You know the wise old saying "It takes a village to raise children!" Well I now know why that saying is so true. These past two weeks for Joel and I kind of has felt like a village. We had the great opportunity to go on a week long vacation with his family. But before I tell you about that I will tell you about the week before. We left Tuesday morning and drove 9 hours until we got to Richmond VA, where we decided to stop for the night and take in some of the Civil War sights. We only made it really to one because the kiddos couldn't make it that long after being in the car for 9 hours and it was crazy hot. So we got to see the place in Richmond where the people had to escape a big fire during the Civil War where General Lee surrendered. So that was fun and it created a lot of conversation between Joel and I. We stayed at a hotel that night with an indoor pool where Lydia was introduced to water and of course she was scared, but got more bold as the night went on. Then we decided the next day to go to Yorktown where part of the War for Independence was fought. Till this day there is the little trenches and Hills they dug to protect themselves. We even got to walk around part of old Yorktown, where there stood houses that where originally built before the War. After another really hot morning and my allergies got the better of me we decided to finish the first part of our journey and drive the rest of the way to Virginia Beach. We spent a few nights at Joel's parents house before his family and us drove down to the Outer banks in NC. Joel's parents found a house down there that would definitely accommodate 10 people. The house truly amazing, complete with a pool, hot tub, pool table and Lydia's favorite, the bunk beds. We wanted to try letting Lydia and Seth sleep together in the same room, but we had the option of having him sleep somewhere else. Lets just say it didn't work out very well. Lydia wakes up probably around 7 every morning and needs to go to the bathroom and then lays in her bed until we allow her to get up at 7:30. She decided it would be fun to wake Seth up too, but he becomes a grumpy little monster without his proper hours of sleep. Needless to say, we separated them the next night. On Sunday we had our own little church service as a family complete with Joel leading worship and Dad Leineweber gives us a little sermon. Each of the days after that the couples all took the opportunity to give a little devotional. Phil and Sarah talked to us about what it means to prefer your spouse of yourself, John and Kim talked about how God's ways are higher than ours and how he ultimately receives glory, and mom and dad told us about what God uses to continue to grow us, like moving from one church to the next, and continual pain in the body. The last night we split up guys and girls and shared prayer request and prayed with each other and what a great way to end a great week. Now this week wasn't complete without sunburn, an unexplainable rash that several got,tons and tons of laughter, romance, food (in one night at dinner a whole watermelon was eaten), settlers, and most of all time spent together loving on one another. Joel and I had the great pleasure of watching how everyone loved our kids and even watched them while we played pool together or stayed at the beach, or just wanted to have a conversation without the kids around. One of the greatest lessons I learned this week is how God's love flows over and over in people whose hearts are His. The bound that God has help create in Joel and his family spills over into all of our relationships. Now that we are back home, I hear a lot of Pa, and mommy when I go back to NaNa's, or ON which is our brother in law Jon, and mommy do you think Aunt Sarah will read me this book one day,Mommy will Aunt Kim play in the sand with me. I miss the time together, but it makes me look forward to Heaven that much more. Because I know that we will all be together in Heaven worshiping our Saviour and how blessed that time will be. I hope there will be plenty of more weeks like this, this side of Heaven too.
On August 21, 2007 Joel and I had the amazing pleasure of welcoming into this world the third member of our family. She has won us all over and continues to shows how fun and exciting she can be. Her favorite things right now are Tangled, legos, playing with Seth, swimming in the pool but most of all being with her whole family all the time. She loves having us all together all the time and if a member is missing she pines for them. She loves playing with her little friends and often talks about going to see them. I am continue to homeschool her this year and I can't wait to see where she will be this time next year.
