Psalm 37:4-6

It seems like such a simple thing. Delight yourself in the most delightful Person in the universe. Delight yourself in the One who never disappoints, never gets boring, and never gets stale. Delight yourself in the One who is always captivating, exciting, glorious, and cool. Truly, He is cool. He is awesome. And His awesomeness and everything else about Him is new every morning.

Yet, I am so easily distracted, so easily enchanted, so easily delighted by the creation rather than the Creator. I am so easily drawn to the things of the world. The things and people that always disappoint, always get stale, always get boring. When will I learn? By the grace of God, I will learn by the strength that He supplies.

Psalm 37:4-6 Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it. 6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment as the noonday.

Back to Back Champion!

Somehow, Emery got back to back championships in the same year, on the same day!

She won 1st place for her design and 1st place for the speed competition.

Her car was an Amazon box, and it barely got by in Heat 1.

Then in the semis, she moved on to the next round. The crowd was starting to get behind her!

She won it by a hair! Amazon PRIME! This was the first time she or the boys won. I couldn't get any of the other cars over the years to even place. But this year, Emz won both contests, the first time ever at our church. Great job Emery!

National Junior Honor Society

After 3 semesters of straight A's, Matt got inducted into the NJHS.

Matt has definitely improved his study skills and habits this year. Great job Matt!

You can tell he's a teenager now, eh?!

The entrepreneur

I forgot to mention that as part of our food forest, we have to open up our yard for a tour every year. Always, the entrepreneur, Emery was looking to maximize all of the visitors that would come by.

Unfortunately, it was a small crowd and she had no takers. But I appreciate that Emery has really taken to heart that it is better to give than to receive as she is looking to make money, not to save for herself but to buy gifts for others. She thoughtfully plans out what would be a good gift to each person and then buys or makes it far in advance. She is both generous and caring.

Spring in our food forest

Spring has finally sprung. And our food forest is showing it!

Amidst all of the many activities and accolades of the boys and girl, Sandy and I have found some time to do a few things for ourselves.

We are hitting our 3rd year, and the food forest is really taking off!

The trees are much bigger and the berms are really filling in. Sandy has designed it so well that we have every kind of color popping out.

We added 2 new raised beds this year. A small one for pumpkins and another one for veggies. There's so much more to do, but God has given us so much growth!

What a difference from when we first began!

Parenting is a lot like landscaping. You plant your seeds or your seedlings. You keep watering, weeding, protecting, feeding, weeding, nurturing and more weeding. Work, work, work. It seems like the weeds and the disease and the pests keep attacking your work and overwhelming you. But God does His work and over time, if you keep working, the garden produces its fruit. If you don't take a moment to step back and compare, you don't get to appreciate the immense work God produced in the garden of your kids sometimes. While it seems like the onslaught of the weeds of sin from this world and the unseen disease of sin from within never stops attacking, the cross of Christ has overcome the world and the power of sin and death. Praise God for His gracious work!

BEF 5k

The family ran our annual 5k here in town again.

When we started this run, I had ideas of a fun family event where we interact with people in our town and run together. What's actually happening is that everyone runs at a different pace, and we all split up! Andrew zoomed on ahead with his track friends. Matt stuck with mom and kept her company for most of the run while Emery went for a medal. I was her trainer, coach and pace runner.

We're not exactly sure what place she got as the times got messed up somehow with some of the other runners. But she got a 26:30 and probably 3rd place in the 10-11 year-old girls' division. Super good time in my book. We trained for a few months with long runs, speed runs, and hill runs. She really wanted a medal. Let's just say she's pretty competitive. Great job Emz, you did it!

BMS Volleyball Champs!

Matt made the volleyball team this year. He tried out and was the only 7th grader who made the team. On top of that, he got some playing time and they won the title for the first time ever! Well, I guess they started the team last year so it was also the first title in 2 years.

They were 5-1 for the season. It was a short season, literally about 3 weeks. They went into the playoffs feeling pretty good until they lost to Joaquin Moraga. This put them into the loser's bracket. But they kept winning - again and again and again until they were in the championship game, facing Joaquin Moraga. They beat them, only to have play them again as that was JM's first loss. But theybeat them again and became 2018 champs!

 Matt was a back row specialist. He subbed in to play the back row.

He was also the back-up setter. There were 2 boys who were really, really good on the team and 1 was the setter.

Matt improved a lot in this month of a season. Great job Matt!