Happy Birthday, Ruth!!

We love you!!

Hurry...Fall Is Almost Here!

It is good that I made myself the beginning of fall my deadline for getting summer pictures posted!

Everyone wanted to see the boys play baseball,
so here we are at Daniel's game.  Uncle Tom came too!

Then most of the LaBarre clan showed up to make it 
even more fun!!

We had a wedding shower here for Sarah.  Thankfully the 
guys all got to go out to the Shirs while we prepared.

Rebecca got Sarah a tiara, because her name
means "Princess".

Rebecca was so sick that day, she spent most of it in bed.
And Kelsea and I were busily working all day to be ready. I think it was a success, and Sarah told me later that it was a great blessing to her.

The entry way was lit with candles for the shower.  This is a blurry picture, but it gives you the idea. 

A luncheon at Muffeletta!

It was a blessing to be able to celebrate Kelsea's 27th birthday while they were here!

Doesn't she look debonair?

We all got just a little silly for a birthday picture that night.
I made an ice cream cake, and because David bought only the best for the ingredients, it was delicious! 

Another night we all got dressed up, and David and Kelsea treated the entire group out for supper at Ol' Mexico in celebration of his completion of earning his PhD.   

 And then there was Timothy's game to watch!  Stephanie Claussen joined us for the evening.

Our favorite player!

We got to drive past our old house one of the
days.  It looks happily inhabited.  

Then it was time to say goodbye to David and Kelsea as they headed away to their year in California at Stanford University.  I knew I would miss them even more now after getting to be together for such a blessed time!

Kelsea's parents gave them their
GMC Jimmy!  What a blessing!

After everyone went back home, our activity kept right on going.  Joseph had been gone
for the week training for Good News Across America held here in Minneapolis this
year.  Straitgate was one of the churches involved, and each evening our family helped
with the club held at Farview Park.  On Friday evening was the rally in the church
parking lot.  It was not only lots of fun, but we really got to know the kids that came
during the week and had a chance to get to know their parents.

Part of the Straight Gate faithful crew

Every day was a different color of the Wordless
Book.  Can you guess what Friday's color was?

The wonderful people assigned to work with our church.
It was a blessing to work along side of them!

And look at that Maple tree in the front yard that Ruth and David planted by a seed!!

I know that last picture is out of order, but I made some mistake, and was NOT willing to
start this blog post over from scratch!! So please excuse the order and direction of some photos

 This may look like a grave, but it is not.  Joseph and Timothy experimented with growing grass with one patch in the front yard, one in the side yard, and one patch in the back yard.  It was successful as you can see!  So it may be that when you visit next summer, you will see grass in the yard at 1807 Birch Lake Avenue.  We'll see!

 Dad, Timothy, and Daniel ready to go to the Twins game that they had saved up for this summer.  The older LaBarre's met them there.  Look at this beautiful picture! (The Twins lost
by 1 point, but it was a good game.)

And that is IT for my summer picture narrative.  I hope you all enjoy it!

z

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOHN!!

Happy 24th Birthday, John!  

John is preparing for the Twin Cities
 marathon which will be held the first weekend
of October.  Here he just ran and met us all
at Daniel's baseball game in July.

 A couple of weeks ago, John came home at night with a bag full of all sorts of hot peppers and tomatoes and a couple bags of different chips, and he inspired Daniel and Timothy to make homemade salsa with him.  

John even thought of purchasing gloves to
wear to work with the hot peppers!  Good thinking!
This, however, is a tomato!

The final product was one bowl of semi-hot salsa (my favorite!)
and another bowl of very hot salsa (all the boys' favorite!).  It was
a good amount, and it lasted about 1 week.

We began our 26th year of home schooling on Labor Day.  John was off work for the holiday, and what a blessing that was to me!  Can you imagine how it is to start up a bunch of subjects and have your own private math tutor to help with the math? Especially when that tutor is VERY WILLING  to help!  

See the brotherly love?  Actually this one was staged!

Dad and I are truly grateful to God that John has this time to live at home with us.  It has been a real treasure.  

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOHN!  

WE LOVE YOU!!