My apologies

Here's a cool picture of the day for you! Jourdyn and I went to the movies w/friends tonight and then to Big Boys!

I have been so horrible and keeping you up-to-date with mom and Jim here! There hasn't been too much going on! We've been swimming and hanging out!

Yesterday, Jourdyn had her first real salon experience! I took her to my stylist. She had blonde and burgundy highlights put in her hair! It turned out really pretty! Lots of big changes as she enters the 8th grade.  It's time for braces and perhaps even contacts!

Sunday Worship

This Sunday it was my turn to preach! I delivered a sermon on Acts 14:1-7. It was part of our Empowered Series. We are going through the book of Acts this summer! It's been quite cool to see how the Holy Spirit empowered Peter and Paul, as well as the disciples to share the gospel to the ends of the earth!

My grandparents always come to see me preach! Grandpa usually calls me "Babe!" And then corrects himself saying "Uh-oh! Am I allowed to call a pastor 'babe'?" I tell him he can call me whatever he wants! He's 94!

Well a visit with grandpa always means a trip to Bob Evans. So after service, mom, Jim, Julie, my family, Uncle Jeff, grandpa and grandma and my friend Amanda, all headed to Bob's for lunch!

Chuck and his friend, John on Rt. 2

When we arrived home, Charlene called and asked me to come over to the gas station at the corner to see what her hubby was doing! They met Pastor Ron yesterday morning.  Pastor Ron is walking from Fort Wayne, IN to Boston to beginning an inner-city missional work there.  While walking he is carrying a cross! Chuck went and carried the cross for him for several miles.
 
We finished off our evening worshipping and witnessing 60+ baptisms at Cedar Creek Church Toledo Campus.  I've uploaded a short video of a song that I am really loving these days - Our God.

Sterling State Park

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This afternoon our family ventured up to C. Sterling State Park in Monroe, MI. The kids all played for a while in the sand and in the lake. But then Rowan spent about 2 hours riding the water slide that they have on the beach. 

New Family Member

We've had another busy week! Wednesday, we had my friend Heather's boys, Aiden and Lucious.  We started our day together at the library for story time! This was the first time for Nadine and Rowan. They absolutely loved it! Aiden and Lou showed them the ropes.  Rowan did fantastic! I thought that he would have not sat still but he did! They danced, sang songs and had a puppet show too!

After story time, we headed to Mickey D's for lunch and to play for a bit on the playground.  And then we were off to Bethany's to swim with her kids, Camden and Corbin.  The kids had a ball together!

On Thursday, Nadine and I went to my hair appointment.  After lunch, Rowan, Nadine and I went to Bethany's to swim with our Refresh (mom's group) friends!

I had to jump in a pull Nadine out of the water.  She was wearing her life jacket! But a kid went down the slide and landed on her. She went under in the deep end and went into panic mode.  Because she wouldn't stop panicking, she just continued to take water into her mouth. So I had to jump in, just to get her to the side where she could calm down.  She would have been ok, but she wouldn't even slow down to listen to us as we told her to swim to the side.  Anyways, within minutes she was back to swimming and playing. 

And then there was today.  Rowan finally got his wish! He has a new pet! Grandma & Grandpa and Rowan all went to Walmart where they picked out this guy! So we have a new family member! He hasn't named him yet!

Opossums

Yesterday marked a month and four days since the tornado ravished our family farm on Saturday, June 5th. (It was also my mom's birthday - Happy Birthday, Mom!) By the time we had contacted Nature's Nursery and done some more clean up out at the farm, we had found baby opossums.  The Monday after the storm the kids and I took the box filled with these babies out to Nature's Nursery in Whitehouse.

The opossums made it through the storm.  They had been ripped from their mothers pouch and mommy was nowhere to be found. In fact, one of these opossums had been thrown hundreds of feet and were found in the field. One was found under the rumble of the house, and three were in a puddle under a downed tree.  They were not as small as a mouse, but not as big as a rat yet either. 

I like opossums because way back when Nature's Nursery had come to a biology class at Owens and educated us on what they do. We then took a field trip to their facilities and we met some of their rescued opossums.  They are actually fascinating creatures that serve a big purpose in the wild.  They eat just about anything, but when left alone, they eat grubs, insects, snakes, frog, small mammals (including moles - so if you don't want moles in your yard, opossums will take care of them for you).  They aren't actually mean.  In fact, you can take an adult, clean it up and tame it. They can be litter trained and held.  They put on a good show if they feel threatened but they really have no defense, which is why they play dead. They don't carry rabies.  but they also can't see very well, so often they rely on taste to "see" their way around.  And the coolest part - they are North America's ONLY marsupial!

Ok so the way we found these babies is because they were letting off what we thought was a hissing sound.  We didn't know what it was and it sounded like something struggling to breath and it was loud. They were quite a distance from us and we heard them loud and clear.  So we thought maybe it was a dog, we started looking. Once we found them and realized they were opossums, Rob made me leave them alone.  We moved the tree enough so they weren't pinned and had a chance to get out.  Sometime later one of them did get out and was sitting about 20 feet away from where it was.  It could barely walk and move, remember they should have still been in pouch with momma.  But it climbed onto a log and started making that noise.  When it realized we were coming towards it, it didn't run, it came towards us.  It was looking for help and unable to really see, it didn't even know to be afraid of us.  We collected them, dried them off and put them in a box with a blanket.  By the end of the night on Sunday we had at least 4 maybe 5 of them.  We had found one dead one that was about 30 feet from the others that were under the tree and we had found one about 300 feet away out in the field - ALIVE!

Rob wouldn't let me take them home, so we left them in the box overnight out there. And if they lived overnight, he said I could take them to Nature's Nursery.  They did! I thought that as small as they were, if they made it through that tornado - they deserved the chance to life! So we took them to Nature's Nursery.

Nature's Nursery's director called me a couple of days later to thank me for taking the time in tragedy to worry about these babies.  I asked them to let me know when they release them because I wanted the kids to see the full circle.  Our rescuing them, our taking them to a place that could responsibly take care of them, and then their release back into the wild.  An excellent lesson in caring for God's creation. 

Sunday I received a call from Nature's Nursery our opossums were ready to release!!!!! And we got even greater news! Given the circumstances of the storm and the loss of so much small wildlife like opossums out in the area of the farm, they were going to let us pick up our opossums and release them back at the farm.  How exciting!

So yesterday, we drove out to Whitehouse and picked up our babies! They were put in a kennel, covered with a towel and put in my van.  They were a lot bigger now and ready to go home!

We learned something new about opossums. Mommies carry about 5 to 8 babies twice a year and very few of those babies make it in the wild because of predators (humans being the biggest).  That "hissing" noise that we heard back when we found them, was not a defense mechanism. They weren't trying to scare us away! They were calling for help! Baby opossums have a distress call! That's why it was so loud. It was meant to be heard, so their mom could find them.  And they have thumbs on their hind paws! You can see them on this picture! This little guy was ready to go for a ride! Holding on tight!

Well, the farm is gone.  Not just the farm, but everything including the trees where the mommy opossum lived with her babies.  So we decided to take them to our cousin's barn which property adjoins the farm. His barn wasn't hit by the storm because the tornado turned when it hit our farm house.  This property will provide a safe home with lots of food for our opossums! Giving them a chance to live!

We pulled in, got the kids out of the car and began to carry the kennel to the back by the trees.  A lady stopped in the road and started yelling at us. She kept saying "hey, you can't drop animals out here! You can't do that!" As nasty as she was, we were nice and let her know that it was our family property and that we were returning animals that were that been rescued when we lost our family farm house.  She continued to be nasty and said "well, you can't drop them here." We then told her they weren't cats or domestic animals they were wild, they belonged here.  They were opossums.  She proceeded to say in front  of my kids "Shoot 'em. They're as bad as racoons! They're useless! Just kill 'em!" And she sped off!

I was quite irrate at first. What is it any of her business? Not her property! But also how smart was she to say something like that in front of kids.  I think I might have screamed at her had she given me the chance. And then it hit me, she just proved how ignorant people can be and became a wonderful example to my kids of why we did what we did in the first place.  An excellent example of what not do with animals that we were given the responsibility to care for.  

We took the opossums to the back of the property and released them into the trees.  The big guy took off immediately, some of them went off together and two went separate ways but kind of lolly-gagged their way.  This guy smelled his way to freedom! He was very curious about everything around him!

Rowan was a little upset that he couldn't hug them goodbye! Although he probably could have! These opossums didn't cry in the car ride. They didn't even look scared. There was no playing dead! It's like they knew we weren't there to hurt them. But to help them get home!

Grandma's Birthday

Our mother's birthdays are consecutive.  Not the same year, but his mom's birthday is the 18th and my mom's birthday is tomorrow.  Today, for Grandma McQueary the family all went over to scrap and paint her garage for her.  It was desperately needed.  Jourdyn did a fantastic job, up on the ladder scraping away and then painting.  Nadine was able to paint a little bit. And Rowan was content exploring Grandpa McQueary's garage, looking for things to build a robot.  Grandpa McQueary would have loved him so much! It's days like today that we miss Jack the most. 

Jourdyn & Uncle Tim scraping the garage

Nadine painting the windowsill.

Honey Bee

The girls and I woke up this morning and headed over to the Community Garden to work for a little bit.  We found this honey bee working as well on a watermelon flower! The garden is doing fantastic! Once it starts to really produce, we are going to have tons of food to give away!

The Happenings....

Well, it seems like we've been really busy over the past few days. 

Saturday, Rob and I went with Chuck and Char to the Docks for late dinner.  We ate at Tango's and then just hung out on the river watching all the people dancing at the Bistro.  It was priceless! I took great video that I was going to youtube but then decided against it.  There was an old man, in his 80's at least, and he was dancing with every hottie in the room.  Huntin' them down and pickin' them up.  It became a bet, as to which one he'd be dancing with next.  It was hysterical. 

Sunday after church, the kids and I went to the beach with my friend, Tina and her kids.  We also ran into some of our other friends.  We spent most of the afternoon there, and then went to Brandon and Bethany's for dinner. The kids swam there too! They were worn out by the end of the night!

On Monday, we went to Tracy and Doug's for dinner and swimming! Nadine was able to touch in their pool, so she got to test out her swimming legs with no life-jacket and she did fantastic! She was even going under water by the end of the night. 

It was great to hang out with their family.  They have three kids as well. Their youngest is Alex and he is Nadine's age.  They are a month apart. 

Rob found the Hulk gloves and thought he was cute! :)

Tuesday night, Rob went to work and I went out with my friends, Tracy, Jen and Erin for a girls night out.  We didn't do much.  We went to Zia's and had dinner and just spent the evening talking and laughing together. 

Dayton

Friday, mom, Jim and our family all went down to the Air Force Museum in Dayton! Rowan loves it there! All he could say was "Whoa!!!!" He was amazed! Nadine's favorite was the pink one! Go figure! And Jourdyn had fun looking at all the little things! We got to see the cold war wing.  This was closed the last time we were there. 

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PALCON

I've been a little absent! My apologies! This week I have been in Mount Vernon, Ohio for PALCON (Pastors and Leaders Conference). It has been wonderful, encouraging, renewing, inspirational, just awesome! I've had the chance to meet up with a friend from Texas, who brought a friend from California, who was a classmate of mine for a few classes! LOL! God is so funny sometimes! It's a small world!

God has opened the doors for conversations and enlightment! I have been so blessed being here already and it's not over!

4th of July

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The 4th of July this year was wonderful! We had family over.  My uncle Jeff came.  Jenna, Suzi, Jeremy and Lori all came. Mom and Jim were here. Julie came with Bro and his girlfriend Sarah.  My cousin Martha is in town from Spain. She and her son, Ivan came for a bit and brought Uncle Bob, Aunt Connie, Grandpa and Grandma with them.  Megan and Criss came as well.  So it was a great day of hanging out and playing cornhole. 

At about 9, some of us headed down to Boomfest for the fireworks! It was awesome!

ER visit - Rob smashed his thumb in a bench grinder. He busted the bone on the tip and he will lose the nail. It is infected and the important part is to not let the infection reach the broken bone and become a bone infection. He did this Thursday and it took until today to get him here!

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