July 4th weekend ALREADY!!!! My how time flys. June went awfully fast i think bc we did the Love & Respect coarse every Mon. nite for 5 weeks. Can't believe it's already over. We got alot of good responses back, if you are married or fixing to get married, it is AWESOME!! Everyone needs it. Ivan, like alot of the men didn't see the point in going, we have a great marriage. But now they all said "Wow, we all needed this." And not just the men, true submission does not mean being a doormat ladies. Unconditional Respect needs to be in our hearts at all times. Then and only then will you see the true wonders of a truely awesome marriage!!

Something else some of us church ladies did was the 30 day encourage your husband challenge thru www.reviveourhearts.com it to is great. Like it said today, encouragement is love in action.

Summer is in full swing. I seen yesterday the first signs for sweet corn. Yummy!! Can't wait to get some. Also we are going to the water park today. Gardening and mowing. Always something going. We are planning a tailgate party and go watch fireworks in B.G Friday night. Anyone want to come?   Well i'm all news out so i'll be signin off, TTYL.

HAPPY 4th of JULY!!!!

Our butterflys are here and gone...

Butterfly # 1

Butterfly # 2

Today is wash and clean day. This week seemed to just fly by again. Monday we did business paperwork. Which is kinda fun,because we go to the Olde Mill and eat and converse!! Tuesday we painted our church house, which took ALL day. Wednesday went to town and had to run  stuff out to Ivan's job,than church that nite. Then Yesterday was a long but good day. There was a lady that came into our community that her husband left her and 3 beautiful children and she wanted to watch our love and respect dvd's. We started at @ 9:30 and got done @ 5:30 in the eve. We didn't quite watch them all but she said she was going home to fight for her marriage the RESPECT way!! Her name is Grace, so would you please pray for her as she seeks to do Gods will. Tonight we may take Ivan's brother Ray out for his birthday.

Well gonna run,Diana

 The last few days i have been going thru drawers,closets, storage barn and attic. This weekend is the 400 mile yard sale along 68/80. We had talked about having one this year and then Ivan did a little job for this lady and she said she would let us set up in her yard if they call it even. She has one of the prim hotspots around here. I really want to sell my dinette set the most and get a new one. Alisha was like "mom where all this stuff come from". It's amazing what you can dig up.

Last Saturday we had a long hard day. I have such a awesome man, that he would work so hard for me!! I have been wanting a small garden for the past several years and we could never agree where to put it. On this 1 + acre, surely there would be somewhere. Anyway I got this brainstorm for a raised bed garden. He told me to get a picture and then get the lumber and he would build it. That was the easy part.

He did a awesome job. I loved it. Then came the hard part, filling it with dirt. I never got pictures of that, but i have never been so dirty in my entire life. It was hot and sticky, so we were sweating up a storm. We went to get dirt, only to find that the guy was gone. So Ivan calls him and asks if we can just shovel it by hand.  Even he didn't realize what he was getting us into. Not only did we shovel it on, we had to shovel it off too. Anyway this is the end result and i think it looks wonderful.

OTHER GREAT NEWS. WERE EXPECTING!!!! TWINS!!!!

BUTTERFLYS THAT IS.

Aren't they cute.( I couldn't resist) Anyone know how long after they cacoon themselves before they turn into butterflys?

Two other things that I wanted to share. Monday night was our first night for the Love & Respect coarse. We have 13 couples and a single lady going thru with us. It went really good. Alot of good thoughts and conversation. Section 1 was on the Crazy cycle and what we do when we get on each others air hose and how we should react. Biblically, it is a command to love and respect, apart from our spouses performance. But oh, it is hard when they get on our air hose.

Next, last night we had a Channels of Grace get togather. The topic was on Temptation and Fleeing Temptations. Donna Baer had the topic and did very,very well. Pulled out alot of discussion from the girls. How do we flee temptation. We concluded: first you have to identify it as a temptation. Then take steps to overcome it.(i.e asking God to help you,be accountable to a friend,steer away from it) Then replace it with something positive. Because if you just leave it empty it will  return and return with more demons in tow. I found a website as I was looking this up on temptation and liked what this read.

Hope everyone has a great and blessed day!!

What is keeping me so busy that i don't have time to update? Two weddings and a funeral. These last few weeks went by in a blur i think. I started several weeks ago with the coordination of Lisa Yoder/Baer wedding. They had other coordinators but they wanted me to help because the others had never done a mennonite wedding. What a lot of work it was. I just got a few pics.

 It was very beautiful. Lots and lots of flowers and pink n brown colors. It bums me out i never got a picture of the bride or bridesmaids. That was Sat. May 3. I left there and went to dads and got home @ 10:30 to a urgent message from one of our friends that a good friend of ours died that late afternoon. It was a lady that we got to know thru work and she was just a real inspiration to Ivan and I over the last year. To give you alittle back ground. Ivan n Dave Z started working for a lady at the start of last year and then we got to know Becky as Sues best friend. I remember the first time I met her. She was very poised and beautiful. She also came into the restaurant alot when i worked there. Last July 4 morning she had her first headache and went down hill very fast. She had a fast growing tumor in her brain. Around October she had her first surgery after having such massive headaches that she would vomit and tremble all over. It was then that her daughters asked if I would help clean her house. It was very hard on her because she was always the one to take care of everything and everyone else. They thought from Thanksgiving to Christmas that she may be in remission. We went Christmas caroling for her and she fell in love with our singing. The headaches had just started to come back at that time. From then til mid April she was back and forth from Vanderbilt two operations later she would feel better than get worse. We were at Sues one morning when she came out in tears and said they had just heard from the doctors that Becky's first tumor was back again and Becky's husband was coming over and they had to tell him that there was nothing more they could do. What a hopeless terrible feeling. Well Becky came home on a Tuesday and I went to see her Wednesday morning and they asked us if we would sing again while her daughter from California was there. So we scheduled it for Friday nite and it had to be early because she doesn't do well later on. I knew it was going to be hard to get enough ppl around at 5:30 and knew we needed everyone we could. Then at @ 4:00 I started to get a headache and before long it was a migraine:( My brother called and I said i don't know if i could come,it was 5:10 and i was still sick on the couch. All kinds of things were going wrong and i just knew no one was going to show up, that we just about canceled. Well, I got up and showered and prayed, but was determined to go even if I threw up. Well we had 7 ppl, but it went very well. We were glad it worked out that way because we were able to be in her room with her. She was able to sit up and she sang along,very faintly, but she sang and clapped her hands. Afterward they had snack and she ate more than she had in several days. They said it was a miracle. Come to find out that was the last meal she ate, the last time she was even coherent. Those were the last pictures they got of her. It was scary to think how hard the devil was trying to stop us from singing to her and her family.That was Friday and she died a week after that. So many people were touched by her, thru all her surgery's and pain she never complained. When she was told that there was nothing they could do for her,her answer was "God knows best". Very, very Godly women!! They asked us to sing at the funeral and at the grave side. The Funeral was last Wed. morning and was very pleased that @ 20 ppl came out to help us sing. One lady came up to us afterward and said with tears running down her face,it was "pure heaven". We all know it wasn't ,but were glad we could touch others. What a testimony Becky Fortune left, that it was a real challenge to me to live the way she did. Thru getting to know her and singing to her, our church and there church have joint services every fifth Sunday. Praise God for how he works!!

On to Thursday, we met with Lisa Hostetler to get started coordinating her wedding a week from this Saturday. So on to planning another wedding.

Oh, n i forgot to mention we are steadily planning and having our Channels of Grace ministeries with the girls from this area. We had one nite planned in April and then it was right at that time Jared Schrock had his motorcycle accident and hardly anyone showed up. You seem to put so much work into it that it sometimes got discouraging that we felt like whats the use. But we looked at it that the devil was trying to get us down. We did two sessions with Josh Harris on Purity and Trust (waiting on God's timing for relationship's) Then this last Tuesday nite we did a mother/daughter supper. It has been a real blessing getting to know these girls better. 

The children's last day of school was today. So now the busy summer stuff gets started : ) SIGH.....

How's that for a update!! Ivan said I better quit or i'll run out of paper. TTYL, Di

Yes, this has been a looooooog week. In some ways then other times i think it has went pretty fast. Still got @ 173 hrs or 10,300 minutes . No really I pretty much talk to him everyday. For those of you that r in the dark. Ivan is in costa rica. I had to work alittle last week and then usually we go to dads in the evenings. Friday night a couple of us went to see Lisa Whelchel in B.G at a womens conference. That was really good for me to hear. So often we think that "Oh,I don't have much to offer"."I'm not really good at anything in general". It's not about what we have to offer,it's about offering what we have. And God will use that in blessing. It was quite interesting that this same lady I remember watching on TV when i was a kid on a show called "the facts of life" Anyway another thing that stood out was always keeping our focas on God and doing whatever it is that he asks of us.

Anyway not much is happening right now. It is snowing and blowing (BRRRRR)outside. We made homemade pizza tonight for supper and just really staying home and chillin.