Retirement and Week in Reverse

Bill is officially retired! After 40 years in the classroom, he ended his teaching career with a wonderful day with his students on Friday. They are a marvelous group of young people and they sent Bill off with lots of well-wishes and blessings. It was a terrific ending to a great career!

We celebrated Bill's retirement with dinner with our dearest and best, Dick and Jacque who has just retired from her position as Director of Ministries at church. What a gift she's been to us and to K'ville!

Warm chocolate chip cookies - our dessert of choice
for this special occasion. They were, as is our tradition,
accompanied by congratulatory toasts :)

Tom and Anna invited us to celebrate with them on Friday evening. We had a great dinner - al fresco - and then went to their plat at the community garden. Then we got to meet Ernie, their new puppy! One thing is clear, that little dog will gets lots of attention and affection :)

Thursday night was nephew Kenny's graduation from South Christian. He is a fine young man and we love him very much.

Ty's final baseball game of the year was on Wednesday. He made a terrific catch to end the game and cinch another big victory :) After the game, Ty headed to work while we enjoyed supper out with Steve, Lynn, and Tori.

Lynn

Tuesday was a fun day that started with coffee with Beckie followed by lunch with friend Sarah and her boys :)

Beckie

Sarah and Josh

Sam and me

Ben

This is a 'picture' of Amelia that was taken last February. And we thought she was sleeping.....

May you always have an eye for the beauty around you.
It often comes in the form of family and friends!

Fine Arts and Fine Folks

Tonight Tori had her piano recital and she did a wonderful job on her piece 'Beehive'. You could almost hear the swarm of bees as she played. She is a very talented musician! Way to go, Tori - we are very proud of you!


Listen for yourself.....

Today was Anna's last day of teaching for the school year and so it marks the final Tuesday that I will spend with Abby, Sophie, and Noah on a regular basis. Next year they'll be in school all day....how quickly they grow!

Celebrating all of our Tuesdays together....

Sophie, Noah, Abby

Sophie and Abby with new tops

Anna teaches a biology class for 8th graders through Hope College. Her students will enter high school with their biology requirement fulfilled. To celebrate their final day of class, Anna provided pizza, brownies, and other snacks. It was great to see her classroom and meet some of her students.


Monday night we hit our favorite spot in town for dinner with friends - love it every time!

Me, Bill, Shirley, Gary, Jan, Curt

Jacque, my 'dearest and best', is retiring from her position as Director of Ministries at our church. It's a position she's held since her graduation from RBC (now Kuyper College) in 2001. She has worked tirelessly as a volunteer since the late '60s and as a paid staff member for the last nine years. We celebrated her ministry with a wonderful farewell at church on Sunday morning.


It's Open House season and we're enjoying making the rounds, seeing friends, and all the marvelous food. This is a pic Jason and his fiance Amanda; Jason is a recent graduate of the University of Alaska - Anchorage.


Saturday was a very special day for Bill! Many of his fellow teachers planned a surprise afternoon of golf and then a burger fry for both Bill and his colleague Curt, who is also retiring. Bill is REALLY going to miss these friends when school starts without him in the fall.

Curt and Bill

Saturday morning was the last of the soccer games for the season. T-ball started tonight :)

Sophie took this picture a couple of weeks ago. It's of my car in Tom & Anna's driveway, from inside their living room.

May your car always be parked
where you can celebrate time with family and friends.

Simple Pleasures

Posting some pictures of the joys in our week....

The weather on Tuesday was beautiful and I spent lots of time at a nearby park with Abby, Sophie, and Noah :)

Ty had several baseball games this week. It's always great to watch him play!



Tori passed time at the games by playing with Anjali :)

Silly girls

Lynn - so pretty!

Deven had a conference track meet on Wednesday. He took first place in the 70 yard dash and 2nd in the 100 yard dash. Great job, Deven!


Had coffee with sweet Marcia on Thursday. Her baby is due next week and she's looking great!


And finally, some pictures of Amelia as we watched her play - technology is a marvelous thing!


Laura sent this picture today - silly girl :)

May you always have eyes to see
the joys in ordinary days.

The L Post (you'll find out why at the end)

Just some pictures taken in the last few days:

Thursday was the spring arts festival at Byron Center Christian middle school. Deven is in the 8th grade choir and I didn't embarrass him (this time) by going to the front of the stage for a picture. But I did find some of his artwork in the hallway....



We went to Holland on Friday evening to have dinner with our friends John & Jo. We stopped by to spend a bit of time with Abby, Sophie, and Noah before dinner. As you can tell from the pictures, the kids had a great time 'decorating' Grandpa :)

Sophie thought it was really funny :)

Fun kids!

Sophie made a special plate for me for Mothers' Day. It's got a beautiful Bible verse on it - can hardly believe she got all those words on the plate! The picture is of Sophie and me on the pontoon boat at the cottage :)



We share family with John and Jo and it was great to hear about their trip to visit our kids and granddaughter in CA. It's really nice for them that another son and his family live nearby and they can visit both families in one trip.

Another great evening with John & Jo.
This pic is by Holland's new outdoor fireplace - super!

Jo and her yummy dessert

Saturday was opening day at the cottage. The guys got all the outdoor work done, the dock and boats in, and all the picnic tables and chairs out. The rest of us worked indoors - we've had a problem with mold, which has been treated. But we all went home with bags full of bedding, sleeping bags, towels, and tablecloths - EVERY fabric item in the cottage needs to be washed! There must have been 15 bags crammed with everything from sleeping bags to dust rags.

Cat and Marva

Lidia

Kenny and Beckie

Trying to figure out why the dishwasher was leaking....

Saturday wasn't all work - we spent a great evening with friends at Silver Lake. Bill was the only one who caught a fish for our annual fish fry, so it needed to be supplemented with other fish and steaks. Dinner was delicious and the friendship is priceless.

Bill with three of his life-long friends

One of Mom B's friends from Brookcrest died on Thursday. Phyllis was an inspiration to us - always smiling in spite of 75 years in a body crippled by cerebral palsy. The funeral was this afternoon and, because it was less than a mile away, I walked her there. We stopped several times just to laugh because the sidewalk was so bumpy and Mom had a pretty wild ride :) It meant so much to Mom to be able to go and it was great for us to see her sing along - she knew every word to every song!

Tonight we chatted with Laura & Ben via Skype and we caught the kiss Amelia blew all the way from California!


This picture was taken at the Santa Monica pier when we were there over Spring break. It's just fun.... like most of the last few days have been for us :)

May you be blessed with
light-hearted moments,
lively children,
life-long friends,
and less laundry than what is stacked in my laundry room right now!