The sky is bright blue this morning, the air is crisp and cool, and the sun is shining brightly.  The whole outdoors is calling me…I want to walk around in the wet grass, I want to check on my gardens and work in them.  This is an exciting time of year, when the first spring seeds are up and looking so promising, when the grass is so green, and the leaves on the trees are, too.  Flowers are in bloom, the birds are singing their happy spring songs.

Davy-do is gone off to school for the morning, Seth woke up at 6:30 and is already back to sleep for a nap.  He’s behind me on my bed, looking so precious that I don’t know which would be better…to watch him sleeping or to wake him up so I can talk to him and kiss his cool cheeks.

We had, not a relaxing weekend, but a busy-happy-crazy-fun-traveling-family weekend.  I spent all day Friday getting us ready to go, and Saturday morning we were driving away from our house at 5 in the morning!  We went to visit my parents and we arrived at their house, after a beautiful morning of travel, at 8:45 am! 

Mom and I have been looking forward to going to a plant sale together, so as soon as we got to my parent’s house and everyone said their hellos and got hugged, the two of us and Seth got right back in the car to go to the plant sale.

My mom had heard about a lady who is a master gardener, and was personal friends with Tasha Tudor.  This lady has a beautiful back yard full of flower gardens.  Mom and I found her house easily and spent some time walking around, admiring the flowers and plants.  There were many other people there, too, but because this was taking place at her house, it seemed more like a gathering of friends than an average trip to Home Depot, if you know what I mean.  People were greeting each other and choosing plants to take home.  If we saw something we liked that wasn’t in a pot, she would hand a shovel to someone and have them dig it up.  She had a pleasant English accent, because she grew up there.  It was  fun experience to meet her, and to hear her talk about her friendship with someone my mom and I both admire, Tasha Tudor, and listen to her talk about their shared love for primroses.  Mom and I came away with eight new plants, and later on we divided those up between us.  Here is a picture of one of Mom’s new plants, “hens and chicks”:

The pictures I shared in the beginning of this post are from my parent’s house.  We spent most of the time outside.  Mom and I took Ethan and Grace for a walk in the late afternoon, down into the woods.  It was such a pretty time of day, when pockets of the woods were getting dark, and yet the sun was shining still.  Such beauty all around us.

My Mom and Dad live on land that used to belong to my Mom’s parents.  Grandma has passed away and Grandpa is in a nursing home.  The farm has been sold but the family still owns some of the land.  My Aunt Carol and Uncle Brian live up the road on some of it, too.  Every spring since my Grandma died, my mom and her sisters have kept watch for some special wildflowers that Grandma loved.  They all know where to find Lady Slippers, and everyone of us who knows of Grandma’s delight in them think of her whenever we see one.  They are somewhat rare, and the only ones we’ve seen have been up the road, in the woods.  When mom and I were out walking, she sighed and told me how she wished she could find them growing on her land, too.

I said, “Well, I grew up in these woods and I can tell you I’ve never seen a lady slipper down here.”  She sighed and agreed that it was probably unlikely that we would see one.

So, we kept walking and talking.  On our way back to the house Grace and Ethan had run ahead of us.  It was just Mom and I together, enjoying the last bit of our walk.

All of a sudden my mom gasped and started to cry.

She had almost stepped right on top of a Lady Slipper, one single flower growing alone between two trees in the woods.

We both felt that it was a gift from God, and when we got back to the house, we found Dad sitting on the porch with baby Seth.  We told him the story and he also immediately said it was from God.  He quoted a line from one of my favorite hymns:

“Hast thou not seen,
how all thy desires have been
 granted in what He ordaineth?”
~Joachim Neander, in “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”

There is no coincidence in the life of a believer.  When things like this happen, we know they came right from a loving Father’s hand.

It was such a special touch from God, and a wonderful moment for us to store up in our minds, and remember that He cares and delights in giving good gifts, even something as small as a wild flower growing in the woods, small, yet important, and so very encouraging to a family that misses Grandma.

Rich and I took the children to a hotel to sleep for that night, and Sunday morning was spent sleeping in and letting the children swim in the indoor pool at the hotel.  We also went to the bookstore and enjoyed sitting there and reading together as a family.  We all walked out with at least one new book.  (I got four, one of which is linked at the end of my post today, because I’m enjoying it so ).

Other than the plant sale, the other main purpose of our visit home was to go to a family party in honor of my brother, Isaac, who just graduated from college a few weeks ago.  Isaac is the youngest of the family.  Here is a picture I took of him this weekend, holding Seth.  The children all love Isaac, he is one of those types that attracts children, and during family times, he usually has one or more following him around all over the place.  And he doesn’t mind it one bit!  I’ve never heard him say a sharp word to any of them, or get impatient.

It was nice to take our new baby Seth, and see him passed around to aunts and uncles.  I got to meet my cousins’ new babies, too.  We ate outdoors; hamburgers and hotdogs and salads.  It was the typical family gathering with people buzzing around, visiting, talking, laughing, walking around the gardens, getting food ready, with the young ones running around getting muddy and having a great time with each other.

Here is Seth with his great aunt Mary~

and with his great aunt Carol~

And one of the very best highlights of the weekend was getting to meet a very special baby boy.  My brother Nathan and his wife just had a baby on May 21.  His name is Gregory, after our Dad.

He weighed 9 pounds, 6 ounces! 

Melissa and I will enjoy watching our boys grow up together.

Yes, it was a busy weekend but very much worth it!  I enjoyed seeing all the ones I love and spending the extra time with my husband and our children.  Seth was a good little traveler, too.  I really didn’t even think about the fact that it was his first trip away from home, because he did so well. 

This morning I switched the page of my calendar.  I wish you all a very happy FIRST DAY OF JUNE!

Love, Shanda