Joel's Journey: garden fresh berries !!!!!!!

Monday, May 10, 2010

garden fresh berries !!!!!!!

**** Bethany updated her blog.....finally!!!! and
new picture of Lilian/ Mavie on the side, she's 5 months now, she is soooooo cute!!!!!!

There is nothing like garden fresh veggies but garden fresh strawberries are a pure delight!!!!! My husband has known all our married days that I love strawberries, so two years ago he set to work on building raised beds for strawberries and this year is the prime year for a big harvest! We have had several bowls this size so far. They were brought in, washed and devoured! I did manage to save the guys a cereal bowl full and Mercy was trying to "sneek" some! I think Terry is going to have to keep expanding the strawberry beds because there are more people that like them besides me now! When I see fresh fruit and vegetables like this, grown on ground that is cursed, can you imagine the beauty and taste of fruit grown upon the New Earth as it speaks in Revelation!!!! I can not wait to eat some strawberries with Joel under the Tree of Life one day!

Goodness, to re-cap the last few days makes me tired! On Friday, Terry, Bethany, Anna, Micah and Andrew headed to Dewey Oklahoma about 3 hours away to the Nubian/Dairy show. Caleb and Daniel worked and were at one job site and Elijah and a hired friend were at another job site! Lotsa work and we are soo grateful! Now with the goat show, that started up Sat. morn, Bethany had an incredible day, a day for rewards for her all her labors, she had several first, seconds and thirds but the great win of the day was Grand Champion with one of her Nubian bucks and also a Reserved Grand with another buck! Anna did a great job with her picture taking endeavor. The goat crew did not get back home until Sunday morning at 3 am!!!!! Then some of the guys on Saturday night played basketball and then went to check trout lines on the river and they did get in until 2 am, so it was hard for me to go to sleep with so many gone and not getting in so late. Thankfully the Lord allowed everyone to arrive safely! Thank you for praying if you did for safety.

Mother's Day was a blessing, we went out to eat in the late afternoon. Nice not to cook and clean up!!! So blessed by each child!

Suppose to be serious weather here this evening. Last evening as we were coming back from eating we saw 4 ABC weather channel news vehicles from New York, so I guess it is serious! They were headed North, so don't know if they were staking out more towards Kansas or what, but we cleaned the storm shelter out and have it prepared if needed. I just try to make sure we get hard drives with pictures, Anna gets her camera (and her boots) LOL!, Bethany gets inside puppies!

Dave and Kate are coming for dinner tonight! Italian is on the menu with Garden Spinach salad and Anna is in charge of dessert! Thanks for wishing Kate a HB! They are working so hard on their new house. If you would like to keep up them here's their blog. Be prepared for lots of adventure!!!!!!!!!

I have a surprise post in store for tomorrow with some exciting information! I have to get all of you wondering!!!! (no baby though)

1 comment:

Danielle said...: :) :) :)

....those berries look GREAT! :)

Love ya guys!; May 11, 2010 at 1:05 PM

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Joel's Story

Joel, our 11th of 13 and a twin of Josiah, at age 3 was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer, on December 6th, 2006. Joel had three perfect years of health and he and Josiah celebrated their 3rd birthday Sept. 13th, 2006. The first of Oct. Joel started having unexplained fevers for a few days and would return to active play. After the fourth round of fevers we took him to our family Dr. which they said his iron was low, so we treated that for a few weeks and took him back only to have his hemo. showing lower than before. We were referred to a hematologists and saw him a few weeks with blood checks twice a week. At a visit on Dec. 4th we showed the Dr. the bumps, (which were tumors but we did not know at the time) on Joel's head and he was very concerned and we were told we needed to admit him immediately and start extensive tests the following day. Joel went through rigorous testing and then the dreaded results were given. Joel was at a stage IV the most extensive stage, but we were hopeful that the Lord would use the means of Chemotherapy treatments to restore Joel's body. Joel endured 8 1/2 days in the hospital, came home for Christmas, and returned for his second round of chemo Jan. 3, 2007. Joel had a seizure that night after midnight and went into a coma due to a tumor bleeding in his head area and causing his brain to swell. After tests the following days, the Dr. declared Joel "brain dead" and took us to court to force us to take Joel off life support, as we did not agree with the medical field's definition of death. Our family sought to stand with the scripture, "life is in the blood,"and until Joel's heart quit beating naturally, he was living. We were making arrangements to bring him home and on January 23, 2007 his little heart stopped beating and he went to be with the Lord Jesus in heaven. Our lives are changed forever. God is faithful in the midst of this trial and we look with great hope to be with him someday.