Hello! I have done a horrible job of blogging the last year or so. I miss it but it seems hard to come back when I feel so "far behind" in blogging. But here comes a random post or two and maybe I'll actually post on here more often again.
The picture above is my family and I at Christmas time. It was such a blessing to be together.
The 3 foster kids that I had for 4.5 months left at the end of November. I still keep in touch with them from time to time but not often.
I have had a couple of sets of kids for quick emergency placement since. One set of kids were sick and little and we got lots of cuddling in.
My boys both got new apartments. Jonathan in St. Paul and Aaron in Duluth. Megan and I went and helped Jonathan decorate his. I wish they lived closer but am happy with the lives they are living.
I started dating a guy from Wisconsin. His name is Shawn. He loves the Lord and we have a lot of fun together. I have done a lot of studying on divorce and remarriage. I could share my study on it sometime if anyone is interested.
Megan was in Italy for 3 months as a nanny (and I got to visit her there - I will hopefully do a post about that soon). She is home again now. We have done a bit of traveling around MN since she came back. In this picture we were skating with Jonathan and my sister and family in the cities.
I still love being involved at church. The above picture shows a scene from the play that I got to help with in February.
My Sunday school class is going through the book of Revelation and we are having lots of fun with it.
We tapped maple trees at my parents again this year. It hasn't been a very good year for it however. But it is always fun to do.
We boiled down some of the sap over a fire here at our place.
This Spring has brought some good snowfalls. Here are Mara and boys out here at our place.
Ewan on the dock.
Megan, Gracie and I went to Winona, MN so Megan could check out the University there. Lord willing she will be going there this fall.
Luke and Bea are building a house on my parents property. I have enjoyed going out on quite a few Saturdays to help. Peter is pretty much always there too so I enjoy my Saturdays with my brothers. This Saturday however I stayed home to be a nurse to Megan who has chicken pox! I thought I had made it through raising children without that but I guess not. She is pretty miserable - poor girl!
This was my driveway on Wednesday. We had another gorgeous snowfall! It has been melting ever since but is not all gone yet.
I hope you all are doing well! May you have a blessed Spring!
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22 & 23
2023 was a good year. Not one that didn't have any challenges or trials but one where we saw God at work over and over again. A year filled with God's Grace - gifts stacked one upon another. God's faithfulness showing up over and over again as we breathe each day, as we have more than enough to eat, as we get to spend time with the many beautiful people in our lives. I just get overwhelmed thinking about how good God has been to us!
Here are some highlights from 2023
In February Megan and I were able to take a quick road trip to Ankeny/DesMoines, Iowa and spend a weekend with our friends James and Jessica (as well as getting to see other friends in the area). They took us on a fun tour of DesMoines and we were blessed by our time of fellowship.
We had a lot of snow last winter which is a far different story than this winter where at this point we don't even have a complete covering of the ground. We all enjoyed the snow but Aaron definitely got the most skiing in. Last winter he even tried some back country skiing on some fun slopes around here. I had a lot of fun joining him one day and got some great exercise when we decided to cut through the woods to hike back to the car (rather than following a trail) wearing our heavy ski boots.
Our church hosted a Retreat in March and a bunch of the kids put on a play for it. I got the ball rolling to have a play but was so incredibly blessed by the many that helped out to make it successful. Mara did a great job of totally re-writing a story and making it into a very nice script, others helped with directing and props and the kids worked really hard to do a great job at acting. The Retreat over all was a blessing and a great time of fellowship.
April found our family going to Ireland to visit some missionaries there and do some exploring. It was a wonderful trip that we will long remember.
The gift of getting to see some more wonders of God's creation, to spend time together as family, to meet more of God's people clear across the ocean, to learn some history in truly fun and exciting ways was just incredible.
Jonathan filmed a documentary about the Tuttle family going to Ireland while we were there.
The gift of being the Mom in this family of mine is such a blessing. I am so grateful for each one of them and that they desire to serve Jesus Christ.
In May (I am pretty sure) Jonathan moved down to the Twin Cities to try out new things. My nephew Harrison had bought a house and is renting out bedrooms to some other boys from church. Jonathan went to be part of that household. He has enjoyed getting involved at the Woodbury Church of Christ and meeting new people down there. He went down as an assistant manager at Caribou and it looks like he is about to become a general manager. He has been getting back into doing more filming again and He and Thomas work together on a Podcast called "Salt of the Earth".
In June our family was pretty excited to welcome Ewan Peregrine Drake. He is a delightful addition to our family. After 3 or so somewhat challenging months of colic he has grown into a quite happy little boy. Mara and Thomas have their hands full with two very busy little boys but they are doing a great job with them. They are also very active in church, hosting and leading the youth group among other things. Thomas has started preaching fairly often and is part of a group that is being mentored to be elders some day. Mara raised a big garden. Malcolm is a very articulate 2 year old who keeps us laughing much of the time. Thomas was offered a job as a teacher in Cass Lake, MN this fall. He is teaching STEM to 5-7th graders.
In June Aaron left to spend much of the summer (9 weeks, I think) at Flaming Pines Camp. That is a nearly 2 hour drive away, North East of here. It is a Bible camp. Aaron was a camp councilor and that was a good learning and growing experience for him which I think ,for the most part, he enjoyed a lot. He also got pretty well acquainted with another councilor up there named Harper which has caused him to talk on the phone a lot more than he used to and take extra trips this fall.
When Aaron wasn't at camp he worked construction, as an Arborist (I think his favorite job) and now working with machines at the same place his uncle Luke works. He is happy to have a steady inside job this winter but looks forward to working with trees with Andrew (a friend from church) again this next summer. Aaron also continues to learn a lot about Car Mechanics as the older cars/trucks that he likes to get always seem to need work. I think he has learned a ton through the process so that is a blessing. We are incredibly grateful for his good friend Sam Wolkoff who has worked with Aaron on his vehicles hours upon end.
Megan also spent several weeks at camp either as a worker or a camper.
All of us except Aaron (who was up at camp) headed out to Colorado at the end of July along with other youth from church and attended the Nationwide Youth Round-up. My sisters, Martha and Anna also went and I enjoyed getting to spend time with them. We also camped with a group from Plainview, MN. We had fun spending time with friends, listening to good Bible teaching and worshipping with a couple thousand others on the mountainside.
With both my kids at camp much of the summer I thought I might get lonely but I ended up keeping my house pretty busy without them. We were pretty booked with AirBnB guests this summer and then when SuSan's (a special needs lady from church) apartment building got condemned she lived with me for a month and a half. My mother-in-law also sold her house across the road so that she could move near her youngest son and so she stayed at my house for a few weeks too and my brother-in-law was here for a week as well. I wasn't lonely and I am very grateful. There were some pretty good memories made during those times.
The kids all got to do some fun traveling this summer too. Their dad took each of them on a big trip. Megan went with him to Italy, Aaron to Alaska, Jonathan to Iceland and Mara and Ewan went with him to Maine and other states on the East coast. It is pretty fun that they were able to experience those things.
In late August my Sister-in-law, Holly went to be with Jesus after around a year of battling cancer. We grieve our loss but are so grateful that she doesn't have to be in pain any more. Peter and Holly (and their daughter Jaten) traveled all over the country working on log homes. Peter had last been working in Sisters, OR but they had gone to Boise, ID to try out a new treatment. Holly died while they were there. It was a blessing that their oldest son, Nic, and Holly's parents were able to be with them for the last couple of months. After Holly died Peter and Jaten decided that they would come back to Bemidji to be by family. My brother-in-law, Travis and I both flew out to be with them and to help Peter drive his two big rigs back. It was a blessing for me to get to spend that time with all of them.
Megan started her senior year of highschool (homeschool) and her Sophomore year of college this fall thanks to a program Minnesota has where Juniors and Seniors can go to college for free. Megan is wanting to graduate with her associates this spring so she took 17 credits this fall and has a lot for the semester coming up as well. She works really hard at her schoolwork and her grades show that. She took a public speaking class this last semester so we had a couple of parties at our house so that she could have an audience to give her speech to. For one of them we had a multi-course dinner party and asked everybody to dress elegantly. It has been some fun times. She also took a film appreciation class so we had a big film showing party as well. Good thing I like having company. It has been fun for Megan that not only did her cousin Jaten move back to Bemidji but her cousin Beatrice also moved to town. Megan has really been enjoying getting to hang out with cousins and friends.
Mid September found us as it usually does up North at Jackpine Retreat. Our whole family (except Nic who lives in California) was there.
In October my Uncle John and Aunt Donna came to visit. All of our family was able to get together to spend time with them. It can get pretty crowded and noisy when we are all together but it is pretty fun too. I thank God over and over again for Godly parents and all of my siblings, their spouses, and all the grandkids who love and serve the Lord.
Our lives were enriched this fall by this group of kids (plus a couple more that aren't pictured) that came from various countries to go to school for a semester at the University here. They went camping with us in September, many came to our place for Thanksgiving and we enjoyed other times with them as well. I would love to travel the world but really what is most interesting about the world is the beautiful people in it. I really loved getting to know these kids a little bit and learn about their countries and cultures. And if I get to travel the world more they said I am always welcome to visit.
Some others that have added beauty our lives this year....
In the fall of 2022 I started hosting monthly neighborhood potlucks. That has now been going on for over a year. I have loved getting to know my neighbors better. Of course not everyone from the neighborhood comes each month but there is a lovely group that pretty much does and then others come from time to time.
I am still working at Netzer's floral and am blessed by the fun environment with my boss and co-workers there. I also teach 20 plus music students a week, they can sometimes challenge me but they also bless me and I am so thankful for them. I was grateful for another good year of doing wedding flowers with Abbi's Bridal Design.
On Sunday evenings I lead a Ladies Bible study at a friends house in town. I love the time we get to dig into God's word together. We come from a lot of different religious backgrounds so the discussions can be really fun.
We are incredibly blessed by our church family at the Bemidji Church of Christ as well. I am so grateful that I don't have to try to do life alone or even with just my family. Having a group of believers that truly care about me and encourage me in my walk with Jesus is so wonderful. There are several women in the congregation that I meet with outside of our regular church time to study with and/or pray with and that has truly been life changing for me and my walk with Jesus.
In December we always like to go on a walk to gather greenery to decorate our home. It was perfect that it snowed that morning. It melted later but we enjoyed the snow for our walk.
Ewan has become some a happy guy. We just love him!
Christmas found all the kids here at home which was wonderful. My parents, Peter and Jaten also joined us for lunch and then on that weekend we were able to spend time with our other in town family as well.
Last night, New Year's Eve, was our traditional game night party. We had a great turn-out (we ended up with 50 people at our house) and I enjoyed having everybody here. I think most of them had a good time too. :-) God has richly blessed us. I am looking forward to seeing what He has in store for us next year.
I would love to hear about your year and areas you have seen God working.
My son, Jonathan, and son-in-law, Thomas, have been doing a podcast together and they took a trip to Grand Marais to visit and plan and made this vlog. It has some beautiful videography and a few thoughts. I thought you all might enjoy it.
I thought I would share a few pictures from this last month and just a couple of thoughts. The picture above is Malcolm and I when our family went on a walk at the state park on Friday.
The other walkers: Aaron, Mara (with Ewan on her front), Thomas and Megan)
I didn't get any good pictures from Thanksgiving day but we were blessed with family and friends joining us at our place. 5 international students from the university joined us and that was a blessing. It was fun to introduce them to Thanksgiving as it is an American holiday.
My seatmates. Some pretty fun ones that had lots of requests and questions. :-)
As usual we had plenty of pie.
Mom, Dad and I.
We have a couple of kitties (that hopefully we can find a home for at least one of them). This one is so incredibly friendly and purrs away even when Malcolm picks him up like this.
A couple of weeks ago we had a Thanksgiving meal at church. That was fun. At it we were challenged to work together as a congregation to come of with 10,000 reasons that we are thankful (praising God). I normally write a list of things that I am thankful for everyday and have done that for 15 years or so. It has truly changed my life to do that. If you struggle with discontent or unhappiness in any way I highly recommend it. This challenge at church has caused me to put a lot more thought and effort into it -more than my normal 10 or so things per day. It has been such a blessing!
I don't believe that it is just for God's sake that He tells us over and over again to be thankful. It is so incredibly healing for us! Even if it did nothing for us, He deserves all the thanks we can give but I think when we start obeying Him and begin praying with thanksgiving the way He tells us to we will be blessed far beyond what we can imagine.
God gives us hundreds (thousands? millions?) of gifts every day and many of them we don't even notice. Instead we are busy thinking about our struggles, the hard things we face, the loneliness in our lives. When we start looking for those gifts instead and writing them down it fills you with such a great sense of overwhelming love - realizing just how much God cares for you. Taking the time to write them down can retrain your thinking. Romans 12:2 tells us to be transformed by the renewing of your mind" and I think obeying God in giving thanks is part of the way to do that.
Go beyond just being thankful for family, friends, a home, a job, enough to eat and a vehicle to drive. Start thinking about all the people in your life and then think about what about them makes you thankful for them. Start noticing the beautiful things God puts in your life whether it be a mushroom you chance upon out walking, a frozen puddle that has pretty ice designs, the bark on a tree. Start noticing and get specific in your thankfulness. Give thanks for specific interactions/conversations you are able to have. Notice the sounds around you and give thanks for the ears that can hear and the beauty of music, nature, breathing, etc. Think through the things in your life that have molded you into who you are today. Give thanks - even for those hard things. Once you get started writing down what you are thankful for and truly noticing things you will find it is pretty hard to stop.
I would love to hear if you practice this already and if you do what affect it has had on you. If you don't do it would you please, please try? I know you will be blessed.
Two huge blessings in my life are my Grandsons. I have started watching them once a week while their parents have a date. Ewan is normally breastfed but he gets to drink a bottle while with me. He doesn't seem to mind at all. A couple of weeks ago while Ewan was napping I asked Malcolm what he wanted to do and he said he wanted to paint. So Malcolm and I were having a great time painting away. Then Ewan woke up. We decided that he probably needed a bottle. Malcolm helped me to fix it and wanted to carry it over to the living room. Once there he also wanted to feed Ewan. So I got them set up and then Malcolm tells me " Grandma, you go paint!" He had everything under control and thought I might as well get back to painting. I love these guys so much!
Ewan isn't the only baby at church. We have been blessed with many new ones lately. Juliette was born the end of March and Juniper was born around a month ago and the rest in between. We are so blessed!
The middle of September found us, as normal, heading north to go camping along with a bunch of others at a place we call Jackpine Retreat. This was my 44th time to attend and I love it every year!
A few weeks before we went I had met a bunch of international students that are attending our local university. I told them about our plan to go camping and invited them to come along. Nine of them ended up coming. I had 4 ride up with me on Friday and my parents brought the rest up on Saturday. We stopped at the town of Baudette along the way where we could get a view of Canada.
Cooking over the campfire is an important part of our time at Jackpine. Aaron and Jason were working to get their brats just right. Jason, Michelle and McKayla came all the way from Louisiana, I always get excited when they are able to come.
These pictures look like we had a sparsely populated campsite but actually we fed around 30 people at our campsite. There was a total of around 130 at Jackpine.
Times of singing together are one of my favorite things. Kate, a student from Russia, commented that it sounded like many of the people had been professionally trained. They aren't but most of us love to sing praises to God and I guess that shows.
I got to teach the kids class on Saturday morning. Billy who was doing the messages was talking about Loving God and others (among other things) so I decided to tell the story of the Good Samaritan. We decided to "take" the journey from Jerusalem to Jericho. The 30+ kids lined up to go on the road. I had arranged with a couple of older kids to hide along the route and then jump out and "attack" another of the older kids that I had positioned to be first in line and then run off with her stuff. That was a very effective story telling aid except Malcolm burst into tears and went running after "the robbers" trying to defend Nettie. Overall we had a lot of fun with the class and I was very grateful for the moms that were willing to come along and help out.
Planning for next year...
Ewan at 3 months was camping for the 2nd time. The students helped out with holding him.
Ricardo from Columbia tried out spool walking and did a good job.
Jackpine is a place we like to go to spend time with old friends and make new ones as well. It is the time each year when the highest percentage of my closest friends get together. It is such a blessing to spend time with others who passionately serve Jesus Christ and follow His word to the best of their ability. It is not a group of perfect individuals but imperfect ones who know and seek to be like the One who is perfect.
My whole family was able to be there for at least part of the time (my parents don't camp anymore but they come up for part of Saturday). 37 in all.
Introducing the students to the rocker.
I really enjoyed having this group from other countries join us. Among them were a Buddhist, Muslims, non-religious and more. They were a fun group and I really enjoyed the conversations we were able to have about life, God and religion. They didn't mind that we spent a lot of time singing praise to Jesus. They commented on how they enjoyed seeing this part of America - it was very different than what they had thought America was like.
Game playing is a fun part of Jackpine too.
I was excited to meet Dj's new wife, Talia. Speaking of DJ (one of my boys longtime friends) one of my fun memories of Jackpine this year was seeing him with a bunch of boys in the 5-8 year old range walking around. I asked "What are you guys doing?" and I don't remember exactly how it was worded but they told me that they were just walking around and talking about God and the Bible and stuff. From conversations that I have had in the past with DJ I know that he follows God passionately and I just think it is so cool that he would take the time to walk and talk with a bunch of little boys and encourage them to follow God passionately too.
This boy loves Jackpine and the freedom to roam from camp to camp and have lots of friends to play with. And even though it is chilly, run barefoot if you so desire.
Megan and Ewan.
Aaron's girlfriend, Harper, drove up all the way from college in Nebraska to come. I enjoyed getting to know her a little better. Travis asked her and Aaron to sing a special and they sounded beautiful together.
Ewan and I. Ewan is wearing a hat made by his mom and a sweater that I made for Malcolm but that fit Ewan for Jackpine this year. I look like I didn't get enough sleep and that is true. Saturday night was a pretty chilly one. I think many of us didn't sleep the best.
Travis amused me by not only holding Ewan all through leading songs but also doing the actions for at least a couple of songs. I don't think I know anybody else that loves babies quite as much as Travis.
Billy Wallace shared the messages and they were encouraging and had a lot of food for thought.
Church is generally held around a big campfire. The younger ones are usually closer to the middle. :-) In all my years of going I don't know of any bad burns that have happened.
A couple more memories of Jackpine this year that stood out to me were on Saturday night my niece Margaret and I were looking at the stars with the international students. We could see the milky way so well and it was incredibly beautiful. First just a few of us went out to the field where we could see them really well and then when the others found out all of the students wanted to go. We enjoyed the wonder of God's creation so much. Katy (from Panama) came to me and shared that see the stars like that really reminded her of the grace of God. I so agree! Every day He gives us countless gifts for us to enjoy and some of them, like the stars, are incredibly gorgeous. We just need to wake up and start noticing this grace that He pours out on us day after day.
While up on the field there was a group of teenagers (primarily boys) sitting around a campfire. They were visiting a little but mostly they were singing. Angela (from Columbia - and she was actually a visiting professor, not a student- who said she wasn't religious) came and asked me if they were singing about Jesus. Why yes they are. She thought is was very neat. We never know who is watching and just how we might be able to plant a seed or share about Jesus.
Jackpine Retreat 2023 is over but many good memories remain. I'm looking forward to next year.
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