May has been beautiful in East Tennessee! I love the warmer weather and we’ve celebrated the end of the school year with lots of activities.  Foster had his final Cub Scout pack meeting and received more beads and his Tiger Cub badge.  He is disappointed that they will take a break for the summer. He’s fallen in love with Scouts already.  He knows one boy who may not participate next year and he said “how can he quit? Is that allowed? I am going to go all the way and be an Eagle Scout!” This year was hard on his daddy because he wasn’t able to participate in the meetings and activities with Foster.  The pack meetings were on Chris’s school nights and the den meetings while he was working.  Chris will be more available for Scouts from now on! And everything else, too, because he has officially graduated!

Foster and Katie went with us and sat through a VERY long ceremony at UT.  We felt like it was important for them to see this milestone in their daddy’s life.  He will have another graduation banquet for the 5 year electrician program he has just finished! It feels like it took forever and just a few minutes all at the same time.  I remember the time we were discussing and praying, when Foster was 2 yrs. old and Katie just a newborn, whether he should change jobs and make this 5 year commitment.  In 5 years, we have moved 3 times and added 2 more children, Chris deployed to Iraq in 2007, lost his mom in 2009 and had a 28 day stay in the hospital in 2010.  God has provided every need we have had and has been so faithful to keep Chris safe in a very dangerous trade. One regret I have is that Chris’s mom didn’t get to see him graduate.  His dad and sister were there and were very proud of him as well.

This past week Katie had her end-of-the-year ceremony with American Heritage Girls.  She moved to the next level and we are so excited to get busy working on her badges!

These were part of the girls that advanced to the next level.  I am thankful for AHG and it’s focus on God, family and service.

And last night we celebrated Chris’s birthday with a cookout here at home.  The kids enjoyed his sparkly trick candles that he had trouble blowing out! Someone made the comment that this time last year he would have had a hard time getting the candles blown out at all.  And I was reminded of just a short year ago when I didn’t know if this wonderful man would make it through pneomonia and an emergency chest tube.  I am so thankful that God healed him completely!

So we are moving on, looking forward to the adventures of summer and the next season of life that God is bringing us into, knowing that whether it is successful or devastating, boring or exciting He has every second planned for us!

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Jeremiah 29:11