Well, after two posts recently about the crazy weather in April, I had to think about what happened the rest of the month!

I do know that I started walking outside early every morning again on April 11th and I was still wearing winter gear for quite some time to be able to do so.

The daylight would start to appear right around 6:30 a.m.

Now I walk sometimes as early as 5:00 a.m. – as we have daylight already by then!

I know it won’t last!!

I have only missed one handful of morning walks since that cold day in April.

My walks are fast paced, long, full of prayer time and also some messaging with a best friend!

But most of all, my walks are all about being underneath these BEAUTIFUL skies.

Days here for me are all about taking care of our home, making food, buying food, caring for my in-laws, making food, doing all the things my two besties participate in, and making food.

Emphasis on the fact that I have two full-time besties and make A LOT of food, ha, ha!

I make a lot of sourdough based baked goods.

Just look at how beautiful my sourdough was!!

Then I got a new 25 pound bag of organic brown rice flour from Azure Standard.

I did not notice it was full of bugs until AFTER I fed that beautiful sourdough starter.

As Tate would say, “BARF!!”

Thankfully Kayla was kind enough to give me a baby from her sourdough starter.

They call it Bertha.

So say hello to baby Bertha.

It came with a cute red checked cover!!

Thanks, Kay, I love it!

Our food choices started to shift a bit in April to more salads and fresh produce.

I still bake though!

Blake says I bake like it’s a sport.

Well, Ok, maybe – but they eat it ALL!

My two besties help me constantly!

They can run this house and kitchen better than I can most days.

They also push me to make very fun and sometimes challenging things that are always delicious!

After they made these corn tortillas for the first time, I surprised them and bought a tortilla press.

It works so well and makes much thinner and rounder tortillas.

Tate and I pulled all of the tomatoes we froze from the garden last fall out of the freezer in April and canned some barbeque sauce.

It is delcious, but a little too runny – so we need to work on that!

They love it though and we are using it fast!

Eliza took on a 2010 unfinished scrapbook project for me – bless her!!

She is very creative and loves to craft, so it was a win for me and for her.

Tate continued to work on the gardens in April.

He also bought a lemon tree!

We named it LuLu the Lemon Tree and we would play “where’s LuLu?” every morning when Tate would carry it outside to harden it off.

Well, seeing those photos tells me it was warm here and there in April!

We started mowing the land and Blake taught Tate how to push mow the front.

We enjoy being outside so much – especially on Sundays when it’s Family Day!

Speaking of the fam bam – yes, we still do Family Day on Sundays!

I host lunch and we all hang out and have snacks for dinner.

IT IS THE BEST DAY OF THE WEEK!!

Kayla did some hemming for me one Sunday which drew quite a crowd.

Then Eilza was instantly wanting to learn how to sew!

Kayla had her over soon after that to teach her how!

We also stole some grandchildren one evening to take them to a play.

It was super fun and we had ice cream aftewards!

Then we returned them to their parents way past their bedtime and full of sugar – just like all good grandparents do, right??

Big families are THE BEST!!

Jazzy is such a big part of our days.

Did you know that Blake and I have always had a dog since our first wedding anniversary except for one year before we moved to Wisconsin?

I guess once you are dog people, you are always dog people!

Blake still travels with work now and again.

Don’t ask me how I feel about that, how well I sleep, or any of it, ha, ha!

But when he is gone the children and I will eat a very chill easy dinner and usually find a good movie to watch.

We watched the first and second I Can Only Imagine movies and they were SO good.

This is what someone who hugs the insides of trucks all day looks like.

He does his own laundry, thank you very much!

Blake and I try to have a date night every Friday night.

It hardly ever works out, but we keep trying!!

Usually I have to drive to town so that our date doesn’t start after everything is already closed – and then I follow Blake home.

That part it not the best, but it is so nice to be together and having a chance to talk!

We also eat out and watch the sunset over the river – sometimes at the same time.

I LOVE date night.

We need to make them work out more often!!

Just a few more April memories!!

Follow the numbers across each row.

1. We had some lost dogs visit us, but we found their owner!

Eliza, of course, wanted to keep them – they were SO sweet and SO friendly!

2. I got new glasses.

I love being able to see.

3. There must have been a lot of wind one day, because our grills are not supposed to be at this end of the deck.

4. We still work on Bible memory together!

These kiddos have so much scripture tucked deep into their minds and hearts!

5. I had my tongue tie released, four buckle ties released, and my upper and lower lip ties released.

SO much I could say about ALL that!!

Lots of long months of therapies and hard work and pain – but it was worth it!

As everything hard usually is!

My new water bottle makes me use my tongue in the right way – it is all so fascinating!!

6. I love this treat I found – dates and chocolate – that’s all I have to say about that!

7. Took a photo of the clean “mud room” portion of our garage because that is a HUGE job I do about three times a year.

8 and 9. We had a meal together at my in-laws, and I provided cinnamon rolls and grilled chicken that Blake made for us – IT WAS SO GOOD!

So long April!!

On to May!!

I want one of those chocolate dates and some grilled chicken though first!!

Hope you all are having a great week friends!!

I can’t wait to tell you all about TODAY!!!

I better get this little ole blog of mine caught up so I can do that!

After our wintery ice storm at the beginning of April, we had a different kind of ice in the late afternoon of April 14th.

Eliza and I were in Viroqua about to leave violin lessons, and Tate was at work at the library in Westby.

I received a message from Blake asking where I was and saying I needed to get home FAST.

We all knew that storms were a huge possibility for late that afternoon/early evening – and so I knew why he was saying that.

Being part of a trucking and road construction family means that you will always know the weather forecast!!

Eliza and I ran out of the church we were at, and started toward Westby to pick up Tate.

The sky was ominous!!

I messaged Tate that he needed to tell his boss that there was a storm coming and I was picking him up early.

And I told him to be ready to jump into the van so we could keep driving!!

It started to rain before we were home.

It started to rain VERY heavy and big rain drops right before we turned onto our road.

It started to HAIL right as we got to the driveway (going WAY too fast, by the way!!) and into our garage.

We jumped out of the van and ran inside, apologizing to the boys, who both had vehicles on the driveway that were now getting pounded with hail.

I kept saying, “What in  the world!! What is happening??? Oh my goodness!!! What in the world!!”

The hail was so big, so loud, and we knew it was doing so much damage.

The storm lasted a long time.

I have mostly video footage of it, and the hail went on for FIFTEEN minutes!

Soon after it was over, we were outside checking things and also reaching out to our friends and loved ones to make sure everyone was ok.

This storm was very isolated to central Westby.

We had several friends who rode it out tucked in a ball on the floors of their vehicles with all of their vehicle windows blown out.

It was SO unsettling for us – and I cannot imagine how scared they must have been.

There was SO much damage.

Our friends had so much more damage than we did – especially to their vehicles.

The hail was larger in the downtown area – and if a vehicle had been sitting outside, the windows were blown.

Thankfully both the boys vehicles windows were all still intact!

They do have hail dents all over their vehicles though.

Our siding was damaged, along with a window on the one side of the house, several outside doors, our grills, and (as we found out later) all of our string lightbulbs had been broken.

Thankfully our roof survived!!

It is a steal roof with fabricated metal shingles – that thing is TOUGH!

Downtown Westby was a mess!

This first photo is of a business in Westby and pretty much what all of Westby looked like.

Later that evening I walked outside to take those photos of the sky and it was like nothing had happened.

Our insurance adjustor came to assess the damage of our home, and let me just say, you get what you pay for.

We were blessed to receive a check to replace the siding on our entire home, that one window, the doors, and even the grill covers.

We have a good insurance company!!

This has given us the opportunity to think about the color of our home!

Chad did this for me one afternoon – so I could see if I would rather have white vertical siding.

He entered the photo I took of our house into Chat GPT, asked for the changes, and this is what we got!

Since then I have seen this house that was just redone in town and really like the dark color too!

But ultimately my inspiration photo is the second one!

I told Blake he will have to decide because I cannot cope with this huge decision, ha, ha!

I bet we end up with white vertical siding.

Time will tell!!

I think that is about enough ice for this year, don’t you???

Crazy weather!!

How great is it to know the One who controls it all??

Goodness, I am so thankful to trust and believe in our Sovereign Lord!!

There is no better way to live out our lives here on this temporary earth!!

“Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” Psalm 115:3