A call to prayer

Hello faithful readers! My sister's dear friend Karri has kept her in the loop on a situation with her sister in law and in turn, Stacie has kept me in the loop. Her experience has weighed very heavily on my heart this week and the Lord has been faithful to remind me to pray for her, but today I felt it was time to involve all of you. As you may have noticed, I have some links on the sidebar for people who need ongoing prayer (don't we all, really? but these folks are facing some extenuating circumstances at this point in their lives and could use all the prayer they can get!) I wanted to add a new link and highlight it here in a post so you could all read her story and pray for her. Karri's sis in law's name is Shelli Ward. Briefly, she has been battling breast cancer for over a year and has had some huge victories. Recently she had a setback in that a lesion was found on her brain and she underwent surgery to remove that. She is an amazing person and her strength, faith and courage in the face to this terrible trial has been an inspiration to me. Please check her link out and read up on her situation as you can but mostly pray for her complete recovery! And while you are over there surfing the links, don't forget to read up and pray for the others on the list. Thank you so much for your prayers!

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/shelliward

Happy Father's Day!

We had a wonderful day at the ballpark for Father's Day. Can't imagine a better way to spend the day for this family's dad! (unless of course, we could have won the first place trophy instead of the runner up one) We played in our old neck of the woods on a field right next to our high school ball field so the entire family was able to come out and support Casey and spend the afternoon together.

Special time with Pops and Grandad...

All the Ryan cousins in one place at one time!

Two sticky, dirty boys....

And fun times with the Barnhart(Ildebrando) cousins as well....


Hope everyone was able to enjoy your day and appreciate your dads !

Summer Berry-Pickin'

In a valiant effort to keep the gang entertained, we all loaded in the burb today and went to a local orchard where you can pick seasonable fruits and veggies! Some of our neighbors had the great idea and invited us along. Even the quick little rain that fell on us as we drove over was not enough to cool down the berry orchard. It was crazy hot. But we all had a great time and we have some delicious "fruit" to show for our efforts! I was even able to pick a few salmonella-free tomatoes, though they were not quite yet ripe. Guess in a few days we can enjoy a half recipe of the fresh salsa we're used to around here!!

Blackberries and Blueberries.....YUM!!

The Last Day of School!

I really love the blogs that some of you did with the nice photos showing how your kids have grown over the course of the school year. You know, the first day of school shot alongside the last day of school shot. I just set out to copycat you and realized that I, supermom herself, do not have a shot of my boys on the first day of school this year. I was running behind (you're all shocked, I know) and did not have time to capture the moment. Oh, I fully intended on reenacting it for the camera a day or so later. It would appear that I forgot.

So these shots are just of the last day...take my word for it, they've grown and changed a whole bunch! We are anticipating a great summer ahead of us...stay tuned!