Awesome Weekend of Family Fun!

Susanne Clark (our special daughter in love) won Teacher of the Year for Avon Schools this year.  We are so proud of her.  Susi teaches Spanish at Avon North Middle School.  She was asked to be the grand marshall in the Heritage Days parade.  What fun!  Susi asked if Josh and Cate wanted to ride in the convertible with her.  It was lots of fun for them to throw candy and wave!  Our son Luke was thrilled to get to drive the new white camaro as their chauffeur!  I was proud of him.  He didn't do a single burnout or donut!  Nice job Luke & Susi!

I know there are alot of pictures here but we really are so proud of this girl and how hard she works at teaching plus we really really love the fact that she asked Josh & Cate to ride with her.  Luke and Susi are great supporters of our kiddos!  Thanks Susi for asking the kids to join you.  They loved it!


Also this weekend was the 2nd Annual Harley Clark Golf Tournament in Brook, IN.  Jeff's father passed away4 years ago and the family hosts a golf tournament honoring his life back in his hometown of Brook, IN.  All the family, young and old, meet up at the local golf course and play a round. Then afterwards they meet at the conservation club for pork burgers and good fellowship.  It is a good time for the cousins to all meet up and get reconnected.  They always end the evening by toasting to their grandpa.  We sure miss this great guy.  He never met Josh & Cate but they are hearing alot of stories about how he loved to enjoy life!

 

As you can see family is really important to us.  The more we are together the more we realize what a gift God gave when he created family.  As Josh & Cate were blowing bubbles it made me think about how fragile life can be.  Here one moment and gone the next.  We are thankful for you and your continued prayers.  I pray you know Jesus!  Thanks for reading the blog and praying for my family. 

Choosing joy,

Chris & crew

New friends!

This week we are thrilled to introduce our new friends we met through The Chapel.  It is a family from the Philippines that have recently moved to Fort Wayne from California. These folks moved to the USA when they were teenagers but still carry on much of the Filipino traditions.  I was blessed to walk with the mom one morning and later in the week she invited us all over for a Filipino meal in which she cooked several favorites.  Cate had been asking me to make pancit palabok.  This gal cooked it for her and Cate loved it.  We all enjoyed our dinner.  Thank you to the Esperanza family.

 

Cate and Sarah enjoyed some Uno.

 

 The kids really enjoyed paddling on the pond. 

 

We decided to take advantage of the nice weather and the fact that we had a weekend at home to finish up some outside chores.  Our deck had not gotten finished so we did some painting.  Cate loves this detail work and kept at it for several hours.

 

 Josh quickly tired of painting and decided to do a chore with a motor. 

He loves to weed eat and we love that he loves it!

 

 

Cate decided to try 2-handed painting.  :)

 

Josh has been punting on his football team so he needed to practice kicking. 

Below you see Josh with a new home for his captured caterpillar.  I emcouraged him to take the little guy outside!

A Sunday afternoon tradition in the Fall is watching our favorite team, the Indianapolis Colts, play NFL football.  We usually have some special snacks and just kick back!

 

Watching football is not Cate's favorite thing to do so she decided a

word search would entertain her for the game.

 

Thanks for reading the blog and praying for us.  I hope you had some favorite activities this week.  Our Upwards virtue for the week is Perseverence....keep going when things get hard!  Sometimes life is hard for Josh & Cate.  For example this weekend Josh had 10 vocabulary words to study.  They were impede, haphazard, complacent, insipid, destitute, superfluous, scrutinize, meandor, embellish, and elated.  For a kid that has only been in the USA 2 years and is still learning basic English these words are tough!  Is he going to pass this vocab test?  Not a chance!  Is he still a child of the King!  Absolutely!  Keep those prayers coming as we continue...

 

Choosing joy,

Chris & crew

Mid September

We are pretty much into a routine now with soccer, football, and cross country plus oh yes school fits in there somewhere.  Nothing too different this week.  September 11th was this week so it was patriotic day for Cate at school.  They were told to wear red, white, and/or blue.  She doesn't really have red clothes.  Now if it were "Pink" day Cate would be all set.  So the only red, white & blue clothing she had in her closet was Cubs wear!  Actually she had to sneak into Josh's closet to find the shirt!  But the hat is legitimately hers.  Here she is folks in her red, white and blue.  

Go USA!  Go Cubs!

We were blessed to have some time with our grandson Nolan this weekend.  Cate was at an overnight birthday party so it was just Josh & Nolan as the kiddos.  These 2 are great together.  Nolan watches Josh every second and wants to be just like him.  Literally he wants to be right next to Josh at all times.  It was a great weekend and I love the way these 2 boys are bonded! 

Off to the park we go!

I believe Josh is telling Nolan not to get his bike to close to the car because it could scratch the paint.  I guess he has heard that before!

 

 

The Porters treated us to Pizza.  Thank you Miss Kim and Mr. John!

 

 

Josh decided he wanted the little boy towel too!

 

 Eating snacks and watching a movie.  Chilling out time before bed!

 

 Time for church at Northview and lunch afterwards! 

 

 

I love the picture below.  Love these boys!

 

  Twins in their jeans & shirts. Can you even tell them apart? Oh except for that totally dark opposite blond thing going on! Both are adopted by God! Thank you Northview for the "Orphan Hearts" sermon. We were reminded no matter how we started our life, (some of us have been orphaned twice but all of us at least once).  We all have "Orphan Hearts"! Jesus wants to adopt each one of us into His family. He wants us to come home to Him!

 

Choosing joy,

Chris & crew