Fun With Grandchildren

Gramp and I love doing things with all of you. We look back at some very special times with you, and nothing beats being there when some of you were born. What an awesome privilege and what a miracle to hear a grandchild's first cry and see the snuggling between you and your parents.

Some of the other memories include:  apple picking (Gramp loves it), pick-your-own strawberrying, school programs; visits with us to attend VBS or Day camp; flights to Wisconsin with Timothy;

going Amtrak to Chicago with Emily; visiting the Catskills with Kris, Kelsey, Kate, and Heidi; going to the Cincinnati Zoo with Marcia, Amber, and Joshua; visiting the Creation Museum with sixteen of you; having backyard cookouts and birthday parties at your places and ours; attending graduations; traveling to colonial Williamsburg with Kyle, Timothy, Joshua, and David; visiting Cary Lake to see Grammie Ruth and to help on the camp; trips to "the condo" in Island Falls . . . and so much more! We cherish those times and we hope you will remember such times with fondness. As the Lord provides, we hope for some more special memories that include YOU, of course!  

More than anything, we want  you to know that there is one trip that we want to make with every, single one of you. It is the most expensive trip and most important trip in all of time and eternity. That is the one that takes us to Heaven. Jesus paid for it with His very life when he suffered on the cross, paid for our sin, and was raised again. We cannot be good enough to go to Heaven. We go because we trust, by faith, in all that Jesus has accomplished on our behalf. And only HE is good enough to make our salvation and our Heavenly home ours!

Just last night, Grampie was speaking of our newest baby -- and (as we have said of each one of you), he said that he prays that Isaac will know Jesus. He and I both pray -- as Grampie put it last night, "may our circle be unbroken." As much as we enjoy the wonderful people you are and the wonderful things we have been able to do together, all of that is very insignificant compared to the wonders that GOD has prepared for His children. The Bible says that, "eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it enters into our hearts the things that God has prepared for them that love Him." So we cannot imagine the glory of being with Him forever more.