September already?

Since I last posted on my blog....almost a year ago...we celebrated this guy's first birthday. Not at all how we envisioned it but trusting in God, always...even when things make NO sense, hurt a lot and are just plain weird.

We also celebrated this little fella's 7th birthday. Hard to believe Uncle Jack would be 7.
Miss these boys every single day of our lives.

Photo credit: Joylily Photograpy
We had the immense pleasure of singing on The Young Band's song
"Lovebird". Stay tuned because soon, they are releasing their very FIRST album.
Can't WAIT!

On August 5, 2018, we welcomed this little nugget into our family. Ruby Pearl Young (Molly chose Pearl to go with Ruby...such a gem). She is a full-breed Australian Shepherd and she was born on June 9.
We love her a ton.

This cat turned 11 on July 9th. Hard to believe this is truth.

Most everyone loves the Rubester. She's so smart and it would be good to put those smarts to good use and get completely housebroken. Thankful for concrete floors and Thieves cleaner.

But I mean, seriously. she is SO dang cute, esp when she plops down right at our busy feet.

Thought I'd show my blog some love, since I don't much anymore. Silly me...this is an amazing way to record our history and keep in touch with faraway friends and family.

There are so many good places to start and that overwhelms me so I'll just start with the most obvious bit of goodness in our lives currently...

RUBY!

Molly is the only kid of ours that has persistently asked/bugged/pestered for a dog...we tried the bunnies last year and that ended in murder...We've done the chicken routine but they aren't super cuddly and rather dirty...our goldfish both managed to bite it this year too..with Cracker jumping from his bowl one day while we were all away from the manor. Oops. grisly discovery for Mel...

Not too long after goldfish death, I had the extreme pleasure of meeting our friends, the Bills family, to take some free homeschool books...while there, we also met Dakota, a nearly 3 year old Australian Shepherd. Molly was in love and watching them wear each other out was a sight to behold. Such a smart breed of dog. Molly, being the last living child we have, is kind of on her own a lot, with all the older sibs doing their things and such. I shared this with David and he agreed, let's find a pup for this girl. I prayed about it because God is so much cooler with even the funniest details and what can it really hurt to ask my Heavenly Father for even a matter as small and cheesy as finding the right dog?

He did not disappoint...my cousin in NC, (Hi Tory!!) mentioned some of their TX friends having a new litter of AS pups and also mentioned that they were making a trek to MI in early August...we could meet up to get a pup. Sure enough, talked to Jackie, such a sweet, dear lady...and she sent me pix of Rubes and told me she'd hold her for us. What??? Molly did not believe me when I told her and she may have even shed a tear...

If that wasn't cool enough, thank You, Lord...we found out that the Puppy parade wouldn't actually be driving through Indy but through Champaign IL on Aug 5, and we just so happened to be heading to Illinois that very day for the Big Thorn Brewery Tree Bar debut as well as a birthday party for my mom-in-law, Judy! Huh! Seriously...God is in even the smallest, most minute of details...and He knows the desires of our hearts...We met Jackie, Bob and their grandson, Asher and got our sweet pup. 

She is the cutest little punk, though I'd be most glad to get her completely housebroken (do I sound like a broken record??). We crate her at night and she does SO well with that..she's growing like a weed and she's already met her new vet. We've begun some dog training and look forward to more of that, so as to properly care for her, use her skills and give this bundle of energy stuff to do to keep her mentally engaged. We hear that Aussie's need "jobs" so I'm hoping we can train her to do dishes and pick up sticks in the yard...redirect the in-house pooping and peeing. haha.

So that's Ruby for ya.

We are just coming down, literally just 12 hours ago, from a big job we were on all week long at the NCAA in downtown Indy...10 hour shifts each night 5-3...David, Will, Joy, Ethan, Mel, even Levi and I...as well as David's right hand man, Tom, my brother. Wow....Molly and Ruby stayed with Sarah, who carved out some time this week to help us out! Thank you, so much, friend!

Today, we are resting, catching up and I picked this day to be sick so that's cool. We are celebrating such good work and the provision of God for our family. He is so good!

Ok, I'm done for now...hopefully to be back here very very soooooon.

thank you, faithful friends who have given up on this blog...come back!!!