*NOTE* - Part of this post was created a week or so ago, so some of the events/dates (mainly towards the end of the post) are not accurate anymore.
Shalom Friends & Family,
I hope you all are well. At the end of my last post, I mentioned that we had company coming at the end of August, going into the first part of September and that I might mention more in this post. Our dear friends, Clinton and Sharon, and the Eaton family, both came on the same weekend. It was really great seeing them, but at the same time, we all were kinda out of sorts!
My father had to leave on a 2000+ mile long, two and a half day trip to deliver puppies while they were here, and once he left, we did not really know what to do with ourselves:) Plus, we received a phone call from some dear friends letting us know that a mutual friend had been killed in a auto accident. So, on the first of September, we went to the funeral for our friend. It was really weird going to a funeral without Abba ... especially to this one because we used to live in the area where it was and we knew SO many people and everyone wanted to know where Abba was!
But back to the subject, please pray for the family of the man that was killed, he had a wife and six children under the age of eight. You can read a beautifully written article about our friend's life and death in an article HERE. While it was a sad start to September, we were very thankful and blessed to have Clinton and Sharon, and the Eatons at our place during that time. They were a great encouragement. Here are a few pictures from that weekend.
Madison and Lydia.
Tommy holding Ezra.
We went for a walk:)
It had rained the day before, so everything was fresh and so green.
Madison tickling Lydia's face with grass!
Some friends of ours had a baby, so one day we went down to visit them. Here we have Sam, Lydia and Tommy in the van right before we got started on our short trip to Alabama.
I love when the girls get pictures of the moon. I think it is so amazing.
Lydia.
Abigail made this apron ... I think it is so pretty.
School has started ... yeah!
Here we have Lydia snuggling one of Hannah's puppies! We are keeping one of them which we are really excited about. We raised the puppies' mother and she is a GREAT dog, so we are really looking forward to raising her puppy as well!
On 9/11 we got a call from Tommy, he had gone to get a new computer and was on his way home. The phone was breaking up, but he said that someone had hit him and he asked for Abba to come ... he was about 5-8 minutes from our house. Abba just so happened to be home from work that day, which was a blessing. He left almost immediately and then we got a text from Tommy saying a guy on a backhoe with a culvert on the back hit him, he was okay, but his truck wasn't. As soon as I heard this, I thought that the truck was probably completely totaled, not drivable, etc. Well, we children eagerly awaited my parent's and Tommy's return to know what happened. It ended up, a guy was driving a backhoe, pulling a culvert behind it, and the culvert was swaying back and forth. Tommy had seen the guy coming towards him so he slowed down, wondering if it was safe to drive by. Well, the guy kept driving so Tommy did the same and right as he was passing the backhoe/culvert, he said he saw the culvert swinging over towards his side. He swerved towards the ditch and thankfully it missed the driver's door, but the culvert crushed the extended cab and bed of Tommy's truck and sliced his tire. While the truck is ugly, we are thankful Tommy is okay, and that is the most important thing!
On the twentieth of September we remembered the birth anniversary of my stillborn brother Yosef 10 years ago, and then the following day we celebrated Tommy's and Ruthie's birthday ... they have the same birthday, two years apart! The picture below is one Tommy got from the roof top of a house they were roofing this past week.
In September there were many days that we woke up and it was chilly! It was really nice, and it was a good reminder that we needed to stock up on firewood:) I love doing firewood as a family, it is so fun. This year we have not really done it though, it has mainly been just a few of us doing it here and there. Abba, Tommy, and Sam went one day and cut down this huge tree at a friends house. The tree was so close to the people's house that the guys had to limb it in sections first. See Tommy way up in the tree?
They were finally able to drop it.
Tommy and Sam working on the trunk.
We like Stihl chainsaws (and Fiskar mauls) :)
The second day, Abba took Ruthie and Abigail with them to help (the rest of us girls had to get the house ready for Shabbat and company).
Besides what I have already mentioned, we have been getting ready for Sukkot and also were getting ready for my mother's trip to Delaware. She flew out yesterday and will be there for a week because my grandmother is going in for surgery at the beginning of October. Ima will be getting back two days before Sukkot, so she made us lots of lists so we can get everything ready:) Also, my father, Ruthie, Abigail, Lydia and myself went on a short delivery trip to NC the day Ima left, so there is a lot of stuff going on right now!
Driving towards the Smoky Mountains ... they were BEAUTIFUL!!!
Ruthie, Lydia, & Abigail.
We were disappointed that we had not brought the camera on this trip since we were going through such beautiful scenery ... first through North Carolina and then Virginia, not to mention TN:)
Well, I guess that is all for now. Chag Sukkot Sameach (Happy Sukkot)! Shalom.
