The BEST Anniversary Ever!

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For the last thirteen years, Blake and I have been taking a little trip away together around the time of our anniversary.

This year was the fourth time (not in a row) that we headed to Naples, Florida, to have some time together in the sun!

We had just arrived home from visiting my Mom and brother on a Sunday evening, and our flights for Florida were that Friday morning.

We did question if we should still go or not.

The big kids encouraged us to, and I am SO thankful that we did!

The days coming up to our trip, I was checking the weather in Naples often!

We love Wisconsin and all of its seasons, but living here sure makes a trip to somewhere so sunny and warm AMAZING!

Check out this temperature difference!


I was trying to pack very minimalisticly.

I am here to tell you, I don’t know how people fly on a plane to take a trip with just a carry-on suitcase!

We changed our plans for that at the last minute and checked a larger suitcase instead of just a carry-on.

I still took more than I used!

But I was glad I had it all!


We left home on a Friday morning to drive to Madison, about two hours away, to catch our flight.

Blake always stops on the driveway to pray any time we are traveling, and that morning was no exception.

It was a beautiful day for a drive and I got to try out my new prescription sunglasses!!

We arrived at the airport in plenty of time.

Our flight was uneventful!

The views were beautiful!


We stopped for grocery before heading to our suite, and arrived around 9 p.m., which was one hour ahead of back home.

I did check the weather for the rest of the week right as we arrived and CHECK THAT OUT!!

We had a quick snack dinner that night after such a long day of travel.


We woke up Saturday morning to FOUR full days of sunshine, genuine rest, needed conversations, good food, more rest, and did I say SUNSHINE??

It was the BEST four days ever!!

So needed, so wonderful!!

I LOVE being with my hubby and quality time is my love language too.


Every evening we would head to the beach to enjoy the sunset and then come back to our suite to grill and eat our dinner outside.

We were outside literally from the moment we woke up until we headed to bed each night!

It was hard to see our favorite pier closed and so damaged from the hurricane that Naples and Fort Myers experienced last fall.


Sunday morning we headed to church – to the same one we attended last year with the kiddos when they were with us.

It was WONDERFUL.

We also stopped by our favorite gluten-free bakery on the way there, but they were closed because it was Sunday.


More of the same each day – including visits to our favorite smoothie spot!!

They did not have live music there this year, but maybe we were just there too early in the evening.


Before we knew it, it was time to go home!

I was missing the children more than ever by day three, so it was time!

But I DID NOT want to leave that sunshine and beautiful weather!

I asked more than once if Blake would just fetch the kiddos to join us so we could stay, ha, ha.

We flew home on Wednesday to a literal blizzard.

Crazy Wisconsin!!

Our two hour drive home from the airport took three hours.

At one point we were at a stand still on the high way because of an overturned semi.

Scary stuff!!

I was a rebel and wore my sandals home anyway!!

We did stop and get grocery at Costco before leaving Madison even though it was snowing so hard.


Do you all see through all of those photos how AMAZING that trip was??!!

Those memories are DEEP in my heart, and I pull on them often and bring them back to the forefront of my mind!

There is still no place like home.

Home is my favorite place to be for sure.


It is not lost on me how much my husband sacrifices to make these trips possible.

It would certainly be easier for him to not get behind at work, not spend the money on a trip like this one, and on and on.

I am thankful Blake knows that our marriage NEEDS times away together and time to have to ourselves.

Our trip was a breath of fresh air, a reset of sorts, and a strengthening of our relationship.

We came home refueled, rested, a little sun kissed, and ready to jump back into life here – which is what we did!!

Thank you, Mr. Blake Moschel, for seeing my need for time with you, and especially somewhere sunny and warm!!

You are one in a million, babe, and I am SO GLAD to call you MINE!!

Can’t wait until next year’s trip!!!

I love you MOST, honey!!

An Unexpected Trip

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At the beginning of February, my Mom was unexpectedly in the hospital.

My heart was longing to be there immediately.

We were thankfully able to travel to see her several days after she was admitted.

We decided to take Tate and Eliza with us, which was a wonderful choice!

Time with different children in different ways is necessary in a large family!

We left after Blake got off work on a Friday night.


We stopped in Morton, Illinois, and spent the night at a hotel.

We still had several more hours to drive on Saturday morning, but this broke up the trip nicely!


Thankfully the weather was very mild for February, and we even had the windows cracked in the van at one point.

You know you are getting close to Indy when the traffic gets thick and comes to a stand still quite often.


We headed straight to the hospital.

Right before we got there, my brother found out that they were not going to let Tate and Eliza past the front lobby.

THIS DID NOT MAKE US HAPPY, just saying, or maybe I am yelling because of those capital letters there, ha, ha!

I went up first to see my Mom after giving everything but my social security number to a security guy to get a pass to do so.

It was so, so good to see her!

She was doing very well for all that was going on!

My brother went down to see the kids and Blake and then Blake and I switched places for awhile.

My Mom found out that Tate and Eliza were downstairs and all she kept saying was “Bring them to me!”

Sigh.


Before long Mike took us to get some lunch and coffee.

We were starving and it was yummy!!


I was getting messages from back home at this point from the kiddos who were helping with our annual Valentine Banquet at our church.

They were having fun!


In the evening we went to a hotel there in Indy that was close to the hospital.

The next morning I woke up to a text from my brother saying that he was going to figure out a way to get Tate and Eliza to be able to see my Mom.

I can hear my Mom saying “Michael! When there’s a will there’s a way!”

She had not stopped asking for Tate and Eliza all day Saturday.

We got ready quickly and ate a quick breakfast from our cooler.


Then it was back to the hospital with word from my brother to tell security that our children were allowed past that lobby.

We did.

The one security officer questioned the other when he gave Tate and Eliza passes, but he told him they had been cleared!

Praise God!!

They came with us upstairs and made my mom SO HAPPY!!


Unfortunately we needed to head out around lunch time for the long drive back home.

Good byes are HARD.

Being so far away is HARD.

Especially now.


Blake grabbed us all a coffee treat, we had lunch out of our cooler, and we got on the road to go home.

We had another beautiful day for a drive!

So thankful that the weather cooperated for us to be able to see my Mom.


My Mom has since been released from the hospital and is recovering slowly.

We have plans to go there again in April.

I am counting the days!!

Praising the Lord for that unexpected visit, that Tate and Eliza got to hug their Grandma, that the weather was so nice, that we had a reliable van to get us there and back, and most of all that my brother is there with my Mom every single day.

The Lord has been so kind, gracious, and faithful!!

A Walk Through The Rest of January

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Well, we have covered outings, new things, a doctor’s appointment, family nights, and school.

My effort to split up all of those photos from January was successful!!

There are just a few more memories to keep here – for my sake!!

Do you want to guess what is first?

Food, of course!

I am not sad that food is such a big part of life though!

I enjoy it!!

As we should!!

I also enjoy my kitchen helpers!

Wow, I just added all of these food related photos – there are a lot – glad I can be here for you in this regard, ha, ha!!


Tate is still my ever faithful helper in the kitchen.

He just loves that kitchen as much as I do!!

My smartest Mom hack comes from the saying “work yourself out of a job.”

That saying really is the essence of learning how to delegate.

I work hard to train our children to help in all areas of life, and then I can leave them to their jobs.

This helps our home run so smoothly!

I realized that it was time to give Tate another one of my weekly jobs – making chicken stock from leftover crock pot chicken.

We eat a crock pot chicken once a week, so stock for soups and other needs gets made once a week.

Tate took over this job with a HUGE smile on his face!

I have to help him lift the instant pot insert back into the instant pot, but otherwise he ran with this job and does it all on his own.

We always add carrots, onion, garlic, celery, peppercorns, and apple cider vinegar to the water and the leftover chicken parts.


I bought this tool (and a few other needed kitchen items) and it has been a game changer for me!

I got this from Pampered Chef and it is called the Jar Opener.

My hands are less than ideal these days, as autoimmune issues have left them weak and arthritic.

My frustration in not being able to open things is gone, because this tool opens anything I need to open very easily!


This was the day I had only a few antibiotics left.

I had taken them for three weeks.

It wasn’t a week or so after this photo that I was asking for help from my doctor AGAIN.

Good grief.

Thankfully my lungs sounded better than I felt, so we didn’t do any more meds.

Kayla had taken the kiddos the morning I had that appointment, so I ran to the Coop afterward and got some nourishing food to make.


It was so quiet that day!!

Do you see in that last photo how I am watching a cooking show?

My sweet hubby bought and installed that tablet for us sometime in January.

It was in an effort to be able to have worship music playing throughout the day without it having to go through my phone.

I LOVE IT!!

We use it constantly!

We do not use WiFi in our home for health reasons, but our whole house was wired with CAT-5 when we bought it.

There is an internet plug in right behind the coffee machine, so this new tablet worked out perfectly!

Tate and I use it the most!!!


Fridays are still a marathon for me.

A marathon of getting grocery, running errands, doing laundry, and house cleaning.

I like a good marathon, don’t you?!

I think that is the reason I take a photo of the full grocery cart each week.

It is like I am saying “I finished the race! Made it to the checkout!” Ha, ha!

Somewhere in the month of January, I believe, I decided to only get grocery every two weeks.

It takes some seriously skill to get it all in one cart!

That’s not water in my tumbler either – iced coffee is a must for Friday marathons!


Lane.

He is taller than me.

He is smarter than me.

He is a GEM.

He is glad his mama is taking him for professional haircuts now, ha, ha!

He also brings binoculars to Bible time some mornings, because that’s what boys do.

We finally made a great space for him to work on his STEM and robot building!

It was not easy to figure out where we could put some tables for that, but this space works and he loves it!!


We feel like this winter was milder than most, but we did have some beautiful snow here and there.

Believe it or not, the children did not even have the opportunity to sled!

We just never had one of those slow, fluffy, straight down kind of snows that filled the yard and hill with a deep snow.

The boys were my shoveling crew this winter, and they always did such a great job!

Blake brought some cookies home for Tate one evening when he heard what an enthusiastic heart he had about clearing the driveway!


We did have beauty all around us this winter with the snow.

We live in the most beautiful place!!!

And I have plenty of photos to prove that!


Our bird restaurant brought and still brings us constant joy as well!

We had up to twelve red cardinals at a time visit our restaurant – on a daily basis!!

We have some snow inside our home too – in the form of snowflakes on the sliding glass windows – so that those beautiful birds will not run into the glass and hurt themselves.


One Saturday in January, I kept the grands so that David and Kayla could have a date!!

Any day with the grands is a better day than it was without them!!

We have so much fun with them!!


On a different Saturday, David dropped the boys to us and they spent the night.

That was a fun sleep over!

The BEST part was when Kayla sent me a photo of River once they got home…dead asleep and set on the couch that way.

SO CUTE!!!


Aspen Praise turned two in January!

She seems SO big to me now.

I know she will seem even more grown up when the new baby arrives at the end of May!


We started making our own candles and burning them at dinner and sometimes even at breakfast.

There is just something intentional about the whole thing.

I enjoy these candles very much!


It is winter, which means we play games a lot!

Just for the record, our favorites this year are Chinese checkers, Catan, Rummikub, and Racko.

Also just for the record, I never win.


These kiddos are good at being creative with their time.

Eliza received a watercolor book from her pen pal and has been enjoying it in the afternoons!

We love to watercolor!

I also have a very hard time keeping all three of their noses out of a book!

Even when I am drying Eliza’s hair!


One morning after my quiet time I went looking for someone to make this sign for me.

El Shaddai is typically translated as “God Almighty.”

I wanted those specific words and I found a way to have it done on Etsy.

What a sweet daily reminder that we have above our window now!


I realize this post has zero photos of Addie Mae!!

Sorry, sweet girl!!

I do have a photo of the day that Blake moved her dead jeep into the garage to fix it, and also one of her helping me grade school work one day.

Of course I have a few of Addie’s sweet Ruby Jane as well!


Blake and I managed to squeeze in a date night in January.

They are not as easy to come by these days!

We need to purpose them again – preaching to myself here.

I LOVE being alone with Blake and my love language is quality time – so win, win!


Our trio has been such great helpers helping Blake and I set up our church basement once a month for our Women to Women gathering.

I love that they get to serve behind the scenes this way!


You all!

That got crazy long!!!

Can you imagine how fat my scrapbook would already be if I were still keeping my memories that way??

It was good to look back on January.

February has some AMAZING memories though too.

Here’s a spoiler – FLORIDA.

SMILE!!

Stick around – those memories will be coming soon!!

January School Days

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I have been homeschooling our children since the year 2000.

That is a long time, friends!!!

As I reflect on that, not much has changed over the years really.

It is still the biggest part of our days here.

It still brings me so much joy.

We still follow a rhythm each day to keep things running smoothly.

And it still is at the core of our beliefs of the choices that we make for our children.

I only have three in school these days – but they are cheerful and enthusiastic, growing and learning, and fill my days with purpose and joy!!

Here is a glance into our school days through photos – my favorite way to tell a story!!


We had a NaiNai school day in January as well!!

Just think how long my homeschooling career will be if I get to help school ALL of my grandchildren through the coming years!!


Blake and I had conversation about our home school recently.

I always go to him to help me evaluate things we are doing and also to evaluate how the children are doing.

It is wonderful to report that we both think there is no need for major changes in our rhythm right now.

Here’s to many more posts about school days with my children AND my grandchildren!

What a wonderful career it has been!!!

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