Beauty in Progress

Cousin Karin's garden continues to provide the varied bouquets she gifts us with each week. We, here in Indiana, are also enjoying the seasonal surprises of God's creation, though somewhat delayed.

Every Monday evening at Dove's Crossing (Stephan and Karen's place), I get to see the progress on the new house-building project with my own eyes. Michael helps when he can and I see pictures on FB or in Karen's blog. Here is my own photo of the window wall. Can you see how many windows there will be?

This week, however, Michael spent more time at Leah's assembling furniture and adding some final touches to the art studio. It is beautiful! I can see my daughter and I spending time together there making art!

West wall                                                        East wall

Michael had several very long days away till midnight. The robotics team, or some of them, met three evenings and tried diligently to meet the Thursday deadline for submitting a video of the robot in action. 

Meanwhile, I spent much time alone. Kendra persuaded me to attend "Shop the Loop" event at Taylor. Moriah just happened to meet me there and we went around to all the vendors together. She introduced me to a fellow engineering major we'd heard a lot about over the years. Kevin has a very unique form of art using a 3D printer. Can you guess which item I was drawn to?

Speaking of turtles (or was I?), I was finally able to successfully wear the one Michael crafted for me last Christmas.

Saturday, I joined Team 1720 and the Lion's Club joint bottle-cap-sorting party. We spent hours going through mountains of bags-full. I was mostly picking out the paper inserts while Michael poured avalanche-like torrents of lids on our table and scoured them rapidly for non-acceptable items. I'm sure we won in two categories: fastest and messiest! It was a fun time working together with team members, parents and friends.

Any of you locals who'd like to help out, may donate all your bottle caps. These will be made into benches. 

I was reminded of an art piece I saw years ago in the Art Pilgrimage of a Cornerstone Music Festival It was made entirely of bottle caps--Living Lilies.

At Sunday dinner with the girls, we noticed that Moriah's colors perfectly matched the food served. 

Michael made the wonderful meal, we all enjoyed it, then I rushed off to a bridal shower while the girls cleaned up the kitchen. (Hmmm. . . we will miss them when they leave in a few weeks.) 

Lexi's bridal shower was lovely, as is she--Malachi's bride-to-be! Rebecca will experience another first as "flower-girl" on May 22. 

It happened to be a very full day as we hosted a TU MuKappa event called Chai Chats. Looks like they are a tight-knit group! 😄 How many bodies can you count?

The conversation was directed toward sharing their widely varying experiences growing up as MKs (Missionary Kids), TCKs (Third Culture Kids), or CCKs (Cross Culture Kids).

I realized that I was probably the only one in that crowd with a higher degree of assimilation to the culture where I grew up, in that I attended the public schools, graduated with a teacher's degree and even taught there for a short time. To this day I have deep lasting friendships, and feel "one of them."

I am currently writing about my early childhood, and publish another chapter every 1 and 15 of the month in English and Spanish. I spent a good deal of time this week on Chapter 4.

This fifteenth week of 2021, was very full and hasn't slowed down. That's my excuse for the lateness of this post. 

Keep plodding on, enjoying the beauty in progress around you!

2018 Week 14: Easter and more

 Despite lingering winter weather, some yellow lovelies dared face the world. 

Most family members showed up for lamb dinner and fellowship. Sam and three boys ventured out, but Malachi and Kristie, still recovering, stayed home.

We  celebrated Jimmy's birthday, belatedly--44 on the 26th. Did he like the crazy Koch song? Hmmm. . .

Here are some of the others in attendance, showing off their favorite girls.

Stephan and Karen; Uncle Skey and Rebecca; Skye and girlfriend Cassie

I do believe the day after Easter was our heaviest snowfall of the year, some 6". 

I enjoyed the beautiful snowscapes on my drive into Muncie. Sam had asked me to be there with Malachi for a few hours while the rest of the family was gone to school and work.

I was pleasantly surprised to find him enjoying the company of a couple of old friends. 

Ben, Malachi, and David

The snow was gone before I drove home. 

Tuesday, the trailer that had looked so pretty snow-covered the day before, made its way back to its home in the Madjax shop carrying precious cargo--Pixel the robot to be unloaded and upgraded. Now, 16th in the state, the PhyXTGears will be off to the 2018 Indiana State Championship, April 13-14, in the Kokomo Memorial Gymnasium.

Wednesday Michael's schedule was a bit more open so he suggested we take a meal to Sam's family. They opted for a Chick Fil-A carry-out. We loved spending time with them, and observing the amazing progress. In my mind I can still see sweet Lexi in the ICU, head bowed, sitting for hours next to unconscious, sedated Malachi. 

What a joyful contrast!

Homework duty

Just came across a photo of the older siblings some eight years ago.

Then and Now

The Thursday exercise session I attend for seniors, was quite different. Yes, we did work out some, but for a good half hour we helped support our trainer--Miss Spirit of Indiana! 

She won the title in February. The contests for the next level are in June.

Paige Harder

Her platform is "Promoting Exercise for All Generations!" so she wanted a photo with us her trainees. 

Her talent is the piano, so we persuaded her to play her competition piece--Solfeggietto. 

We may some day claim to have known Miss Indiana, or even Miss America!

Michael came home from robotics that night, late as usual and in quite a bit of pain. 

In the days that followed he concluded it was a kidney stone. 

After some research, he tried an olive oil/lemon juice remedy. 

Saturday was another even longer day at Madjax. He survived, barely. Only now is he feeling relief.

2017 Week 23: Another great week

Petunia and catalpa blossoms

Three last graduation open houses this week, each fun in a different way.

Asher's, Sunday evening, the last one of the PhyXTGears student graduates, was held where his family celebrates every special event--the grandparents' spread in the country. Grandpa built the house, planted a variety of trees and plants, did the beautiful landscaping himself, AND has a quaint and fascinating shop crowded with his treasures accumulated over the decades. 

The front of the shop 

My hardworking builder and maintainer has been tackling outdoor jobs such as painting areas that needed it, mowing, checking the bees, and more. All of that in addition to the ongoing goals and projects of the robotics team. Even so he makes time for cycling almost daily.

And he manages to fit in a tandem date weekly. Can you guess where we ended up this week?

Elijah was with us most of the week to enjoy the FITS (Fun in the Sun) program. Wednesday he had his cast taken off and missed "mud day" which he did not mind too much. He still has to wear a brace for a few weeks, but could ride his bike to and from the church.

Elijah and I played many games together, and I only won one! His "strategery", as I call it, is unbeatable!

The high point of the week was Malachi's celebration. As a family they came up with great ideas for the open house and all worked heartily and willingly to pull it off. Beautiful, indeed!
As usually happens when there's a major event, some projects get done that otherwise languish undetected. Now I'm inspired to clean my oven inside and out and organize all the books in the various bookshelves.

We are grateful that Kristie is progressing as well as she has since her major surgery six weeks ago.

She had not been able to keep up with the hive and was ready to give up on bee-keeping. However, Bee-man Mike came to the rescue.  Before the party, he donned his protective gear, endured the heat, checked on Kristie's bees, harvested a goodly amount of honey, and got stung only once.

Jude admiring grandpa

Enjoying the video display and visiting with friends

It's a special blessing to have a chef-uncle to cater the party who also throws in an ice sculpture!

Nacho bar and ice sculpture by Stephan Koch and cake by Patrick McDonald

We had a wonderful afternoon visiting with many friends. In the midst of our conversation we rememberd that June 10th was the six year anniversary of our housefire.

I came across this memorable photo captured by our daughter. Amidst the ashes, a reminder of Jesus' love and God's promise to be with us always. 

Two more Leah-pics from this week that I just couldn't pass up, after all every post needs a Rebecca sighting.

In 1976. when Nanna-Leah was about that age and we were living in Vienna, Austria, in a little house with a big yard and many beautiful flowers, a team came through on their way to Turkey for the summer and camped there. Among them was a young man who drew this picture of our two children.

In amazing mysterious ways, our paths crossed again this weekend. Richard Sharp and his wife Rachel were involved in Serve Together Kokomo, a county-wide service project involving 47 churches and thousands of volunteers.

We only heard about it Sunday morning from Bob Craton, an Upland friend whose ties with Operation Mobilization also go back to those adventures in Europe. We made plans to go together and picked him up after the last open house, Lexi's.

Lexi, Malachi's girlfriend of several years

We wondered how we'd find our friends amid stadium crowds. Interestingly, they sat only a few rows away in the same section, and later on our way to Culver's to visit with them, we discovered they had parked directly behind us! What are the odds???

We were so inspired hearing the stories of their One Wish encounters. They ask two questions to begin a conversation. I leave you with the first one:  "If you could have one wish from God for you today, what would that be?" They offer a simple one-sentence prayer for anyone who responds.
What came to mind when you read that question?

2017 Week 17: Worlds and sooooo much more!

I like to open each week with flowers. This time I couldn't resist borrowing Leah's photos of our little flower princess.

"Hair by Nature and Nana"

I am really enjoying the fields of yellow, almost hate to see them mowed away. No worries, the abundant rain has made mowing difficult. The bees also appreciate the delay.

New spring growth

Monday before the meal, we surveyed the two new buildings in progress. Stephan's Christmas gift to Karen was a writing cabin in the woods. He is still working on it and also setting up his work area for milling and assembling materials for their future timber frame house.

Tuesday early morning was Kristie's long-awaited surgery. She had suffered from a rare and painful condition for years. What the surgeon found proved the timeliness of the procedure. They were able to cut away all that was encasing the celiac artery and restricting the flow of blood (MALS). We are so grateful for a successful outcome.

The healing and pain control will take time, but so far the progress is on schedule. 

Many have stepped up to help with food and child care, and especially love and prayer. 

The other huge event of the week was the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) World Championship. Mike and the team traveled to St. Louis on Wednesday. (I left the next day with three others.)

The night I was alone, severe storms raged here, The power was out for a couple hours and trees blew down in our woods.

Our car load arrived in time for a couple qualifying matches and the opening ceremonies, one of the few times Michael could join me in the stands. 

Opening ceremnoy

These were very intense days for mentor/coach Mike and the drive team. When they were not on the field competing, they were back in the pit trying to fix the most recent malfunction or on the practice field testing the latest improvement.

Some of us were able to get away between matches to visit the famous Arch. I learned that it is the tallest monument in America! Do you know how high it is and what it conmemorates?

I watched the documentary and studied the wall depicting the construction of this amazing memorial.

Another fascinating attraction we visited Friday evening was the City Museum, an undescribably crazy place.

The multilevel eclectic playground/fun house was crowded with young people, robotics teams from all over. . . . and a few older folks like us.

But you probably want to know how our team fared at that level of competition. I will say that our wonderful robot did not perform as it had on its home field and suffered many setbacks. We did not make it to alliance selection like the last time two years ago, but we were the third pick of the team that has won several championships. Read more in this press release Muncie Robotics Team Competes in World Championships. You may also want to be reminded of our trip to Worlds two years ago, go here.

Meanwhile back in Indiana other important events were taking place.

Malachi and Lexi's senior prom

We traveled back Sunday and were just in time for Kayla's many dance students' recital. She danced with the adult tap class, led the younger classes either from on stage or from the front row, and acted with the Annie's themed musical theatre group's performance. Very impressive program!

Needless to say, we've been exhausted ever since, trying to catch up on sleep and chores, and now I am fighting a cold.