Saying Goodbye Again

Recently, Richard and I had to make a tough decision to release our new friends Izzy and Robin. We really struggled with this decision, because of how it would affect our girls. Our girls have had to say many hard goodbyes this year already. We didn't want to see them hurt again.

On January 1st we received a call in the morning, that we needed to go say goodbye to our dog at Richard's parents' house. It was so hard for all of us. Richard and I had bought Jelly Bean when he was only six weeks old. We had him for 4 years before we had children. The girls all loved him too. Bekah played with him for the years that she was an only child.

Then in May, Heather (Richard's little sister), Aaron and their new son Benjamin, left to move out of state. It was not only hard for them to say goodbye to their auntie and uncle, but their new cousin who was only two weeks old at the time.

The girls with their auntie and new cousin.

In August we said goodbye to our good friend Gracie. It is so hard to hear your children weep as a friend says goodbye. 

A picture from last Christmas. One of my favorites of Gracie.

Now we are in September and my girls are saying goodbye again; this time to animals we caught right outside our door--their new friends Izzy and Robin.

The walk to release Izzy and Robin.

Notice Hannah has a paper and pencil with her; 

she drew the animals being released.

Izzy walking out of Richard's hand. Surprisingly, 

Izzy walked out of his hand very slowly.

Robin being released in a tree.

These are hard lessons for our girls, but they also provide an opportunity to talk about eternity and the need for salvation. 

Izzy and Robin

For all those who are wondering Izzy is doing great. We do not know if it is a boy or girl, so we just refer to it as Izzy. We are having a lot of fun watching him/her. Richard and I have been making sure Izzy is eating well. He/she seems very content, well at least as far as we can tell.
We pulled our resources and bought Izzy a new home with more room than the jar. Now the kids want to fill the jar with another animal. What have we started?

Richard has decided we will be releasing Robin the spider back into the wild this week. He is concerned that if Robin is a girl, we could have baby spiders. Yuck! Robin has grown bigger just in the week we have had him or her. Let me tell you spiders eating things is not pretty. We watched Robin suck the life out of a fly and another unidentifiable bug. This is science in action.
I keep hearing "wow," "cool," "come see this" I have to admit it is great for the kids. I also enjoy having Izzy in the kitchen while I cook. He keeps me company.

We Grew By Two

Yesterday we started our 2007 - 2008 school year. It was a great day of learning. Even if we had not started formal teaching, God would have got our little girls excited about learning with everything he put in our path.

We started out our morning with oatmeal for breakfast and Richard going over his expectations with the girls. After breakfast Richard and the girls took the trash out.
On the way out Rachel found a very large spider. So Hannah runs in and asks for a jar. I don't have any jars, so I do a quick check of condiments and find a jar to empty.



They all come in and are very excited. Richard, being the great dad he is goes and gets the field guide so they can figure out what is living on my kitchen counter. No luck. I have a pet spider named Robin living on my counter now.

Now, I must add as a side note here, when I was in high school I bought a tarantula for my dad. My mom freaked out and would not let it in our house. So we had to find a pet store to take it. My mom would not even ride with it in the car. When I was growing up she would always say, "I hope God gives you a daughter just like you," or she would utter some kind of bad karma on me. Well, yesterday I called my mom and she laughed and laughed and said God was good. He is good!

So, back to the story of our first day of school, after the whole spider event we started in on school.


After lunch we took the girls to the library. We came back home and were getting ready to go to our friends' house for dinner, when I found a lizard by our car. Don't ask me what I was thinking, but I caught it, gave it to Rich and went in to find another jar. I have named our lizard Izzy. He is sitting on my kitchen counter next to Robin the spider.

As a final example of God's beauty in animals we were on the freeway and a Great White Egret took off from right next to us and flew over our car. It was so beautiful and graceful.

We finished off our first day of school with great friends and food. What more can you ask for?

Rachel asked me today if we are going to start carrying jars around with us.