Our Year in Review, Part Three

JUNE

In May, Colorado received a lot of rain.  Some areas experienced their "wettest May on record." Denver was recorded as being four inches above "normal".  It was quite a spring not only for rain, but the hail and were tornadoes around the area.  I remember one night when the hail woke us up at midnight...

I think I replanted my garden three times...

Kenny and Becky celebrated their 4th Wedding Anniversary

Sadie settled into a 'friendship" with our balcony squirrel!

We celebrated Father's Day at Polo Club, on the patio outside the pool!

Dads: Wally, Scott, Dad, Kyle and Terry

The nieces and nephews: Nicole, Aaron, Kyle and Krista

Me and the Dad of my kids!

Wally and I took our first ride for the year.  We rode over Kenosha Pass and came upon the fields on both sides of the rode covered in wild Iris...it was gorgeous!

The storms that began in May continued throughout June.  They seemed to build in the day and thunder in the late afternoon.  The hail would strip the trees and plug the gutters and downspouts. Wally spent a lot of time in the rain clearing the gutters to alleviate the flooding issues.

We had a weekend getaway.  Happ, our painter and friend, let us stay a night in his family's condo in Silverthorne.  We rode over Hoosier Pass and Breckenridge and ended up in Silverthorne.

Back at the ranch, or rather Polo Club North, the rains continued.  One afternoon the hail came so fast, the street drains became plugged and the water unable to drain away. We had knee deep water int he streets.  Cars would drive through the community and create a tidal wave that ran between the units.  One unit had their window well filled wind the water broke the window and flooded their basement.  We had a lot of flooding.  And we even had to rescue a man from his car.

This was car the next morning.

There was a lot of clean up after that storm.  One evening I looked up in time to see the most gorgeous sunset!  

Every year at PCN we have baby ducks to rescue from the drains.  Here's Sadie getting a close up look at one little baby before I put him into the pond to find Mom,

Nolan turned four at the end of June

Here's a graduation card I made for one of the grads at church

JULY

On the Fourth of July Wally and I were invited to a luncheon at one of our resident's home in Georgetown.  They are judges for the parade and then we met at their house afterward.  We rode the 

motorcycle up early enough to have breakfast and then enjoy the "small town" parade!  It was a lot of fun!

Mrs. Binkley was one of our residents that we really enjoyed from day one at Polo Club North.  She loved to talk politics with Wally.  She was nearly blind but could somehow still play Bridge.  So twice a week I drove her to her Bridge games, and occasionally other appointments.   Her family moved her to assisted living in New Mexico, closer to their home, in 2014.  In February of 2015 she turned 93.  She passed away about a month later.  Her memorial was held in July in Chama, NM. Wally and I decided to attend and afterward we headed to the Wildflower Festival in Crested Butte, CO.  It was at this time that we lost our jobs.  It was one of the four blogs I managed to post about in 2015, here.  

Our Year in Review, Part Two

MAY

The beginning of May brought the end of Bible Study Fellowship.  We had studied the Life of Moses and it was another awesome year in God's Word.  We had our end of the year Leader's Fellowship at the Polo Club Clubhouse.

This is the Admin team, minus one.  Gayle, April and I have served together for several years now.

This is the class Staff, Gail, Me, Debbie and Alethea.  We have been serving together for about six years...wonderful friends and godly women!  Sadly, this was Gail's last year.  She and her husband were moving to Seattle.

Also in May, Robin and I took our parents to Wisconsin where Jo lives.  It had been a few years since they had made it back.  Mom was needing/wanting to check out Jo's needs.  We made it a girl's weekend, with Dad in tow!  It was Mother's Day weekend and we realized Mom and Jo had not spent a Mother's Day together since JoEllen came to Shepherd's to live, forty years ago!

This is Jo's corner of her world!  We spent Friday going through her clothes,and trying to part with belongings that were broken and worn out.  If you know Jo, that is a tough thing to do!  We also took Jo to a salon in town and had her hair done.

This is Christine, Jo's room mate!  What a character!

aturday we went for a mani/pedicure...Dad included!  We looked up a Tea place in Milwaukee and after getting our nails done, we had tea at Watt's Tea House...Dad included!

Dad won one of the gifts in the Mother's Day raffle at the Tea.  He was the only male in the room! Edible flowers were on our dessert tray, we probably shouldn't have encouraged Jo...

Sunday, Mother's Day we went to church with Jo.

Back home, we gained permission from the Landscape Committee to build a garden box on the back side of the tennis court area.  Wally built it and I planted it.  I was excited to get to garden!

One of residents ran into one of the mailbox kiosks.  I felt so badly for her...she just could not remember what had happened!

Memorial Day Weekend Wally rode his motorcycle to Squim, WA where his brother had recently moved.  Wally helped him re-roof his new house.  Then he took a day to sight see...the photos below are of Wally at the Olympic Peninsula.  Wally also visited a lavender farm...not in bloom.  Squim is the largest lavender producing area in the United States.  I think I'd love to visit when it is in bloom!

Okay, so this post just got us through May...

Our Year in Review

Today is the last day of 2015, not a very good year for my blog with only four posts! (It is one of my 2016 goals to resume blogging.)  So I thought I would share some photos to  recap the year I didn’t get blogged!  Enjoy!

JANUARY
Kenny and Becky had been home for Christmas 2014, but that was close enough to the start of 2015 to include them.  We had a nice visit with them and it ended with a family dinner with my parents and Jo. Wally smoked ribs!

While JoEllen was home we threw her a party for her Big 60th Birthday!

The Birthday Girl!

Mom, Jo and Dad

Most of or family came to the party and long time friends of our family-and very special to Jo-Mrs. Loyd and her daughter Kathy!  We had so much fun, complete with games...Pin the Tail on the donkey, Clothes-Pin Drop, and Musical Chairs!

 

FEBRUARY

In February my Dad had a Birthday, his 89th!  We gathered at the Original Pancake House for his Birthday Breakfast.  

Aaron was the only one of the Grand kids who came.

I had to sneak in a card making project or two--this is the card I made for my Dad.

Wally and I took a day and drove to Breckenridge for the Ice Sculpture competition.  It was the last week of the event and it had been warm, but the sculptures were still in good shape.

I went off on a "Girl's Weeekend!"  My good friend Margie had moved to San Fancisco and we had talked about a visit many times.  President's Day weekend seemed like a good time.  Wally took Wesley pig hunting...it was a bust.  And I got on a plane with my other good friend...and Margie's sister...Esther.  We had a wonderful time!  Margie had planned and organized our weekend.  We had incredible sunny weather and a wonderful time!

We walked across the Golden Gate Bridge

The three of us at the bottom of Lombard Street

Esther and Margie on the San Andreas Fault

FEBRUARY and MARCH

Ben and Andrea came through our neck of the woods on deputation.  They were at our church for our Missions Conference and others in the area.  They were in and out in February and March.

APRIL 

A big project at Polo Club North began, road repairs.  What I mostly remember about this project is that it was very cut up and difficult to keep a through way open around the community.  we think it went rather smoothly, but it always amazed me how certain people just cannot handle any inconvenience, like driving the opposite way around the circle to avoid the closed parts of the road.  One lady actually told us she thought she would have to move because of the mess!  

That's the first four months.  

The End

This quote was on my July calendar...I did not actually turn to July from June until about ten days into the month! But how perfectly timed was the encouragement that was there for Wally and I. 

"Painful as it may seem, the place of our suffering is the place where we find the freedom to live the life God designed for us."—Dannah Gresh. 

So how does one begin to write about “getting fired?!”  It’s not something you are usually proud of and it certainly is unexpected.  Wally and I have many mixed emotions.  Did we do something wrong?  Maybe.  Something deserving of being “let go?”  We certainly did not think so.  Just what did we do?  I’m not even sure if I know or understand.  But here is what I do know…While this whole experience was a complete surprise to us, it certainly was not to God.  And we trust that what God allows in our life is for our good, and definitely is part of God’s purposes and for His glory.

Wally and I were operating out of a state of disbelief, but determined to trust the Lord.  I had been praying for the Lord to draw us closer together and closer to His Word. In July I participated in a Bible study in the book of Proverbs.  I could not believe how many times I would say to Wally, “Let me read you this verse, doesn’t it sound like what we are going through?”  It was good to be grounded and surrounded by His Word and prayer!  It was also the perfect foundation that was being laid for what we were about to walk through.  I truly had perfect peace, the kind that “surpasses al understanding!”

Here’s what God did for us:

• On Tuesday after we returned from our little vacation, we were signing a lease on a house to rent.  If you know anything about the housing market in Denver, you understand what a miracle that alone is!
• Wally was offered his old job back as a roofing estimator.  In fact they wanted him to start right away. 
• Most of the residents were just as shocked as we were that we were being let go. They were so kind to us!  They began dropping by our apartment with cards and gifts and even tears! 
• One woman especially blessed us.  She had been a tough cookie from the start.  She would roll by the clubhouse and toot her car horn, waiting for Wally to respond.  She always wanted some work done but never wanted to fill out the form required.  Over time, she warmed up to us.  She told us she couldn’t write very well anymore and that is why she never wanted to fill out the forms. We weren’t sure, but we think she was about 90…still driving, still playing Bridge each week, she was a character!  As we were packing to leave, she knocked on our door.  She climbed up the steps, around all the packing mess and plopped on our couch .  She visited with us for several minutes and then gave us a hand written card, thanking us for all we had done!
• We were able to leave knowing we had done a very good job, that there were many things we could not overcome, but we did a good job!

The frosting on the cake for me came from when I read Proverbs 28:11. “The rich man is wise in his own eyes, But the poor who has understanding searches him out.”   I pictured Wally and I as “the poor” in the verse.  Poor when our lives are compared with those of our residents…with the their standard of wealth, success, status and privilege.  But we were rich in God’s understanding, the gospel.  And we had tried to live and give the gospel in the four and half years we lived and worked among these very rich and privileged “poor” people.  I felt God gave this verse to me to bring the perfect close to this chapter in our life. 

We made a lot of trips like this! 

We had the best moving crew!  They worked hard and kept us laughing most of the day!

One of the first pieces of mail at our new address was this encouraging card from Andrea and a Starbucks card with the Brooklyn Bridge on it!