Another Christmas is quickly approaching and once again, we find ourselves reflecting on the past year. 2021 was a very busy and challenging year in a variety of ways. We eagerly look forward to a quiet time of rest and relaxation as we contemplate the true meaning of Christmas this season.
At the beginning of 2021, our family decided to make some lifestyle changes and establish some healthier eating habits. We began by focusing on a Mediterranean diet, however, by May, Daddy decided to switch to a Keto diet (very low carb, high fat), with intermittent fasting. He is now in his 8th month of Keto, and both his bloodwork and blood pressure have come back excellent. Mommy was a bit more reluctant to do a full Keto, however, she has been able to significantly reduce her carb intake to a modified Keto diet with great results. Together, Daddy and Mommy have now lost a combined weight of over 55lbs! Even Chester the cat has reaped the benefits of a new strictly carnivore diet. He too has lost weight and has a lot more energy.
A little more about our year:
In January, we were able to go sledding with friend Deegan on his homemade luge course. We continued to meet up for other outdoor play dates throughout the year, whether it was in his backyard, at the pool, the apple orchard, the corn maze, or the park.
From January through August, Mommy taught kindergarten to both Olivia and friend Lydia one day a week. In this way, we are able to do small-group activities for math, language, and music, and have some much-needed social time.
In the spring, we were also able to visit several small local farms to see the variety of farm animals for our homeschool farm unit. This summer, Olivia was able to spend lots of time with cousins Molly and Lola. We took several trips to the beach, swam in the pool, and spent a day at Wesley Acres together. Olivia loves her big girl cousins so much!
In June, we purchased our own little flock of laying hens, and Mommy enjoys selling the extra eggs on her roadside stand along with her homemade preserves and neighbour Ron’s honey. This fall, we received some more hens from farmer friend Jesse. Our veggie garden was a disappointment as we were infested with earwigs for several months. Daddy’s tomato plants, however, were a huge success, and Mommy was able to make lots of tomato and chili sauce. Mommy and Olivia were able to pick strawberries at our friends’ farm again this summer. Mommy also did a fair bit of online consignment sales again this year, and gained some more new clients.
In June, our house severance process was officially completed. We spent the spring picking rocks, moving dirt, grading, and planting grass seed to fill in the old driveway. When he wasn't busy creating new software for work, Jared was making repairs to the roof, killing earwigs, and loading firewoood.
During his holidays, we built a cedar rail fence around the back portion of the property, pulled weeds, and planted more grass seed. This fall, we had the silo and barn roof painted. Slowly but surely, our little parcel is taking shape and we hope that one day it will reach its former glory.
We celebrated Olivia’s 5th birthday in June with a small party at home. Friends and family visited throughout the week. On August 20, Daddy and Mommy celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary. We were able to briefly visit with our longtime friends the Ryttersgaards who were able to travel here from Barbados. This month, we also quietly celebrated Jared’s 40th birthday.
In September, we began our third year of homeschooling. Unfortunately, we are unable to join any other families for school, however Olivia is attending Sunday school and a morning playgroup at church and we also meet for regular playdates with another local homeschooling family. We are thankful for Olivia’s new friends Aubrey and Gwen.
This has been another year of learning new things for Olivia. Over the past year, she made excellent progress in speech therapy with her articulation; her fluency continues to improve as well. In the summer, she was able to shed her puddle jumpers and just use a ring for swimming in the pool. This fall, she learned how to ride a bike with no training wheels. Over the past few months, she has even learned to read!
Much to Mommy’s delight, Olivia is now at the age where she enjoys having chapter books read aloud to her. Mommy was thrilled to be able to read several of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books! Olivia and Mommy were even able to take a field trip to the Ameliasburgh Museum in September and Macaulay House in October to see up close how the pioneers and early settlers lived. We even watched the first episode of Mommy’s beloved TV show, Little House on the Prairie together!
We are grateful for another year of learning, growing, and doing life together. Regardless of the many challenges that came our way, we press on! May you find this Christmas season meaningful and may you experience many blessings in the New Year.
Many of you are probably unaware that our house was actually part of a larger 300+ acre farm, owned exclusively by my mother. Although I have been residing in our current home since 2006, the house was always located on the same parcel as my parents’ house. My late father had gifted it to me, saying if I didn't take it then, he was going to tear it down. At the time, it seemed like a no-brainer. No rent or mortgage payments, just property taxes and utilities? Sign me up!
When Jared came into my life in 2010, we briefly considered moving. However, in the end, we simply decided to stay, and instead of making mortgage payments for the next 25 years, we'd simply pay for renovations to the existing house as we could afford them. (I wrote about all that here.) Little did we know the impact of that decision, or what a roller-coaster ride it would be.
Up until several years ago, we had never considered the possibility of what would happen upon my mother's passing. However, in March 2019, my mother suffered a stroke, resulting in a bad fall and brain bleed. Although she recovered from the fall, this was our wake-up call. After doing some preliminary research on our own, we ended up meeting with a lawyer in July. Much to our dismay, we learned that the only way to ensure that the ownership of our home would not be shared by me and my two siblings would be to sever it from the rest of the farm.
We were beside ourselves. After spending a great deal of blood, sweat and tears (not to mention money), renovating this home into our forever home, we'd had no clue about the legal ramifications. At that moment, we came to the sickening realization that in renovating our home, we'd just made the worst investment of our lives!
Over the past fourteen years, I had seen our home slowly transformed from a dilapidated century-home to our custom-designed dream house. To watch my childhood dreams come to life as we began to preserve and restore some of its history had been extremely rewarding. This home has been in my family since 1956, and we had looked forward to raising our young daughter here, as the fourth generation. Now it seemed as though our hopes and dreams were about to come crashing down.
We had already considered a severance. My father had looked into it in the 1980's when he'd built his second home beside it. At that time, he had been told it was simply impossible. In fact, I had contacted the county on another occasion, only to hit a brick wall. There was the issue of yard frontage. The proximity to a barn. The minimum lot requirement of 2 acres. The shared water well. The garage encroaching on county property. The list went on and on. Not to mention that our next-door neighbours were currently in the middle of a severance, and receiving a ton of push-back. We were at our wit's end, with nowhere to turn.
At this time, our daughter (who has just turned 3), was attending Vacation Bible School for the week. One evening, as I was feeling particularly stressed about our situation, she said out of the blue, "Mommy, God is holding everything." That cut me to the quick. Immediately, I recognized it as part of the theme verse from VBS: "The eternalGod is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." (Deut 33:27). I scrawled the words on a piece of scrap paper and stuck it on the front of the fridge where it would hang for the next two years.
One of the songs from Bible school that Olivia kept wanting us to sing together went like this:
"Wherever you lead me,
I'm gonna follow.
I'm trusting You, God,
You are good.
Life will get crazy,
Wild and amazing.
I'm trusting You, God,
You are good."
As we sang this over and over, tears streamed down my face. It was obvious that the whole unknown situation before us was an exercise in trust. It wasn't about the house, it was about solidifying our underlying core beliefs about God. Is God for us? Can He be trusted? Is He bigger than our circumstances? There were two inheritances at play here: the earthly (our house), and the eternal (the calling on our lives). Even though everything else might be falling apart, the eternal was what mattered.
In addition, I soon learned that each day of Olivia's VBS had a theme, based on a particular Bible verse.
1. When life is good, God is good. (Nehemiah 4:14/Joshua 3-4) 2. When life is scary, God is good. (Psalm 23:4) 3. When life is unfair, God is good. (Nahum 1:7) 4. When life is sad, God is good. (Psalm 34:18/John 16-21) 5. When life changes, God is good. (Psalm 106:1/Exodus 14-17)
It seemed as though God might be trying to tell us something! And so, as we moved through the next few years, we would remind ourselves, again and again, to hold on tightly to those truths.
A little while later, we got talking to our neighbour Carol, who is a realtor. Although she graciously provided us with a few details about the requirements for zoning bi-laws, she could not answer all our questions about severances. Instead, she recommended we contact a professional planner. Upon her recommendation, we called Terrance from Urban In Mind. After hearing our story, he agreed to assist us in researching our severance options.
Armed with a professional, we were able to get more traction from the county planning committee. What seemed impossible at the start, was looking more hopeful. Yet while each obstacle did indeed have a solution-ultimately it depended on how much money we were prepared to spend. Terrance prepared us for numerous worst-case scenarios: moving or demolishing a (newly-updated) garage encroaching on county property, dealing with the conservation authorities due to our proximity to environmentally protected wetlands, having to upgrade our house to a brand new septic system, drilling a new water well, moving a driveway, applying for a right-of-way and several minor variances, and converting the barn to dry storage. The potential list was daunting and the cost estimate was staggering. But at this point, we'd already invested so heavily in the house and property, we were past the point of no return.
The county would not even consider a severance without us first drilling our own well. (Both houses had previously shared one well.) The problem was, the existing well was 1200 ft from our house and outside of the two acres perimeter we were looking at. Should we risk drilling closer to the house to save the hassle of an easement, or should we drill where we're guaranteed water and pay significantly more money for trenching and connecting? After much agonizing, we decided to go where we knew the water was. So at the end of October, (and $7500 later), we finally had ourselves a well. It was the first step in our severance gamble.
With Terrance's assistance, we had a preliminary sketch prepared (with the new well location), and got ready for our first official meeting with a county planner. Praise Jesus, the meeting went well; the county gave us some suggestions guidelines about what they'd like to see, and so, we finally got the green light to begin the paperwork for the application process. Things stalled over Christmas and New Years. We had to wait several months for a surveyor to complete an official survey sketch, but finally, Terrance was able to complete all the paperwork for our application, and the entire package was submitted to the county in March 2020. However, we were told that even after the county approved it, it would still be approximately 3-5 months before our application would go before council for the final stage of approval.
Then Covid happened. We had no idea how this was going to affect our timeline. Although it was in his contract to attend the council meeting in-person, and speak on our behalf, we'd been reluctant simply because of the added cost (travel time/mileage). However, with Covid lockdowns, the planning committee meetings were now all being done virtually. So, Terrance would be able to do it all for us without any major added costs! We were thrilled when the county finally contacted us with a date for the meeting: a year after our initial meeting with the lawyer. However, a few weeks beforehand, we were notified that we'd been bumped to the next date. Wait, wait, and wait some more. Everything about the entire process had been agonizingly slow, and this was no exception.
Finally, big day arrived. We waited on pins and needles all day long for the council meeting to start. The Bible verse of the day that came up on our calendar happened to read, "I will praise the Lord who councils me"(Pslam 16:7). Our Bible story at dinner time that evening also just happened to be the story of David and Goliath!
Ironically enough, I did not even get a chance to participate in the live meeting or hear the final decision, due to a technical error. I didn't even know we'd been approved until Terrance called to say the meeting was over and we'd gotten approval. I then watched a replay of the meeting online, just to make sure! We were blessed that there was no mention of a septic inspection, or timeline on connecting the new well. However, the list of conditions was long, expensive, and time-consuming.
With the approval came a two week period of appeal (more waiting!) and then we had exactly 12 months to meet all the conditions they gave us, which included moving my mother's driveway closer to her house to allow us a wider lot frontage; complete the official survey; register the easements, and enter into an encroachment agreement with the county for the garage.
By this time, it was already September. By the time we were able to get the new driveway entrance permit, October was nearly over. Precious time was ticking and we were getting antsy. After getting the runaround from contractors, we finally found someone able to move my mother's driveway and close up the old one the first week of November. At the same time, we were at the mercy of the surveyor's busy schedule. The official prints were completed just after Christmas but delayed because of red tape with the county's encroachment agreement. It wasn't until March 2021 that we had all the paperwork and red tape completed.
Meanwhile, with spring's arrival, we had all the leftover landscaping that didn't get finished before the snow last November. We picked ridiculous amounts of rocks, moved roughly 12 cubic yards of topsoil, graded it all by hand, and then sowed grass seed over the old driveway.
Finally, it was time to go to the lawyer, to have my mother sign all the legal paperwork. By this time it was April 30th. Just when we thought things were nearly complete, we had to go back again in the middle of May to sign yet another document after the lawyer had accidentally omitted something. Then, more
waiting as the lawyer filed all the documents with the county and the land registry office.
Finally, TODAY - 23 months (almost to the day) after our first meeting with the lawyer - we received the confirmation and paperwork copies from the lawyer that the severance of our house and 2-acre parcel is COMPLETE!
Today we celebrate God's faithfulness in seeing us through an incredibly challenging time in our marriage and family, and look forward to what's in store.
You are here, working in this place
I worship You. I worship You...
You are Waymaker, miracle worker, promise keeper Light in the darkness, My God, that is who You are...
Even when I don't see it, You're working Even when I don't feel it, You're working You never stop, You never stop working...
Well, this has been an interesting year, to say the least. I’m sure we’re not the only ones who are more than ready for 2020 to be over! Between Covid-19, a property severance in-progress, and ongoing health struggles, it has been a stressful year. In the midst of all the changes, both at home and in the world, we are thankful that we serve a God who never changes. Despite all the uncertainty of what the future holds, He is in control. As a little 3-year old Olivia once told us: “God is holding everything.” May you hold on to this certainty throughout this Christmas season, and into the New Year.
As some of you may know, back in July 2019, we began the lengthy and expensive process of attempting to sever our house from the rest of the family farm. As Donna’s mother’s health has been declining the past few years, it became imperative to take the necessary steps toward legally owning our home. Needless to say, we encountered many obstacles along the way, and the waiting has been excruciating. Nevertheless, after decades of being told that it could not be severed, our application finally went to the county council this past August, and was approved! After drilling a new well, formally changing use of outbuildings, moving a driveway, preparing to register easements and enter an encroachment agreement, we have nearly completed all the requirements. We await the completion of the final paperwork some time in the New Year. Each new day brings us closer to our goal. God is good!
Due to Covid, Olivia was unable to complete her first year of gymnastics and she is not yet enrolled in any other extracurriculars. She is looking forward to joining a number of clubs for a variety of activities in the future. We were very thankful that Olivia was able to participate in-person for the “Ready, Set, Read” kindergarten readiness program at Mommy's alma-mater, Belleville Christian School, back in February. She loved being in a “real” classroom and seeing what a “real” school was like. Her favourite part was going to the gym!We missed out on a lot of play dates with our friends, however we were able to have several outdoor visits. Olivia enjoyed playing in the sprinkler, bike riding, going to the park and picnic-ing with friend Deegan. We have really missed our visits with the Virtue family and their boys, as well as friends Jaylynn and Lucas.
We celebrated Olivia's 4th birthday in June. Due to Covid, we did not have a large party; rather, friends and relatives dropped by throughout the week for outdoor visits.
We are now in our second year of homeschooling! We are doing two half-days per week at home, and meet up with another family on Tuesdays where Donna teaches kindergarten to both Olivia and friend Lydia. In this way, we are able to do small-group activities for math, language, and music, and have some much-needed social time. This fall, Oliva started speech therapy to work on some of her speech sounds. She enjoys her virtual sessions on the computer and is making good progress with her /c/k/, her /g/, and her /l/ sounds.
Covid brought more changes to our life this past year. Jared had already been working from home on and off, but in March, he opted to make it permanent. He’s settled into his new routine and it’s nice to finally have a use for our home office again. It’s also nice not having to make lunches every day! He just reached a milestone of ten years at his current job of senior software developer for clevr. We converted our spare room into a home gym where he is able to continue his weight lifting. He also enjoys being outdoors and walks 5 (sometimes 10) kilometers a day.
Donna worked hard this summer and fall with all her canning. She has sold about 250 jars since June and hopes Christmas will clear out the rest of her inventory. In addition to her regular clients, she gained some additional clients for whom she sells items on consignment. She also sold a variety of items for her in-laws who were downsizing before their move. Aside from a brief break due to Covid, Donna continued her cleaning/organizing job one day a week for a client. She also manages all the secretarial work of the household, including coordinating appointments, contractors, and all the severance paperwork. Occasionally she has time to scrapbook.
Sadly, we recently had to say goodbye to our dear cat Charlie who passed away suddenly on November 20th. He was part of our family for nearly 9 years and is dearly missed. He is survived by brother Chester, as well as several barn cats.
Despite our many hopes and plans for this year that did not come to fruition, we have been blessed. We were able to go to the beach a couple of times-once in June before the tourists descended, and then again in September. We kept cool in the pool nearly every day during July and August. Olivia especially enjoyed having water fights with Mr. Ron. We enjoy his company as well as that of Ms. Gayle, and have come to think of them as family.
We are fortunate to have such wonderful neighbours who bend over backwards to bless us in so many ways. As I recently prepared Christmas cards for our neighbours, I reflected on all the ways that each one of them have touched our lives this past year. From free fertilizer, cat food/litter, honey, and fresh produce, to personalized Halloween treats, to snowplowing and rototilling, to Costco runs, to advice about our severance, to the use of a fridge when ours was broken, and even the occasional feeding of our barn cats, our neighbours are the best!
We hope that you and your family are well. May you have a joyous Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year.
Books have always played an important role in my life. As a child, I always had my nose in a book, mostly as a means of escape. As an adult, I read in order to learn more about myself and others. Throughout the years, I have referenced a number of books on this blog that greatly impacted me.
Admittedly, I have read very few books in the past five years. I also have written very few blog posts. However, in an attempt to remedy the latter, I thought I would share my top five thought-provoking and life-changing non-fiction must-reads:
5. Captivating by John & Stasi Eldredge
Every girl longs to be romanced, to play an irreplacable role in a great adventure, and for a beauty to unveil. These desires of a woman's heart are clues to who we really are and the roles were meant for. The way we see ourselves now was shaped early in life. Every girl longs to be lovely; her worst fear is abandonment. When her beauty is marred through wounding, she either becomes dominating (by manipulation and control), desolate, or both. The question of her loveliness is answered primarily by her father. From him we learn that we are delighted in, that we are special, or that we are not. Every one of us is wounded, but "the only thing more tragic than the things that happened to us, is what we have done with them." Shame makes us believe we don't measure up, so we hide our truest selves. Ignoring our wounds will never bring healing.
When I first read this book back in 2010, it was so beyond anything I'd ever heard before. Concepts like "childhood wounds" and "feminine heart" were certainly not in my vocabulary. Over the next several years, I ended up re-reading this book a few times, making extensive notes. I even facilitated a small group study focussed on it. The questions it raised and the thoughts that it provoked are what I attribute to beginning my healing journey.
4. Love & War by John & Stasi Eldredge
Marriage is hard. But beneath the surface, the real battle is against the work of the Enemy who schemes to tear love apart. In this book, the authors use real-life examples from their own marriage to illustrate how to fight for each other, instead of against each other in marriage. Every woman wants relationship, intimacy, and to be known and loved. Her deepest fear is abandonment. Every man wants affirmation and his deepest fear is failure. Each person's own woundings create the perfect storm within a relationship. God, therefore, uses marriage to get to the issues in your life He wants to address. There is no greater place for damage because there is no greater place for glory than in marriage.
This book was, and still is, an excellent reminder of how Satan seeks to kill and destroy the earthly picture of Christ's relationship with the Church. His strategy of "divide and conquer" is something we had to fight against every day, especially as we were in the midst of major home renovations for the first six years of our marriage. As we watch the marriages of so many of our peers fall apart around us, we know that the battle is real.
3. In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms by Dr. Laura Schlessinger
Building on principles developed during her long career as a therapist, no-nonsense Dr. Laura provides a wealth of advice and encouragement to women who know in their hearts that staying home to raise their children is the right choice for the whole family. She outlines the benefits for both your children and marriage, showing through research and her own personal experience, how your current sacrifices will make for lasting bonds and a stronger family.
I read this book six months before getting pregnant with my first. Having been raised by a stay-at-home-mom myself, I assumed I’d likely be doing the same thing, yet I felt fairly ambivalent about it. This book challenged, convicted, and convinced me (from a psychological, non-religious standpoint) that every mom should be available to her children, especially during the formative years.
2. How We Love by Milan & Kay Yerkovich
The ways you and your spouse relate to each other go back to before you even met. Based on attachment theory, this book explores how your childhood created an “intimacy imprint” that affects your marriage today. It outlines 4 basic relational styles (avoider, vacillator, pleaser, controller) and how the combinations play out in a marriage relationship. In the follow-up book, “How We Love Our Kids,” the authors explore how the four styles play out in your role as a parent. Both books contain numerous checklists, diagrams, and real-life examples as illustrations.
As a classic avoider, this book was truly eye-opening for me. Being raised in a traditional Dutch family where big feelings were most often frowned upon, if not suppressed, I am still in the process of learning to a) identify my feelings, b) express them in healthy ways without fear of rejection and c) having safe people where I can go to for comfort and validation. What's crazy is that my four-year-old and I are in this learning process together.
1. The Power of a Transformed Wife by Lori Alexander
Following the personal testimony of the well-known blogger, this book outlines how when the author relinquished her desire to be in control, her marriage became the one she always dreamed of. Based on the influence of Debi Pearl, author of “Created to Be His Helpmeet,” Lori shares the mistakes she made and what she did to bring back intimacy, closeness and affection to her marriage. Based on the teachings in Titus 2:3-5, Lori has offended millions of highly liberal feminists mentored countless women through her highly controversial blog, “The Transformed Wife.”
This book, along with Lori's daily blog posts completely changed my views on what Biblical womanhood looks like. Following a scripture-based model of marriage and family, I slowly learned exactly what the Bible teaches. I mourn the fact that these truths were completely ignored in all my experiences in Christian education, Christian counselling, Christian pre-marital counselling, Christian mom blogs, church services, and women's small groups. The more I study scripture, the more I am encouraged to embrace my role of stay-at-home wife and mom.
What books have most shaped and influenced your life? I'd love to know! Leave a comment below listing your favourites.
**The views and opinions in this post are completely my own,
and I have not been compensated in any way for publishing this post.**
Another year is nearly in the books. Time just seems to go faster and faster these days. We are doing well here, and enjoying this exciting stage of life with a preschooler. We are amazed at how Olivia has grown, not only in knowledge and stature, but also in confidence and independence. God is good!
Olivia had a number of firsts in 2019. After some practice over the winter in Beppe’s basement, she finally got to ride her tricycle outside this spring. She has since graduated to riding a bicycle and pedals all over the barn with it! In July, Olivia attended Vacation Bible School for five mornings at Beppe’s church. She loved all the activities and of course, the music! Olivia started gymnastics in September and has now progressed to the second level. In October, she hosted her first sleepover with cousins Molly and Lola.
This fall, Mommy was thrilled to put her teaching skills back into practice when Olivia started her preschool year of homeschool. She enjoys learning a new letter each week and participates in a variety of activities teaching literacy and math concepts. Olivia’s favourite activities are music and making crafts. She has her own special “making things desk” in the kitchen, filled with craft supplies!
Some things we did in 2019:
-Daddy and Olivia enjoyed the Easter egg hunt Mommy planned for them.
-Olivia celebrated her 3rd birthday in June with an indoor party because of the rain.
-Mommy picked lots of strawberries again this summer, although they weren’t ready in time for the party. We grew a bunch of our own veggies again this year, but were blessed to receive many extras from our farmer friends, the Van Grootheests and the Laundrys.
-We attended the Waterfront Festival again this year where Olivia was big enough to go on a variety of rides, unaccompanied by a parent.
-In August, Mommy and Olivia attended the Ameliasburgh Street Meet for the 3rd year in a row with the Dykmans.
-We visited Campbell’s apple orchard with our friends the Moores. The kids loved the corn maze and wagon ride through the orchard.
-We enjoyed swimming in our neighbours’ pool several times a week all summer long. Mr. Ron and Ms. Gayle have become close friends and are like an extra set of grandparents to Olivia. -Mommy and Olivia also enjoyed half a dozen beach days yet in September.
-Our dear friend Randi-Lee paid us a surprise visit. It was a blessing to have her here, after having not seen each other for over four years.
-We adopted a Mama barn cat and four kittens in October. Olivia had the pleasure of naming them: Black & Orange, Smokey, Smokey, Girl Smokey, and Pumpkin Heads.
-We visited the Laundry’s pumpkin patch with the Broekema cousins, and also attended an open house at the local fire station.
-Cowgirl Olivia enjoyed trick-or-treating again this year, but had to cut her time short because she was sick.
This past year, Mommy spent a lot of time driving Beppe to doctor’s appointments and running errands for her after her stroke and subsequent fall back in March. We are thankful that Beppe’s brain bleed is fully healed and that she has finally been given the ok by doctors to drive again. Mommy continues to do housecleaning and organizing for one client on Thursday mornings. It is a blessing that Olivia can come along. Mommy also sells lots of items online. Whether it is her homemade preserves, things she’s found at the thrift store, or items on consignment for clients, she loves making a sale! Daddy is still working as Senior Software Developer for clevr. He takes his role of provider very seriously. We are thankful that he was finally able to receive benefits through work last December. It has been a real treat to have coverage for things like dental, optometrist, chiropractor, and physio appointments, as well as little extras like massage therapy. We have certainly made it worthwhile this year! Over the summer, Daddy cut and split another eight cords of wood, and filled our garage for the coming winter.
We hope this letter finds you well. We hope you enjoy a Merry Christmas and a have very Happy New Year.
Dear Family, Friends, and Blog Readers, 
In June, our house severance process was officially completed. We spent the spring picking rocks, moving dirt, grading, and planting grass seed to fill in the old driveway. When he wasn't busy creating new software for work, Jared was making repairs to the roof, killing earwigs, and loading firewoood. 
During his holidays, we built a cedar rail fence around the back portion of the property, pulled weeds, and planted more grass seed. This fall, we had the silo and barn roof painted. Slowly but surely, our little parcel is taking shape and we hope that one day it will reach its former glory.
