Merry Christmas!

to you and yours...from us and ours

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

I'm dreaming of a white.... bunny!

[Rob put a carrot out so she just might get to see one]
asking Gracie if she wants to come in

I guess not.

word~rocks

. . . mccabe's creations

and mine . . .

rock-n-around the christmas tree

our first charlie brown christmas tree and we're ready to rock!

inspired by a lovely mermie by the sea

advent conspiracy

Autumn Falls on the North Shore

The Water Song
~ ~ ~
Come, oh come! let us away--
Lower, lower every day,
Oh, what joy it is to race
Down to find the lowest place.
This the dearest law we know--
'It is happy to go low.'
Sweetest urge and sweetest will,
'Let us go down lower still.'

Hear the summons night and day,
Calling us to come away.
From the heights we leap and flow
To the valleys down below.
Always answering to the call,
To the lowest place of all.
Sweetest urge and sweetest pain,
To go low and rise again.

Hannah Hurnard ~ Hinds' Feet On High Places

'Much Afraid,' said the Shepherd's voice in her ear, 'what do you think of this fall of great waters in their abandonment of self-giving?'

She trembled a little as she answered. 'I think they are beautiful and terrible beyond anything which I ever saw before.'
'Why terrible?' He asked.
'It is the leap which they have to make, the awful height from which they must cast themselves down to the depths beneath, there to be broken on the rocks. I can hardly bear to watch it.'
'Look closer,' He said again. 'Let your eye follow just one part of the water from the moment when it leaps over the edge until it reaches the bottom.'
Much-Afraid did so, and then almost gasped with wonder. Once over the edge, the waters were liked winged things, alive with joy, so utterly abandoned to the ecstasy of giving themselves that she could almost have supposed that she was looking at a host of angels floating down on rainbow wings, singing with rapture as they went.
She gazed and gazed, then said, 'It looks as though they think it is the loveliest movement in all the world, as though to cast oneself down is to abandon oneself to ecstasy and joy indescribable.'
'Yes,' answered the Shepherd in a voice vibrant with joy and thanksgiving. 'I am glad that you have noticed that, Much-Afraid. These are the Falls of Love, flowing from the High Places in the Kingdom above. You will meet them again. Tell Me, does the joy of the waters seem to end when they break on the rocks below?"
Again Much-Afraid looked where He pointed, and noticed that the lower the water fell, the lighter it seemed to grow, as though it really were lighting down on wings. On reaching the rocks below, all the waters flowed together in a glorious host, forming an exuberant, rushing torrent which swirled triumphantly around and over the rocks. Laughing and shouting at the top of their voices, they hurried still lower and lower, down through the meadows to the next precipice and the next glorious crisis of their self-giving. From there they would again cast themselves down to the valleys far below. Far from suffering from the rocks, it seemed as though every obstacle in the bed of the torrent was looked upon as another object to be overcome and another lovely opportunity to find a way over or around it. Everywhere was the sound of water, laughing, exulting, shouting in jubilation.
'At first sight perhaps the leap does look terrible,' said the Shepherd, 'but as you can see, the water itself finds no terror in it, no moment of hesitation or shrinking, only joy unspeakable, and full of glory, because it is the movement natural to it. Self-giving is its life. It has only one desire, to go down and down and give itself with no reserve or holding back of any kind. You can see that as it obeys that glorious urge the obstacles which look so terrifying are perfectly harmless, and indeed only add to the joy and glory of the movement.'

being a part of the great waterfall

each drop being a necessary part

of a greater whole that together

form a healing flow
Yes!

seven

With the month of elul nearly coming to an end, I am breaking my blogfast to celebrate a birthday past, present and future. Inspired by the lovely mccabe ~ here's a glimpse into our brave and beautiful sapphire days.

Last Saturday begins our photo montage. Rob was going to be spending his birthday weekend doing one of his most favorite things ever, watching the football game from as up close and personal as it gets! Our good friend Terry invited Rob to help him...so first things first, meet the Carolina team at the aiport, unload the equipment from the plane and truck it over to the Dome locker room. Here are a few official mementos of day 1.

And knowing tomorrow would be a full day, there was no time like the present to, well....
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
First...it was birthday past!
These keepsakes were given to Rob by his Mom a while ago and tucked away by me for such a time as this. In the flowery constructed envelope were 24 handmade birthday greetings from his 2nd grade classmates with personal heartfelt wishes for his 7th birthday. Precious! Thanks for keeping the memories Mom!

But that's not even the best yet.
Turns out young Robby had some things on his mind back then and was a pretty good speller too! This masterpiece definitely needed to be framed and preserved and remembered.
"My name is Robby Kistler. I have 9 in my family. I don't want to get married. I like spaghetti and I like to play cowboys and Indians. I like math. I don't want to go to 2nd grade. I don't like school and I never will."

"Boy is that 'not liking school' ringing true today!!!"

Speaking of today. . .
here is a much gentler form of awakening . . .













And then, last but certainly not least for this true blue purple-blooded never a Packer-backer fan, courtesy of his brother from a different mother (aka mine)
MINNESOTA VIKINGS
vs.
GREENBAY PACKERS

oh yeah baby!

(I'm not supposed to tell my brother Tom it brought big welling tears to his eyes that you'd give these up! Thanks bro!!! You got'm good.)

This calls for a little Tiger cake celebration!!!

What a glorious morning! The day you were born...

September 21





Game Day!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROB!



















[Rob & Terry's son Jake after the big win!]














Meanwhile . . .
back on the home front...
just one more thing to do.











VOILA! that's one lemony luscious-ness sure to please!

























I wish she'd stop taking pictures and just let me eat this CAAAAKE!!!!

"sniff sniff" what's this?

ooh la la! that's goooood sweeeet soooo yummmy!

I'm totally licking the bowl and begging for

more of this delicious caaaake!

blogging elul

journeying through this month of elul
with a very dear friend
feel free to listen in
prepare to be
challenged
inspired
sharpened
by a deeply beautiful soul
...karen aviah davis

It is a time for instrospection, teshuvah (repentance) and reconciliation.

I'm all in.

ransomed hope for rob...

discovered here

Josiah's story

Some friends of our family have a 3-year old son, who at age 2 started to develop Autism. They created a video of his story, and for every person that views the video, $.04 will be donated to finding a cure. If you have a minute, take a look—it’s a great cause and a heart wrenching story.

k-k-k-k-Katie

Beautiful Katie....you're their only g-g-g-girl my sister adores

k-k-k-k-Crookston~dig-set-spike~Crookston

she'll be watching from the s-s-sideline-fer-shore

I love these two beauties...the closest mom and daughter team I've ever known.

Aren't they adorable!

Katie is a sophmore at U of M Crookston and excelling on and off the volleyball court.

LOVE HER! She is truly gorgeous inside out.

Hey Katie, this one's for you "such as" ....

and while this signature 'dock of the bay' shot was taken by yours truly,

my uncle is the real deal...and here are all my auntie gems ...

and the rockstar of this blog....miss you girl!

some spider

We just watched Charlotte's Web last weekend for the first time ever.
From Fern rescuing the little runt to finding the perfect word,this movie struck a heartstring.
And we have a visitor tonight on our deck that feels like a touch from heaven...a love gift of the humble kind.
Some of my favorite quotes:
Templeton: "Look at her! Don't you think she's a little...uh...what's the word? EW!"Wilbur: "I think she's beautiful."Templeton: "Are we even seeing the same creature?" Wilbur: "I guess not."
Wilbur asks "Should I be worried?" Charlotte replies "Of course not, what good would that do?""Don't worry Wilbur, we'll figure something out.""You are going to see the snows of winter. I never break a promise."
Wilbur: "I don't feel like I deserve any of the words you wrote about me." Charlotte: "Then it [Humble] is the perfect word."
Charlotte's Magnum Opus: "We take to the breeze, we go as we please."
~ ~ ~
Oh, and that little snag in her web is from the fly Rob tossed in for her.awwh! it was sweet.
Wilbur: "Except for the fly."

finally!

That was then . . .

This is now...

repeating the pose...

shoooooes!!!

all is well...
and they lived happily ever after.

hallelujah

this is glorious. each offering their unique strength. simply beautiful.

who's your worst enemy

A while back I commented here that one day I would share this story.

Today is the day. Seven years ago, 7/22/2001, you could hear the angels rejoicing in heaven as one dear precious saint surrendered her life to Jesus for the first time and entered into an eternal life giving relationship with her Savior. Ten years earlier, this person was my worst enemy, and I was hers. Neither of us had a clue that our battle was not against flesh and blood. While we directed our hatred at each other and away from the real culprit plotting and stringing us both along in what we now realize was the most ungodly relationship either of us had ever entered into, we could not see the forest for the trees. We were both lied to and deceived but God's grace, mercy, redemption and TRUTH prevailed!

This part of the do bee di "wash" chapter remains appropriately veiled to protect the innocent and the words I wrote nearly ten years ago to express this painful time are "the truth hurts but not as much as the eventual anguish the soul feels when deception is revealed. The desperate attempts to piece together, the disorientation of figuring out what is really real magnified by the inability to grasp another's intentionality to shroud. Tell me the truth so that I can exist and act upon what I know versus what has been hidden." I am never afraid of what I know. Anna Sewell

Sometime in 2000, this person called me, her voice trembling and filled with sorrow, she later said her body was shaking with apprehension not knowing how I would respond to her attempt to apologize for her part in what happened years earlier...that now it was happening to her. I would have never guessed the overwhelming amount of compassion I felt and just expressed through welling tears how sorry I was for what was happening to her...and said something like "oh...I forgave you years ago."

Six or seven months later, while out pulling weeds in my front yard, a few nights before July 22nd, I saw her approaching from her home a few doors down, and my heart started pounding what seemed like outside of my chest; thoughts raced and again with a sense of not knowing what this was all about, time seemed to stop. She shared how hard things had been for her since during her high school years and the more recent struggle to date and develop genuine friendships. I told her about this church I was going to now, and it so happened a co-worker of hers had also been asking her to go there with her for some time. "Hmmm....maybe I will" she said.

I saw her that next Sunday morning...I remember it vividly because it was also the day of my parents' 40th wedding anniversary...and when the pastor shared the love of Jesus, I saw her out of the corner of my eye, weeping and raising her hand toward heaven. YES! Oh my gosh, talk about a story of redemption! Praise God for forgiveness...that we can release our grip so that Jesus can redeem!

The details from there are fuzzy but we were now sisters in Christ and over time we worked through some really hard stuff and learned to trust each other in ways that at one time were incomprehensible. The circle of forgiveness was complete and all by the grace of God I had never felt anything so amazingly beautiful and right.

Love you to the moon my PURE JOY friend!
...and Happy New Birthday!

"From God's Heart Came a Friend Like You"

She is now happily married to a wonderful man
and they have one adorable son. God is good.

creation critters

being graceful
in the wild

morning glorious

do these make me look pretty

the very act
of observing
changes things unfortunately this little guy's response was flight

wonder where he's hiding now

i prefer mine
on the rocks