Nutshell

I haven't blogged in awhile...I don't know, blame it on the weather, blame it on the blahs or blame it on having nothing very intriguing to say, I just haven't had inspiration hit me.  Though, I could try to update this little corner of my world I suppose.

Let me try this in list form, just so I can organize my thoughts a little bit as I go but these are in no particular order:

1. Johns truck began showing MORE signs of distress a few weeks ago and after much discussion, it was decided he had head gasket problems, he took it to a good friends garage and they proceeded to disassemble it and, yes, the head gaskets were cracked.  Most of his, and Rogers, evenings have been spent working on this truck.

2.  I have a pregnant daughter and pregnant daughter in law...NUFF said!

3.  Ryan graduated from college on Friday...Magna Cum Laude I might add...having accomplished not only maintaining a 4.0 the entire time he was in school but graduating an entire semester early and having logged thousands and thousands of miles on his trusty little truck (I think it was something like 170 trips to Portland in 2 years). We had a great time in P-town and he had a big cheering section with Carrie, Suzie, Jerry, Dene, Anthony, Matt, Lindsay, Bryce, Kaylee, John, Me, Dick Guffey, Brooke and Lu, of course We wrapped up the celebrations by having a BBQ for him on Saturday and family who weren't able to make the grad ceremonies came to that.  The weather was spectacular!

4.  Aaron is working for the Forest Service for the summer. A new challenge he is certainly enjoying every minute of.  He has been camping for the better part of two weeks and will soon be fire fighter ready.  He hopes to earn enough to pay for another year of school with no debt.  He found out today that he was on the first rotation to go out so it is likely that he will be heading to a fire (yep, even out of state ones) pretty soon, as soon as next week.

5. The weather has put the guys in a bind a bunch of times and has made getting some of their jobs a little bit tougher to get to.  They are plugging away but work is piling up behind them, most certainly a blessing in these times but also frustrating in dealing with the weather.

6.  Ryan met a young lady named Brooke at Matt and Lindsay's wedding. They became friends and spoke on the phone and computer. She was here for 10 days visiting Lindsay and they had a chance to spend some time together and decided to explore a relationship.  She is a very nice young lady of 22 who has a little 2 year old daughter named Hattie and even more, she loves the Lord and has a very solid relationship with Him. We got to spend some time getting to know her the last 10 days and I appreciated her candor, her flexibility and her willingness to be "grilled" by the Bales gals.  Only the Lord knows what will become of this relationship.

7. Our amazingly awesome son in law turned 24 today!  YIKES!!!!  You know whats funny? I almost can't remember not having him in our family.  He is such a good man, such a godly man and we have been so very blessed to have him in our lives and best of all, married to our little girl.  He takes such good care of her heart and is such a strong, caring, thoughtful and honorable man and I thank the Lord for our daughter choosing him every day!

8.  LUCY!!!  Our little Lu just keeps us hopping.  She's talking in full, long sentences. She puts ideas together, she is pretending and playing house, tea party and all kinds of other things.  She is funny, smart, and full of spunk and yet very obedient.  Case in point:  The other day she was sitting on papa's lap in his office while he did some things on the computer.  We were heading out to Ryan's graduation and things were a bit hectic (he was making a cd) when Lu reached out and shut off his computer.  He said, "NO LUCY" in his "daddy" voice that was very stern and I am not sure she has ever heard that tone ever, he put her down and she came out of the office, big huge tears in her eyes, her lip trembling and looked at her mama and said, "papa, mama, papa...." she didn't know what else to say...she lay her head on her mama's knee and just kept saying papa, papa over and over again.  Her mama explained to her that what she had done was wrong and that she needed to tell papa that she was sorry. I took her hand and took her back into papa's office and she lay her head on his knee and said, "sorry papa, sorry" as she cried, the second he saw that he melted and picked her up, she cheered immediately and began to chatter and talk to him again. She just gives us all a smile and we are so excited for more of them!

OK...I can't come up with any more of them so...there you go! In a Nutshell!