A gift on Sunday and on Monday

With the new school year so quickly approaching for our students, there are - of course - many last minute purchases and preparations going on in our home.

One student preparing for a new experience is our daughter, Abigail, who will soon be leaving to begin her freshman year in Ohio. There she will study for a degree in an Equestrian/therapy field. Larry had promised her a trip to PFI ( a large western/horse store) before she left. As it turned out, Joshua did not have to work on Sunday and so we suddenly had the opportunity for a family outing.

Leaving town early on Sunday morning with five of our children, we headed for Springfield. What a blessing it was that Haley was available to join and us and our family all met together in the parking lot of Lamberts - Home of the Throwed Rolls - for a wonderful lunch and day together. The gift of my six children gathered together with Larry and I around a table was dampened only by the sad fact that we were missing our dear son-in-law, Matt, who is finishing up his summer internship in Kansas.

As parents of busy, grown children know, having them all together is much too rare and this unexpected gathering was truly a gift to a mom's heart. It was so special to me. After a great meal and catching a lot of thrown rolls, we all headed over to PFI and helped Abby make a few final purchases in preparation for her schooling. (I say "few" with great thankfulness in my words...Mr. John Lyons, a well known and loved horseman, helped to provide Abby with the majority of her Equestrian supplies. We are forever grateful for his kind words of encouragement and his incredible gift to her.)It was wonderful being together and hard to say good-bye as Haley headed south - Matt, you most certainly were missed - and we headed north, but we cherished the time we had together. As parents, Larry and I have been so blessed by the gift of raising and loving these children.

Monday morning found Amanda and I back down at the CBCU for labs. Our gift for Monday was the call, later that evening, that told us Amanda's counts had remained steady and were still good. We are very grateful since we must watch closely for her counts to drop after having received a chemo transfusion last week.

Two days, two gifts.

We are twice blessed.