Life so far in Michigan

I am happy to say that all the boxes are unpacked, the house in set up, and nothing was broken during our move.  However, there are still a few items that we can't locate so we hope that they are in our storage boxes in AB or MB. The children have adjusted well and love going to check out the towns around us and have discovered a new park, a lake with a little beach, and a new church with children all their own ages.  It seems like a wonderful area and we are enjoying the fact that my parents are only two hours away.  I will admit that I have already had my parents up last weekend to help me rediscover all the flower beds that are around the house and yard.  What an amazing blessing having this chance to reconnect with my family before we head across the world. Here is a closer look on how everyone is doing!

Franklin - Much to Franklin's happiness he is finally enjoying his own bedroom with a door that actually closes.  His room is large enough that we were able to set up his classroom in it and he is able to study and work without as many different distractions.  He has already had a few days of school and has been enjoying the new textbooks, reading material, and the fact that we are doing it in one place not on the road like last year.  Franklin is probably having the hardest time with living in the country as he misses having bike paths and a place to practice on his skate board.  Also, he has discovered that crickets can be very loud at night time!

Isaac - We are so happy to share with you that our little boy who doesn't not handle change has survived this change with flying colors.  Thank you to all who have been praying for him during this time of change.  Our biggest worry was how he would handle going to school and riding a bus.  I can happily say that the first two days of school this week were great for Isaac.  He has a nice size classroom with lots of boys and seems to love the fact that he has his own locker in the hallway.  For a boy who hates to leave his parents side he has been happily going on the bus with a smile everyday and looking forward to leaving us!

Jaclynn - Since we have moved we have all noticed how much she has been growing up.  She loves finding projects to help work on like when we finished painted the deck.  She helped Greg and I paint for hours out in the heat while her brothers lost interest within twenty minutes.  And this morning as we are at my parents place I went down to the barn to see what she was helping her aunt with and ended up laughing at what she was up to.  I found her with a pitch fork in her hand helping her aunt clean out the horse stalls (no wonder the boys lost interest with the barn if this is what they were doing do there).  Jaclynn found her first day of kindergarten really fun and she can't wait to go back again.

Myself (Julie) -  I have had fun setting up our new house and doing lots of yard work! After that was done it was time to hit the books and prepare for Franklin's school year.  Then I had to help Isaac and Jaclynn prepare for there first time in public school.  This was really fun as both of them were so excited and kept counting down the days until their first day. I have also really enjoyed being close to my younger brother and having him phone when he is bored at college to ask if he can come over for a visit.

Greg - Has been doing well at school as well.  He has also start meeting with a couple young men, with plans to work through a discipleship study.  Along with building those relationships he has also been able to make some new friends among his class mates.

Move & Settling in Pics

The following are some pictures from our last day in Steinbach to the first couple weeks in Clarksville MI.

Everything made it in one piece to MI Praise the Lord!

Enjoying our first night on the road in the hotel's pool.

Move in day (master bed room)

Kitchen (Julie's got it a lot cleaner now)

Living room (Which is also much cleaner now too)

Our wonderful view from our front deck

Our front deck

Jaclynn making a new friend at the Lake Odessa park

We discovered that Jaclynn loves to spin

Isaac still a little timid with being a monkey, but I'm afraid it won't be long before he's climbing like crazy like his older bother.

Julie even got in on the spinning action.

Family visit to SMAT were I'm studying the aircraft maintenance course.  Jaclynn was a bit concerned on the length of this airplanes wings, she may have a good point :)

I'm not sure what the Lord has in store for Isaac down the road.  He sure has an interest in fixing things.

Isaac just missing the rest of the van and maybe a drivers licence other than that he is ready to go.

This is one of our first projects we got to build in class.  This is the circuit board for the multi-meter kit that we were each given to.  Some assembly required and a lot of soldering.  It was a lot of fun and looking forward to the rest of the year as I continue to learn and develop my maintenance skills.