Praise The Lord

Good Morning,


Praise the LORD!
My sister-in-law, Angie, called last evening to give us some good news regarding her lung cancer. After a very intensive course of chemo and radiation to shrink the inoperable tumor she is able to report that the tumor is now less that half the size it was and the doctor said it is a possible that the remaining mass is nothing  more than scar tissue!!!  How wonderful is that? Because of the swelling remaining from the radiation Angie cannot have a PET scan until late August, at that time they will fully determine the effectiveness of the treatment, we continue to pray for a miracle.  The only worrisome part is they discovered a spot in the left lung, the tumor being treated is in the right lung, but the doctor said it is quite likely that the left lung spot is scar tissue from the intensive radiation, we continue to pray.
My sister, Marika, continues to do well, she had her surgery in January for breast cancer, decided to forgo conventional treatment and opted for alternative treatment and seems to be doing well. Please keep her in your prayers.

I found this "video" on YouTube, I love the Doxology and really enjoyed this version and liked that the lyrics displayed.  I also like this YouTube link for Wonderful praise and worship music , again the lyrics display, and it is very pleasant to put on as there are around twenty hymns that play and all are uplifting.

The little boys are doing vacation bible school (VBS) this week.  A local church had a three morning VBS for 3 thru pre-K, so Henry and Patrick were able to go.  The theme song is ,Jesus is My Superhero , it is rather catchy, Patrick just loves watching the video.  Today is their last morning of VBS, tomorrow they will have a picnic with their new friends.

We celebrated Emily's 20th birthday this past Friday, hard to believe my baby is twenty!! Emily wanted hamburgers, seven layer salad and baked beans for her birthday feast, we were happy to oblige. And, she wanted the traditional family birthday cake, chocolate cake, chocolate frosting and m&m's. The burgers were delicious and were from one of our steers, Beef, we had him processed last month, his hanging weight was 721 pounds, that is a lot of beef, we had over 300 pounds of ground beef in addition to all of the other cuts of beef.  Noodle is still in the field filling out, he will probably go in late August, early September.

This past Sunday was Father's Day, we had a wonderful time.  Matt and Dave spent the afternoon babying baby back ribs on the grill, I made a bunch of side dishes, and strawberry shortcake, and we enjoyed a fabulous meal later in the day. All of our children and grandchildren were over, we played corn hole, Dave and I are the CHAMPIONS, we were simply unbeatable that day!

Strawberries, strawberries, strawberries, oh MY!  We have picked close to seventy pounds of strawberries out of our little patch, we have forty pounds frozen which Dave will use for wine making, I have made two dozen pints of jam, eight of which are strawberry-rhubarb my personal favorite. We have eaten strawberry shortcake and just strawberries for the past two and half weeks I think I am turning into a strawberry.  It would seem that strawberries just love the gently spring we have had this year as everyone has a bountiful harvest, there are at the end of many driveways advertising strawberries.

Last week our weather service called for a very severe line of storms to move through the area, they gave warnings for several days and generally had everyone worried. The storm started moving into the area around seven in the evening, Amber and the boys decided to come to our house as we have a basement, at first we sat on the deck and enjoyed a nice breeze, we could hear thunder rolling in the distance and we watched the storm clouds roll in.  We had a few spots of rain so the boys pulled their t-shirts up over their head to keep "dry". As the boys had a lot of energy to burn we went into the yard, and ended up sitting on the garden swing for a bit, all of the sudden we heard the tornado siren so decided it was time to head to the basement.  My neighbor Nancy called, could she and Brian, her son, come shelter in our basement. Amber called her husband and told him to come to our basement as the siren had gone off. Pretty soon we had three babies, seven adults, and four dogs sheltering in the basement. The wind blew, the rain poured, the lightning and thunder raged, but thankfully no damage occurred and the garden got a good watering.  We were in the basement for a few hours, Dave put on some music, I made cups of tea for Nancy, Amber and myself and brought down a tray of crackers, cheese and salami, there are worse ways to sit out storm, we all had a good time. That day I had picked a ton of strawberries and eaten a bunch of them, Nancy laughed at me when I said, after biting into a lovely wasa bread cracker and cheese with salami, "Wow, it is sure good to eat something that ISN"T a strawberry"! (oh, you noticed I had cheese and salami, I am no longer vegan, I will update in another post).

My mother has encouraged me to continue blogging as she enjoys my blog, so for now I will blog.