Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Visiting Grandpa Garner

August 19th, 2024- Our trip up to New Plymouth to see Grandpa Garner was pretty special. Spent time in his garden picking vegetables, then made the short drive to bring flowers and pay a visit to Grandma's grave which was some sacred time. Was really special to bring the kids there and tell them all about Grandma Garner. At one point, Clay said, 'Grandma Garner sounds like the nicest person ever'. She was. We went back and had some lunch together and then took the dog for a walk. We'll always remember this time we got with Grandpa Garner and loved listening to him talk about Grandma and his perspective on life. What really stuck out was his humility and submissiveness to God's plan. Reminded me a lot of what it means to have a broken spirit and a contrite spirit. Asked for some life advice and he said, 'Life is hard but its a lot harder without keeping our covenants, so keep your covenants'. Hopefully we get plenty more visits with him on the farm (he says he's still going to be around for a while cuz he feels he still has work to do) but if we dont, this one was a really special one we'll remember. 




Lucy saying hi to the dog :) 

Talk about a full-circle life moment here. Pretty trippy to see these kids running back on this road with the dog, thinking about how many times we did it as kids. 











Lucy couldnt wait to sink her teeth into Grandpa's veggies. 

Sunday, January 5, 2025

Christmas Weekend 2025- Avery and Meg!

Christmas 2025 was extra special this year. Avery and Meg came to spend the holidays with us in Amsterdam. It was really fun having them join in on the festivities, including a late night tennis session, lots of rounds of Mint Works and the kids especially loving their time with Uncle Avery and Auntie Meg. We did our annual city Christmas lights bike ride at 8am and hot chocolate and stroopwaffles with them on Christmas Eve. We also had a lot of fun making gingerbread houses and playing games together. 

The kids were all spoiled this year by Santa and grandparents and got some neat gifts. Some noteworthy ones they loved were the kitchen, hot wheels track, drone, and some remote control cars that drive on the walls. We feel super blessed and loved celebrating this special season with Avery and Meg. 




























The time we almost got a Frame TV. 
Christmas football running off all the sugar. 






Santa keeps us well stocked with annual Tabasco in the stocking.