Winter Family Vacation!!!! Part 1

Where else would we spend some vacation time as a family other than the lovely sunny south!!!!!!  We have spent many winter weeks in Florida over the years but this year we rented a house from AirB&B and it's fantastic!!!!  We love it here!!!  The house is clean, new and has a beautiful kitchen.  Most Florida homes do not have good kitchen cabinets and accessories.  This house has both and I'm grateful!!!!

We decided to fly to Florida this time.  First time for everything right?  Last fall when Mike, Austin and I flew to Florida to visit Ritchie, we loved the easy flight!!!!  We got tickets as a family and we did not miss the driving all night system that we've done so many times in the past!!!!

Jeremiah joined us a few days later by also flying down.  Hadassah is very happy to have him here with us! :))))

The beach is a place that we love and become very familiar with while we vacation!  Siesta Key and Lido are the beaches we normally visit and we already have been at both locations numerous times.  But this year we are trying a few new places.  We took a morning trip to Venice in search of shark teeth the other morning.  That beach was nice too and loaded with sea shells.  We had to dig through the sand to find the shark teeth but we came back with a bunch!  Ashlyn found 54 just herself.  We headed back to Sarasota at lunch time.  Mike biked around town with the little ones while Hadassah and I went to Lido Beach in the afternoon.

We've been cooking most breakfasts here in the nice kitchen and then choosing a restaurant for dinner.  We love shrimp tacos and seafood!  PF Changs was one of our first eats and then the kids had leftovers the next night while Mike and I went out!!!!  We are spoiled with having older children able to watch the little ones for us!!!!  There is a Tiki Restaurant at Marinia Jack that we ate at with Matt and Lena and their boys.  It was a sandy area for the kids to have fun in while we tried to not let the sand hit our food!  The view was gorgeous at sunset!!!!

Yesterday was a fun day!  My parents are here in Florida too and they invited us along to Anna Marie Island to beach with them for the day!  Popes and Lena and the boys went too!  The water was gorgeous and all different colors of blues and greens!!!!  We said it reminded us of the water in Belize!!!  It was clear too!!!!!  Austin and Adrian went to the ocean and the waves were a bit rough.  The beach was different too from Siesta.  There were drop offs now and then.  Austin and Adrian were in the ocean and I was watching them closely!  Suddenly I saw that Austin was almost down to his shoulders and I went running to rescue him!  He was crying and panicing till I finally reached for him and got him out of the water.  Adrian was able to get out himself.  Other people from the beach noticed what was happening and asked if they should help.  I got him out of the water no problem and even though my heart was pounding so hard and Austin was crying, we are all safe and sound!!!!  THANK YOU JESUS!!!!  From then on out, if he wanted to go into the ocean, he needed to where his puddle jumper.

We all voted for Mexican food last night.  We looked up a fun place to eat and enjoyed lots of chips and salsa, guacamole, avacodo fries and tacos!!!!  It was a blast!!!!

The weather here has been perfect.  Today is overcast and cloudy and it gives us a chance to rest our sunkissed skin!!!!  I try so hard to not let sunburns happen but if you spend 5 plus hours on the beach in one day, it's bound to happen.  We are so blessed to have gorgeous, beach weather!!!!!!

19th Wedding Anniversary!!!!

I am the luckiest girl in the world to be married for 19 years to my best friend!!!!!

Mike and I just celebrated our nineteenth wedding anniversary!!!!  We filled the day with sweet memories!!!  We woke up beside each other and remembered back all those years of how madly in love we were and still are!!!  We were so excited for our wedding day!!!  It was such a great day for us!!!!  We are forever grateful to our parents for making it a fun, loving day!!!! 

Celebrating our 19th wedding anniversary was local and out for dinner.  We listened to our favorite old country songs together as we drove down the highway on our date.  Laughing together and quickly changing our restaurant destination because of time.  We dropped the younger kids off at my brothers house (thank you John and Mim!!!).  Meanwhile, Hadassah had volleyball practice and Matthew was at basketball practice.  Bonefish Grill was delicious and we were even given a small box of chocolates and told by one of the restaurant mangers to "celebrate this anniversary not just tonight but for the rest of the week!!!!"

It would have been fun to do some shopping or just stroll the mall together but we did have a church meeting that we decided to attend.  On our way back towards home, we laughed again at the music we listened too and just enjoyed each minute of being together!!!  Mike was to give a church financial report at the church meeting.  After nineteen years of marriage we were totally cool with attending a church meeting on our anniversary!  We were also totally cool that we didn't get each other an anniversary card!  :)  The meeting went well and we were soon off to pick up the little ones and meet the older kids back home!

Being married for nineteen years suddenly makes me feel old!  Or should I say older!  There seems to be such a gap between eighteen and nineteen.  We did smile when the restaurant manger commented that we don't look old enough for nineteen years of marriage!!!!  Well, thank you ma'am!!!!  We have Florida on our minds as we look forward to a family vacation coming up!  Mike and I will get some quality time together down there too!!!!  And there's talk of doing a "trip/vacation" on our twentieth anniversary!!!!!!!

Looking back over the years of our marriage, I can tell you that it's not all been easy!  We've experienced hurt and said things to each other that we had to apologize for.  We've experienced loss when we had a miscarriage between pregnancy one and three.  We had to pray and ask God for babies!!!  Waiting to be pregnant month after month is tough for couples!  We know!  God has blessed us with four beautiful children and we thank Him for them all the time!!!!  I remember so well when my doctor asked me how many babies we plan on having because we had to decide if Ashlyn would be delivered by C-section or natural birth.  I smiled and humbly said, "Well, so far God has planned our family!!!"  I love that fact now but at the moment it was tough!  Mike and I experienced grief when his dad passed away!!!!  We had to talk out our feelings and cry on each others shoulders!  We needed to be extra sensitive to each other!  There were many days when I was stressed by the children and when Mike had a long work day but every single day we would wrap each other in our arms, kiss and say "I love you!!!!"  Marriages are work!!!!  ALL MARRIAGES ARE WORK!!!!  God blessed our marriage so much and Satan knows it!  Satan would love if those grudges and pet peeves and annoyances would trip us up!!!!  It's a battle and warfare and we fight every day to love each other more!

Being married now for nineteen years does bring some wisdom and through experiences we do things differently than we did in those honeymoon years!!!  We've found that some of the things that worked back then aren't really the best anymore.  Mike and I are in love and we can feel it, we say it and we live it out to each other!!!!

Thank you Babe for marring me and for loving me!!!!  I love you so much!!!!!


How's this for an anniversary photo!?!?  :)))))

XOXO!!!!

Hadassah turns 18!!!

I have no idea how we could have an 18 year old daughter in the house already but we do!!!  And we are excited about it!!!  Hadassah is now into adulthood!  When I took her the other day for some mission trip vaccines, the nurse was telling her how today mom is signing and paying and then after turning eighteen, mom needs your permission to look at the medical records, etc..  Hadassah kind of flipped out and said that she's the women that gave birth to me and she's always going to have access to her records, etc..!!!!  Some days I'm so ready to pass on more responsibilities to her and then the next I want to still do it all for her.  To keep her under my wings.  But, that's not the wisest choice and so I'm learning to let her make more decisions.  Like, she needed an updated Tetanus shot but it wasn't a must.  I said to her, "You decide."  There will be many more times that I will be saying this to her!!!!  

We are excited to see what God has in store for Hadassah in her upcoming years!  Right now, she's a senior in high school.  She loves to clean as a job!  She loves to be with her boyfriend, Jeremiah!!!  Volleyball is her sport and she's so good at playing it!!!!  Hadassah loves the youth group!  We love when she chooses to be at home with us as a family!!!!!

Happy birthday Hadassah!!!!  You are beautiful!!!!  We love you so much!!!!!

Hadassah picked to eat dinner at PF Changs and then go to Sweet Frog for dessert.  PF Changs had a two hour wait so we went right next door to Harvest and loved it!!!!

I just love these kids with all my heart!!!!!

Hadassah has great friends!!!!

Her and Jess are such good friends and really have a great time playing on the same volleyball team!!!!

Jenna went with us for dinner the other night and she's been in and out of our house so much the past few months.  Jenna played on the school volleyball team with Hadassah and they to be together too!

After dinner, we went to Ulta for a birthday gift for Hadassah!!!!!

Then to Sweet Frog for dessert!!!!

 Jeremiah surprised Hadassah and took her to NY City for the day yesterday.  Payton and Rita went along and they had the time of their lives!!!!!  Hadassah has SO MUCH FUN!!!!!!

 What a beautiful girl!!!!!

Happy birthday, Hadassah!!!!  Always keep Jesus number one and shine for Him!!!!!!


XOXO

~ Mom

Just another dusting of snow.

We got some more snow and we were excited to notice the "snowflake" on my weather app!  Austin loves to check the weather because he likes the snow!!!!  Well, on Saturday we all woke up to flurries and later in the day, the kids went out for some snow fun!

Snow angels!!!!

Lots of glove full snow eating moments!

These two are just best of buds!!!!  They love to play!  They do great with entertaining each other!  Ashlyn is the one in charge - always!  She likes to lead and me the boss!  :)  Austin loves to follow actually!!!  He plays right along with it!!!  It's great!

 I snuck upstairs in the cold attic for this picture!!!!  They were twirling and laughing in the bitter cold tempts!

And this is me.  In my recliner, in the living, really having a "snow day" off on this cold Saturday!  Mike had a golf lesson in the morning but when he came home at lunch time, we settled down to be "lazy"!!!!  There are rarely any Saturdays where we literally do nothing but this is one day that we just relaxed.  At home.  In our own living room!  My mind was going in circles trying to decide on what I was actually going to accomplish because my DNA doesn't except "lazy days" too well.  I was thinking I should start another puzzle.  Or read the book I am borrowing from our pastor.  Or make more snowflakes out of paper.  Simple things ... winter things.  I decided to pick up the book and start reading.  I read and read and ended up reading about half of the book out loud to Mike.  I finished the book the next day and it was so good!!!!  It is a real challenge of how when God calls a calling on my life, that I follow through.  In the difficult times and the easy moments.  "Bruchko" is a missionary in South America and lives among Indians that have never heard of the gospel or of Jesus.  They had no written language until Bruce Olson went to live with them.  Bruce felt a calling to go find this certain Indian group and share the gospel with them.  It took almost his life to even get to the tribe through so much jungle and diseases and bare necessities!  Every other white man the tribe saw, they killed.  What would stop them from killing him?  Bruce didn't know all the details before heading out of this life changing life style but he did know God was calling him to do this task!  The book was so good and I've never read a half of a book out loud to my husband before.  Mike laid on the couch as I read chapter after chapter!  It was a great lazy afternoon!!!!

On Sunday, Mike and Matthew went to visit Kordell Beiler in a hospital in NJ.  Kordell had back surgery and Matthew wanted to visit him and take him a pet fish.  The kids and I skipped Sunday School but went for the message.  That evening, all the Dienner married cousins were invited to a early Valentine's Dinner at Uncle Alvins!!!!  It was so fun with great food, with all the Aunts and Uncles serving us, with Don and Doris speaking about how to keep our marriages lit and on fire!!!  The whole evening was on marriage and it was great!!!  Meanwhile, the Kansas City Chiefs won the football game against the Titans!!!  Now we are off to playing in the Super Bowl!!!!!!

There were games and gifts!!!  Many, many thanks to you all Aunts and Uncles for this fun night!!!!

It's now Monday and I have extra kids in the house.  No school because of Martin Luther King JR Day and Adrian and Bryce are here.  I have laundry going and because the sun is beaming in the house windows, I'm thinking about Spring!  I sat down to write down the seeds that I want to plant in the spring!  I love to garden and spring just can't come fast enough for me!

I was also looking through Pinterest at some garden posts and then came across these cute foods!  I really should do this for the kids!  They would get a big kick out of it!

I ended up playing around in the kitchen.  I whipped up another batch of these yummy Granola Bars!  I got the recipe from my Aunt Linda years ago and they are super easy to make!

Melt 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup oil, 1/4 cup honey, 3/4 cup peanut butter and 1 bag of marshmallows in the microwave.  Then stir in 4 1/2 cups rice krispies, 2 cup quick oats, 1 pack of crushed graham crackers, 1/2 cup chocolate chips.  Stir it all together and dump it in a greased 9x13 pan.  Try not to flatten it when spreading it in the pan because it looks nicer not pack down.  That's it!!!  Cut into bars and enjoy!

I also made a batch of fiber balls for my hubby!!!!  He loves these in the morning with his coffee as he drives off to work.

I've not mentioned anything about my January Purging but it's happening!  Last year I did the Declutter Challenge and got rid of so many things that we didn't use or need anymore.  This January, I'm just trying to clean out again and organize!  I did the pantry the other day.  It's amazing how much space you can free up just by refilling the cereal containers or throwing out the extra large egg cartons that we never use!

I do have a walk in pantry and I love that!!!!  I have plenty of room to be organized or to not be organized.  Of course, my pick is to be tidy and cleaned up!  So, this looks a lot better!!!!

 All the kitchen cabinets got a going through too!  I took a load of unwanted items over to Fashion Cents last week and now need to make a stop at the donation center yet for the rest of my unwanted items!

January is flying right by and last night we talked about what we should/want to do for our upcoming wedding anniversary!!!!  Hadassah also has a birthday coming up and she gets to pick a place to go out and eat as a family!

Stay warm!  I'm pretty much inside this whole month so far and staying cozy here at home is my favorite place to be right now!!!  I find myself thinking often of just much is going to change from this winter to the next winter.  Next year, Austin will be in school a few days a week and Hadassah will be out of school.  I'm praying about a job.  Or do I keep myself busy right here at home?  I'm not sure what I want to do or where I would like to work if I do get a job!  I feel like there are good opportunities out there and only time and prayer will tell me where to go!

Happy Tuesday friends!!!!  (Tuesday's are one of my favorite days!  The laundry was all completed yesterday and I wash every other day.  It's gadget day for the children and I usually like to blog while Austin is doing a gadget for awhile.  It's the day that I usually have an open calendar day!  I love Tuesdays!!!!)