  He had gone for bloodwork on Saturday morning, and this was a 3-month followup.  His numbers show dramatic improvement!!  His A1C came down from 12 to 5.6!!  She said, "That's the power of insulin."  But we have also changed his diet a lot.  He eats a lot of eggs and meat, and I was wondering if that would cause his cholesterol numbers to go up, but in fact all those numbers were better too.  And of course he's lost weight.  Good grief!  Everybody will want diabetes!  I'm KIDDING!!

On Thursday I went on a tour of loved ones!  It was a beautiful day for a drive.  First I went to Richland Christian Home and talked with Grandma Mary on the phone while she looked out her window.  They no longer allow the residents to stand out on the balcony to visit with people like we did the last time, which is sad.  

Then I went to Pleasant View Communities and sat on the porch with Grandma Arlene.  We both wore our masks and sat at least six feet apart.  We had such a sweet time reminiscing about Dad.  

From there I went to Witmer Automotive Service where my sister Mary Ellen works and we chatted for a while.  We text each other a lot, but it was fun to actually see each other for the first time in ages.  

And then I went to see Destiny and to take her some maternity clothes from our local Mommy Shoppe (a ministry of Houserville House of Hope.)   After I took her picture she said, "I was smiling!"  I said, "I know! I could tell by your eyes!"  She's getting quite a baby bump, and she says the little guy kicks a lot, haha!

Well, that's it for this time!  Have a Happy Memorial Day weekend!