Goodbye February

February was overall crazy, a mixture of tears and happy days. My father-in-law came on February 12th for a week. It was so much fun having him here. God has blessed me with such a wonderful family through my marriage to H1. I love all of them dearly and treasure my friendship with them. Dad H is so much fun to have around. He spends lots of time singing with H3 and playing games with her. She adores him and woke up each morning looking for him. The following Saturday H1 drove him to D.C. and Dad boarded a plane to Australia to visit from friends for three weeks. We’ll be picking him up March 12th.





Two of the days while Dad H was here, H3 and I were in West Point watching a friend’s daughters so she and her hubby could have a night together. They have three beautiful daughters and H3 has so much fun playing with them. At the moment she can only pronounce the youngest one’s name, so all three girls are named “Julie” to her, but it doesn’t seem to bother the girls. They are great with her and include her in all their activities as best as possible.



Last Monday H1 had the day off for President’s Day. After a shopping trip to get dress pants for H1, the three of us went for a nature stroll in the Chesapeake area. H1 had found a couple park trails online and we decided to check them out. H3 was quite trouper. She made it almost a mile.





After the trail, we stopped at a city park on the way back and let H3 expend the last bit of her energy. We hadn’t been to this park before, and apparently it just reopened. Someone burned down part of it earlier last year and the play area had been closed for a while. The city opened it again a couple weeks ago. It’s the largest park we’ve seen by far and seems to have just about everything, from a skate park, basketball court, and soccer fields, to lots of playground equipment, swings, a sand pit, and a climbing wall. We’ll definitely be heading back here. It was a funny day though. Most of the day was in the 70s, but while we were walking back out to the car a cold wind hit. The air turned frigid and dropped 20 degrees within seconds. I’m not kidding. As we pulled out of the park, we watched a crowd exit as well, many exclaiming over the weather change. That’s Virginia for you though. One day will be 70 and the next day 40.




Friday and Saturday all three of us headed to West Point again, this time to help our friends, Dean and Robyn, move. I baked my cousin’s Farmer Casserole for the occasion, along with a coffee cake and an apple pie. Some friends from their church also brought snacks, so it was nice to have all the food for breaks while we worked. Four others joined in the moving efforts, besides myself, H1, Dean and Robyn.


Our families have helped each other move several times since we all met 5 years ago. It’s hard work for all of us, but I think it’s a neat testimony to friendship. They have come out of their way to help us each time when we’ve moved, driving long distances to see us to the other end, and I’m glad we’ve been able to reciprocate. Isn’t that what friendship is? You pray together, laugh together, cry together, give a little, and sometimes receive. You eat and share jokes, and giggle over late night tea and games after the kids are in bed.

Another friend invited us over for lunch today after church. She has five kids, four boys and one girl. Two of the boys are teenagers and play on the worship team with H1. They had a good time hanging out while Nicole and I chatted and played with the younger ones. H3 ran around from toy to toy, unable to figure out what to look at first. Then the youngest three took naps before we had a delicious turkey that Nicole baked. H1 had a migraine, so we finally headed back after 5:00. The poor guy promptly fell asleep when we got back!

Tomorrow I substitute up at the high school and that will close out the month of February for us!

~H2