A kind lady named Cynthia gave us some tadpoles for our homeschool.
Brandon and Amanda have raised them a few times, but the middles were too little to remember it.
Cynthia was a gracious host to our family. She took her time and showed us her pond, fish, frogs and tadpoles. She let the children feed the fish from their fingers. She was patient with Emily. Cynthia also printed us some materials for our homeschool. She was a very sweet to us!
After that, we dined on KFC's buffet. While there, a man and his wife stopped by our table and told us we had a nice family, well behaved children and everyone seemed "so cheerful." It was a nice compliment!
Right as we were cleaning up to leave, a lady stopped by and introduced herself. She was one of nine children. She said our family reminded her so much of her younger days. She was there eating with her father and grandparents. She complimented us on the children's behavior. Then, she paid for our meal and shared her faith with us. She was delighted to hear we are Christians also. We had a wonderful time of fellowship!
We've had a rough few weeks. We've had to meet several deadlines while keeping homeschool for five going so we can meet our goals of taking time off in September, November and December. I've had to make the children homeschool when they didn't want to do it. That's not been fun for them or me. We've fell behind on the outdoor work. Appliances have given us a fit and one had to be replaced. Brandon's car blew a fuse and he's been taking my truck. We've had plumbing leaks. A family pet died. The entire family came down with illness after VBS and that took two weeks to go through all of us. As if that wasn't enough...
We took in two dogs that needed a home last week. Only, one of them took off like its tail was on fire after thunder scared it Friday night. The former owners are good friends of ours. While they are understanding, we feel terrible the dog ran off. We have put up over 25 fliers in our neighborhood, drove around for hours, called agencies, put her on many different lost pet lists, advertised in print and online, looked high and low on our place for her, etc. We know she has not been back since Friday because there weren't any tracks left Saturday or Sunday. (We have "track traps" in several areas of our place.) Due to the late nights, my illness relapsed and I was exhausted on Sunday.
I had promised the children a nice, quiet, uninterrupted family time for weeks. It kept getting put off and once we were all well, I promised to do it on Sunday. Sunday came and we were still looking for the dog. After searching the roads and local paths that morning, I told the children there would be no more interruptions due to the dog. It was time to settle in and just be together. The power went out for 5-6 hours ruining our plans for a family movie and homemade Blizzards.
After all of normal craziness in this life, God is still there. He's watching over us and cares about the things we have to deal with each day. I really like it when He sends people our way to remind us of that! Between Cynthia's kindness and the two strangers at KFC, we feel like God came down and gave us a hug today!
