ArtPrize 2017

Each year we enjoy going to see what our city has in store for us at ArtPrize.  Hundreds of artists compete for having the best art piece in town, and we get the privilege of seeing them for free.  We had pretty nice weather in October so we were able to go and explore.  This was just one thing we did in October but since there are so many pictures we made it into its own post.  Look for a post with the rest of what we did in October coming soon.

Grand Rapids is a very beautiful city, the Grand River is quite majestic at this time of year.

I enjoyed this eagle which was made of metal and around the head were forks, spoons, and knives.

This was one of the grand prize winners this year, a portrait of Abraham Lincoln made entirely of pennies. 

One of my favorite pieces was this underwater scene made out of household items.

There were many amazing paintings as well like this photorealistic one of these horses.  It was one of three in a set.

This smokey looking painting was done to honor those that lost their lives on 9/11.

I almost thought that this said "Let us pray for peace," and I was excited, yeah!  Looking closer I saw that it actually says "play," but I still think it would be better saying "pray."  It is so true that in these trying times that we need to be praying for peace and for Jesus to work!

This is an intricate carved wood sculpture...

These guys were made entirely of cardboard...

And these awesome horses out of metal wire.

Anybody recognize this?  I sure got excited when I saw it!

This is made to look like oil floating on the water of the Grand River.

One last picture taken of a building reflecting in another's glass.  Depending on the angle you are at you can see different buildings reflecting.  

That's about it for ArtPrize this year, next year maybe we'll have an entry from our arts camp!

September 2017

In September we enjoyed some unseasonably warm weather, and we tried to make the most of it.  We enjoyed spending lots of time outdoors with family and friends.

We went up to my sister's cottage and enjoyed some wading, since the water is so shallow.  R enjoyed playing in the water, and had some fun floating in an inner-tube until a big wave came and splashed her in the face.  

On Labor Day we went to the beach for the annual Jasperse family pancake cookout.  It was another perfect kite flying day.  I taught Sam how to fly my new parafoil kite, it is a real blast to fly.  I also was able to fly my new kite train, I took 6 cheap kites and made the strings to tie them together so they can fly in a train.  The wind was pretty strong so they pulled a lot.  Later I took them apart so that each of our friend's kids could fly one.  It was a lot of fun!

I traveled to North Carolina again for the graduation of my year long course that I have been taking there.  A big group from our church took this course to learn how to minister healing and deliverance in Jesus' name.  We enjoyed seeing all of the other people from around the country that also took the course, and we got to present our projects to the whole group.  This is an exciting ministry and we are thankful that we have been able to pray with people often and see them experience freedom.

I always have loved the mountains!  We stayed in a mountain chalet with this view!

R continued to grow and thrive, her personality continued to come out more and more.  She enjoyed playing with other children whenever she had the chance.

She loved going on walks to the park during the day with Rebecca and seeing the geese that were there.  She also enjoyed picking apples off of our tree and biting them.

At the end if the month we decided to take an impromptu trip to Beaver Island for our 14th anniversary.  We left early Friday morning and took the ferry over.  It was really windy and rough and I think that R was the only one of us that wasn't feeling a little queasy.  

This was our first time to Beaver Island and we enjoyed it very much.  It is a very beautiful place and because we went so late in the season it was very quiet too.

We stayed at an apartment we found on AirBNB, it was very close to the ferry, right in the main town.

The owner was great, he let us borrow his car so that we could drive around and see some sights that we wouldn't have been able to on foot.  We saw lots of deer everywhere we went.

We got to explore this old lighthouse...

We saw lots of beautiful scenery...

And R was very fascinated by the deer head on the wall at the restaurant we ate dinner at.

We were able to catch a beautiful sunset...

Visit the other lighthouse on the island...

And take a nice walk along the beach, spotting some parts of an old shipwreck along the way.

All of this was in one day!  While we were there we decided we would like to stay a little longer than we would have been able to if we had taken the ferry back, so we booked a flight on a small plane in the afternoon.

This was our first time flying in such a small airplane, it was a 6 seater!  It was really fun, definitely one of the highlights of the trip.  Plus it kept our streak alive of flying at least once a year for the past 10 years.

R really enjoyed it too, she wasn't afraid at all, it figures with how adventurous she is.  She is such a great fit in our family!

At church it was a busy month too as we launched Children's Worship for our older children after being off for the summer.  Our youth group met for most of the summer so there wasn't much of a launch there but we started doing lessons again that focused on teaching some basic ways to pray.  It was a great month as we saw lots of fruit from the ministry that happened over the summer months.  

September was a nice and memorable month, we are thankful to God for the many ways he blessed us and took care of us.  We are thankful too for all of you that prayed for us and encouraged us as we continued to navigate through the uncertainties of the foster care process.  We saw God bringing fruit there as his plan seemed to be coming together, something we saw even more of in October.  That post will be coming soon!

Summer Recap 2017

We hope to someday get to the point of being caught up on this blog, so that we can post things closer to when they happen.  I think that would be better than trying to play catch up all the time.  This post is an attempt to get us there, since we only wrote a couple ministry updates during the summer, this is a recap of what else we did over the summer months.

Of course our little one is growing so fast, she started crawling in the early summer and she hasn't looked back since.  Once she was able to crawl her next goal was to pull herself up on the closest piece of furniture, next was achieving the balance she needed to walk along the furniture.  

Amidst the busyness of the summer we were still able to fit in many fun things to do.  We went to the zoo and played with the penguins.

We went to the Asian festival where R loved all of the action, especially the break dancing music!

We joyfully welcomed our new nieces Anna and Clara into the world.

We were reminded just how fast time flies when we remembered that R was that small once but not any more!

We took a week off to go on vacation in the Manistee National Forest.  We stayed in a little cottage on a small lake.  We enjoyed the quiet and being away from the hustle and bustle of the city.  

We also enjoyed mostly sunny and beautiful weather while we were on our vacation.

While we spent lots of time relaxing at the cottage we did go on some excursions.  We went to Manistee and had a nice time on the beach.  R hasn't been too sure about sand but she seemed to tolerate it after a while.

We went on several hikes through the forest, this was one of R's favorite parts.  She had a seat in my hiking backpack, and she loved every minute.  She surprised us by roaring loudly for quite a while after we started, we think she was calling the bears!  We did actually see one at a very far distance, I was hoping to get close enough to take a picture but it was gone before we got to the spot.

We saw lots of deer, and many of them weren't too bashful.

We enjoyed some beautiful sunsets as well.  This was such a blessing of a vacation!

We also hung out with family and friends whenever we could.  I went kayaking with my dad while Rebecca and R stayed with step mom Julie.

We saw my mom for her birthday along with my step dad Herb, we enjoyed some nice weather in our shaded back yard.

We celebrated Rebecca's Dad's birthday at a restaurant where R enjoyed people watching and getting lots of attention from everyone. 

We went sailing for a day with our friends John and Karen.  We were able to enjoy more beautiful weather and a fun cookout on the water.

R loves to play with other children which is so great!

We also enjoyed a bumper crop in our garden this year, with some of the biggest heads of broccoli we've ever grown, massive tomato plants that produced dozens of pounds of tomatoes, and beans that kept on producing.

We made batch upon batch of tomato soup, paste, and sauce, so we have enough for the year.  We will miss the fresh tomatoes though, there's nothing like a BLT with fresh tomatoes from the garden!

This was a summer full fun, lots of ministry opportunities and many ups and downs of the foster care process.  We are grateful for how we saw God working and for all of the prayers and encouragement that came our way.  Thank you for reading and see you next time!