What's in a Birthday?

That which we call a birthday, by any other word would be just another day.

Yah, birthdays are just another day. Oh it wasn't all that bad. Nathan  did a wonderful job of making my birthweek pretty awesome. The day, however was just another day at work and it was rainy and gross. My coworkers seemed to all have crises and left me alone at work, my clients were going nuts, and I was bored at the same time. blah.  Happy birthday to me, right? 

But, like I said. Nathan did awesome. 

Monday, this came in the mail:

hehehe. Yes. I was excited. I've always wanted a cotton candy maker. :)

mmm. it was so good. 

That evening my dad came over and helped us mulch.

check out how nice it looks with that brick edge.

And this is why I love farmers. Who else has a truck like this :)

Tuesday, These came in the mail:

:) my favorite version of Reeses goodness. 

Oh, they are so good.

Wednesday, this was waiting for me on the porch:

aren't they beautiful!?! :)

Thursday, the 14th, my birthday, I picked up Nathan and headed to the mall for a bit. I finally used up one of my gift cards from our wedding. I rarely get to the mall.  We met up with my parents and went out to eat at Red Lobster. :)  Lobster is awesome. We had fun, dad of course nearly spilled the beans that it was my birthday. Thankfully, the waitress did not sing happy birthday to me. 

Nathan went more practical on the gifts this time. He got me a few shirts and a new non-stick frying pan. Not the most exciting, but finally I can make pancakes without losing my mind. :)

Overall, it was a good birthday, but I'm not a fan of getting older.  Not that anyone really is.

Friday,  finished off the week with a sour taste. It was a rough day at work.  My clients are really struggling, and while most of the time I can leave it at work, it's hard to when their frustrations are directed towards me. 

Saturday,  I went to an auction with my mom. She bid on some outdoor furniture for me. 

I need to recover the cushions, 70s yellow isn't really my favorite.

That evening, Nathan and I had some of the young couples from church over. 

grilling up some of the meat. 

The table set, and ready.

My dad's birthday was on Sunday, so after hymn sing, we dropped by and gave him his gift.

wood burned coasters of some of his favorite things. 

So, I'm a year older.  A year wiser I'm sure. ;) haha, I still feel like a 10 year old some days. 

In Christ

~Michelle 

Cousin's Camping

This past weekend, the cousins went camping.

We met at our house Friday evening and drove out to Moraine View State Park. It's one of my favorite campgrounds in the area.

Carli drove! :) She only needs a few more hours.

She did great.

Friday evening we set up camp and ate supper. We sat around the fire and sang a few songs. I pulled out a bunch of glow sticks, which Emmy and Cecily loved.

Setting up the tents

glow sticks around the fire

Cecily enjoying the glow sticks.

Saturday, I woke up to birds. Well actually, I woke up to Trent and Troy jabbering in the guys tent at 6:30 in the morning. No worries, I fell back asleep. :)

a quiet camp in the morning

pancakes for breakfast 

(with bacon and eggs of course)

a game of frizbees on stumps and tables

the group :) 

Saturday afternoon we went out towards the lake. Matt put his boat in and Cecily got a ride. Lena and I got to go with her.

She was so happy.

Matt our fearless captain. 

she got to sit up on the seat

picnic at the park

back at the campsite

I got to take emmy on a walk.

She mainly wanted me to pick her flowers.

Jake fishing

campfire stew for supper

Nathan critiquing the marshmallows

We packed up that evening and headed for home.  

It took a lot of planning, which I'm good at, but I don't really enjoy. But, it was so worth it.  I love the being outside, sitting by campfires, and just plain relaxing. 

It was such a wonderful weekend. I love camping and I have an awesome group of cousins. :)

Hopefully, it's the first of many annual camping trips. 

In Christ

~Michelle

Tradition!

So,  a couple weeks ago, I convinced Jenny to take me to the Tremont high school's musical. They were doing The Fiddler on the Roof. :)  Nathan and I took Bob and Jenny pizza for supper. Jenny and I left Bob and Nathan to play with the girls. 
It was great. The Fiddler on the Roof is by far one of my favorite musicals. :)
However, I still have the songs stuck in my head.

Last Friday night we went to potluck at Mike and Katie's. It was a good evening, as usual. 

Last Saturday, it rained so I couldn't finish the brick edge on our landscaping. So, mom helped me finally sew up my curtains.  We decided to use the church sewing room for the space and such.  

There was so much fabric

:)

The finished product

yay!

On Tuesday, the Braker's came over to help us plant our garden. 

They brought a bunch of compost. It made the garden nice and black.

Jason retilled the compost in to the dirt.

Making plank walkways :)

Not much to look at now I guess.

Other than that, work has calmed down a bit.  My clients are generally doing really well. Though, when you have a bunch of 19-year-olds living in the same house there is a lot of drama.  There has been building tension between some of the guys. So, who knows what will happen next. :) It keeps me busy. 

I got to see one of my old clients today. He's doing really well and he was really happy to see me. It feels good to have the rare client who really wants to do something with their life.  Sometimes it's just planting seeds and sometimes you get to see the fruit. And that is always encouraging. 

In Christ

~Michelle

April

It's catch up time again.

  

We spent Easter with my family.  It was a relatively quiet evening. 

Cecily enjoyed the little table mom got her from IKEA.

My mom found some old letters to my great-grandma. This one is postmarked 1907.  We showed them to Grandma and Pearl. Sadly no one can speak or read German because a few of them were in German.

On the 9th, I went with my parents to Ned's orchestra concert. It was combined with the U of I men and women's glee clubs, an oratorio choir, and the chamber choir. It was fabulous. 

My mom counted 200 singers. :) 

  

They sang one of my favorites- Dies Irae, as well as another great- Dona Nobis Pachem, and some poems of Walt Whitman put to music. Some were a little too modern for my taste, but the classics and a few of the others were great.  The final two songs were bible verses put to music and they were beautiful.

We took Ned out for ice cream afterwards. :) It was a wonderful evening.

Other than that we've been working in our yard. Matt kindly tilled our garden and we've been cleaning up our landscaping.

We bought a magnolia tree! I'm so excited to finally have a flowering tree. 

We spent Saturday putting in a brick edge in our landscaping.

We went to menards in the morning and picked up this load.

Mixing the concrete 

It's not done. We still have ~60% left. I'm not a master bricklayer so it's not perfect, but I think with the color and contrast between yard and landscaping it is an improvement. When we get it completely done I'll have to see if I can do a before and after picture.

Though Easter seems like it is long over, it's never too late to say- praise God for His victory over death and sin!

O death, where is thy sting? I grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 
1 Corinthians 15:55-57

In Christ

~Michelle 

Arrests, Guns, Investigation

Over the past couple weeks and months, work has been a little more crazy  unsafe different than usual. (There really isn't a word quite right to describe everything)

At one point I had five clients who had been arrested.  Despite the population that I work with, that is very rare. In fact, its very rare for even one of my clients to be arrested. 

A month or so ago, one of my clients called me and informed me that they had been arrested and had just gotten out of jail. She wouldn't give me much detail, but when I went to court with her, I learned she faced up to 14 years in prison.  I was given the police investigation to read. It was incredible.    The investigation read like a book or a movie.  It gave a summary, with quotes, of the police interrogation of the suspects, forensic investigation summaries, and a step by step summary of car, home, and cell phone searches.

While completing the investigation for the first incident, the police found evidence the the car that linked my client to a second, possibly third, crime. 

They also found cell phone conversations between her and the victim, placing her with him on the night, and they found his blood and a gun in the car.  

My client is now facing 60+ years in prison in three different counties. 


Around the same time, one day, our whole program was shocked by another event.  
One of our clients was shot. 

He and a few of my clients were attacked by a gang, we believe it was over a girl, and while they ran away, they were shot at.  
They are all fine. The client thinks it will be cool to have a scar to show the girls and the other clients now have a 'war story' to tell. 

But, us at the Children's Home were a little shook up.  We ended up moving the clients out to a secluded country location for a few days while they and the gang cooled down.  The police are watching us all pretty close, just in case the gang comes back, so we are safe, for the most part.

The country safe location was awesome. There is a lake, picnic area, fishing, campfire areas, and lots of room to run. The clients had a blast, for the most part. For some of them, it was their fist time out of the city, ever.  They enjoyed the open space and quietness but  most were bemoaning the fact that there weren't any girls. And, one of my clients noted that "there just ain't no general population." :) 

It's not everyday I get to work here.:) 

And then, not too long ago, while investigating the fist client, the police were led to another client of mine. And he was also arrested. 

At least three of my coworkers clients have been arrested in the past few months as well. 

Yeah...

We mostly laugh now. There's no time to get sad or scared. We just do our jobs, help them the best that we can, and I pray. 


In Christ
~Michelle

trip to Chicago

Last week was quiet. We mostly sat at home and relaxed.

The other weekend, when we went out to Princeville, Nathan brought back boxes of his old stuff.  One, night last week, we started going through it. He had his old year books, pictures, gigantic glasses from his childhood- the poor child, and lots of collections of random things.  Nathan has a rather sizable collection of Baseball, football, and basketball cards. So, we took an evening and started sorting through them, with the hope of selling some day.

my job was to look up online and see if the card holds any value. 

This past weekend was a little crazy. Nathan had his friends in for a long weekend because one of them was in the states from Canada.  It was also communion on Saturday night and the Easter program on Sunday.  It went better than it could have. :)  They cleaned up after themselves and they didn't burn the house down while we were gone. 

Communion was a beautiful night.  I didn't burst out laughing as seems to be my tradition. So, that was a small success. I don't do well with solemn, quiet occasions.   Anyway, It was a very uplifting evening.  I can't quite capture in words the feeling of communion.  There is something about the body of Christ silently standing, waiting, praying, and remembering. There is a connection, a peace, a strength, and a power in that night that is sadly rarely felt within the church.  The body of Christ acting as one, as He meant it to be. 

 Monday night, Nathan and I were out for a walk and saw this beautiful sky.

The sky just awes me sometimes...

On Tuesday, I took off work, so Mom, Lena and I went up to Chicago. The main reason was, I needed fabric for curtains.  There is an awesome fabric warehouse up there and I knew I'd find something. 

 

row upon row of fabric

The warehouse is two stories tall with a basement. Each level has three huge rooms. It's relatively organized by fabric type. At first it's overwhelming, but after walking around for a while I really enjoy it.  There is just so much fabric!

more fabric

ribbons 

and more ribbon

It was great, and I found fabric. 

We then headed to Woodfield mall. We didn't find much there, but we decided to stop by IKEA. It was my first IKEA experience, and I loved it. I think I bought too much, but it was so cool! :)

Work has been crazy.  Here are three words to describe the past few weeks: arrests, guns, investigation. :)  

I've said it before. It's never dull. I love my job.

In Christ
~Michelle