Carmen Cruz and Michael Durkee's wedding March 24, 2012

Today two of our favorite people married each other. We have known both of them for many years, and we are delighted that they decided they belonged together. Here are some snapshots from the wedding.
Alan and Betty Durkee, parents of the groom.

Eladio and Sherolyn Cruz, with the bride Carmen.

Three bridesmaids, Emily Albertson, Esther Troyer and Mary Cruz, sisters of the bride

One of the kisses!

Michael and Carmen

With the beautiful cakes

With the attendants, minus one of the groomsmen

The Cruz family

The Durkee family

Emily and Janet with the happy couple. Mike has been one of our "adopted" sons. We are happy to have our 4th adopted son married. We prayed for each of them to find a good wife and they all have!

Emily looking sweet!

I had the privilege of making the bridesmaid dresses. This is when I was laying out the pattern for the matching slips that I made for each girl.

This week when I had finished the dresses! So thankful for the Lord's help! I had to have it, especially with two of the girls far away and unable to try on the dresses. I held my breath until I saw that they fit nicely! :)

We pray for God's blessings on this new Christian home.
I want to say also that I appreciated the modesty of the bride and her attendants. It was a beautiful God-honoring wedding.

Pictures from Emily's birthday

The big surprise for Emily was being given the Block of the Month Quilt for her birthday. She had no idea I had even gotten it bound, because it was a secret project I did while she was spending the afternoon with a friend!

The special guests for Emily's birthday meal were the Strubhars, who live in Cheyenne, Wyoming. We met them at a Christmas party in 2010, and then they had us over on Christmas Day that year. Emily is great friends with Ivanna, so we invited her family to spend part of Emily's birthday with us. Besides eating and visiting, we enjoyed playing instruments and singing together.

Grace, Emily, Ivanna, Faith, and Beth at the girls' table.

Grace and Ivanna with their accordions and Emily with her violin. Faith played her violin, Jason the cello, and Beth and I played pianos. Everybody else sang.

Emily is turning Fourteen!

In honor of Emily, who turns 14 tomorrow (March 17), I am posting some recent pictures of her. This one was taken this week, as she was sitting on our trampoline.

This was taken at her last violin lesson February 29. Emily's violin music is a blessing to our family. God has given her a wonderful gift of feeling and playing music beautifully.

This is Emily in a bridesmaid dress I made that she will be wearing March 24th. There will be more pictures and words about that in after the wedding!

On Wednesday the Mendez cousins came over to bring gifts for Emily. The girls were all out on the trampoline together. We are happy the girls have cousins close enough to see often. Kwani, Hadassah, and Sarah are very special to us.

We are thankful for the way the Lord is helping Emily to grow in Him, and to be a blessing. She is finishing 8th grade, her first year of five where she is the only student in our home school. She has some lonely moments, missing Jason and Beth who are working so much at Ace. Emily loves to play her violin, learn piano, write stories, and chat with her friends at a distance. And I think she is going to be a whiz at Algebra next year, because she is doing great in Algebra 1/2. English is fun for her, since she loves to write! We love you, Emily! Happy birthday!

Mom's Night Out - from Janet

(Click on the picture to enlarge.)

In September 1990, we started our homeschooling journey. We are finishing our 22nd year of homeschooling! We started out homeschooling Randy in Kindergarten. This year, we have only one student again: Emily in 8th grade. I never had all six of our children in school at the same time. By the time Emily started school, Randy had already graduated. But we did have several years with five students in our Country Acres Christian Academy.

From the start of our homeschooling adventure, we joined Home Educators Fellowship in Greeley. The support group meeting is called Moms' Night Out. I have attended MNO pretty faithfully, rarely missing a monthly meeting. It has been a big part of my social life and my sanity, some school years! For the past six or more years, I have been the treasurer for the group, which is not a huge job now, since we quit charging a membership fee.

After 22 years, I go for different reasons than the ones I had long ago. Now I go to be the "older" mother who encourages the new ones starting out. I want to be a blessing, to pass on the wisdom I gained from the older ones who were there for me. The ladies I meet with and have met with through the years are real friends; they prayed for me this past year when I went through cancer. We have shared prayers, requests, books, tips, encouragement, tears, and songs through the years. I'm glad I have four more years of teaching Emily, and I look forward to more Moms' Night Out blessings!

Beth made the cartoon above, in honor of the connections and fun I look forward to in MNO! (NoCO stands for Northern Colorado.) The rest is written by Janet.

"Want some nickels, Your Majesty?" - from Beth

Sometimes working in customer service can be a lot of fun. I have two stories from last week that I'll share here... the post title is a combination of the two.

I believe it was Thursday, that I had wrung up some things for a particular older gentleman. It was probably when he showed me his ID (for credit card use) that I said to him, "Thank you, sir." He, with a straight face said, "You don't need to call me 'sir'..." (now I was presuming he was going to finish his sentence with "...I work for a living," like others sometimes say, but he continued,) "...'Your Majesty' will be just fine." I smiled/laughed, and said, "Ok... Thank you, Your Majesty!" He smiled and his eye twinkled as he walked away. It's been too long; I've told the story a few times, and I just can't remember, but I believe he also said, "Now you remember that for next time!"

On Saturday I was busy checking out one customer and had one in line, waiting. Another, a lady, came through the door, and I glanced up to ask, "What can we help you find today?" The tall senior citizen stated matter-of-factly, "I need a box of nickels." At least, that's what I thought she said. Sometimes when people answer that greeting-question, they say, "a million dollars," and then you have to dash their hopes and say that they won't find it here. I decided to finish with that one customer and then ask the lady for an explanation... since she was standing there waiting for me anyway! Finished, I said, "I'm not sure I understand what you mean. You want a box of nickels?" I didn't let my face show my true feeling of incredulity. She, helpfully, leaned down under the counter (where our candy is) and pulled up a roll of these.

Of course, once I knew she wanted Necco candy rolls, and wasn't simply teasing me about money, I was thrilled to help her out (by having someone go get her "a box of Neccos").

- Beth

A New Cello for Jason?

Jason has been renting a cello for three years now. He is at the point of deciding whether to buy it, or use his "rental credit" toward buying a new one. The fellow at the music store allowed us to bring this cello home for him to try out and see if he wants to buy it or his rental cello. So far, he is loving this new one. He has loved the rental one too. We enjoy hearing him play either one.