It's been a big week

On Monday, Rebecca turned seven. It is so hard to believe she was just five months old when we moved from Georgia to Minnesota. Rebecca tries really hard to keep up with her big brother, Owen, who is almost 11. She is packed full of energy, which we are continually working on focusing and directing. For her special day, she picked out a hearty brunch of eggs from our own hens (sunnyside up, please), sausage (next year from our own pig, Lord willing :*)), waffles and applejuice. She enjoyed some helium balloons and before we had 'tea' for supper, we all changed into the clothes we wore to Jarod's and Anna's wedding. It was fun to dress up and we had quite the tea party with chicken salad tea sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches and cheese tea sandwiches. We also enjoyed fruit--cameo apple slices, strawberries, frosted grapes-- and sweets--Victorian Sponge Cake, cherry scones and muffin breads. All was accompanied by Earl Grey tea and Grandpa John and Grandma Nan (local adopted grandparents) came by with special birthday wishes. (Hopefully film, er-r, photos, will follow in the relatively near future.)

Wednesday was Valentines' day. In the morning, Vern made the run to the dairy (we take turns with two other families and this was our week to pick up wonderful, fresh milk). In the afternoon most of the children and I took James to see his audiologist. He was fit for new hearing aid molds and we'll return to get those and do a hearing test on or around March 2nd. While we were gone, the Valentine fairy (aka Grandpa John) stopped by with chocolates for all the children. They all made short work of them--even James, with a little bit of help!

During all this time, we were waiting for some level of confidence about the contract our buyers have on their house. It seems all the other realtors were content to just let things take their course with the other houses, risking delays, or worse, with closings. Since we have so much at risk here (with animals and furniture and other things to get rid of, since we are planning to leave the area), we weren't comfortable with that approach. Thankfully, our realtor, Jeanne wasn't either. She chased down all the paperwork and made sure that, to the degree that one can at this point in the process, things stand a good chance of moving along smoothly. On Thursday, Jeanne and we got enough information to have a comfort level that allows us to proceed with the sale of our house and remove our house from the market.

So, now what? Now we pack and sort and get ready to move to Georgia. Why Georgia? Because there is a group of folks there and a church there that we need to be a part of. Because the area there is wide open to small family farmers, which we aspire to be. Because some of us (no names mentioned here :*), but it's not me!) have bones that are particularly susceptible to cold northern MN winters and are concerned about the limiting effects of such winters as said individual(s) age... ;*). It'll also be kinda handy that Nona and Poppa, my folks, live about four hours north of where we plan to light and they are looking forward to having a turn at having the grandchildren closer.

This is not to say there aren't precious folks in Minnesota that we will miss very much. And we are hopeful that this blog and e-mail will allow us to keep in touch.

Stephanie