After the long days of winter, the snow all melted and spring arrived!
March: Started out getting to see Issa, my friend from Ixtlan MX, a couple times when she came to visit her sister! It was so exiting to catch up a bit (as much as we could with my waning Spanish-speaking skills). Then, our church had its invite-a-guest weekend at the end of March, and we were thankful to have Darin and Crystal stay with us. It was good to get to know them a bit better! After they left, we had my family over to celebrate Dad's 48th birthday.
April: The Saturday before Easter, I got to have a new adventure when Matt's coworker and his wife, Grant and Lindsay, came down to help Phil on a project and shoot clays out behind our place. I had shot one of Matt's guns a couple times since we'd been married, but never tried shooting clays! It was a new experience for Lindsay, too. We were sad to learn later that they were going to be moving down to Georgia, so who knows if we'll get to have them here again!
We were able to make it to a few family Easters as well. Matt's family got together for an egg hunt after Good Friday services at church, my family celebrated Saturday evening, Lanz Easter was Sunday, and Schulz Easter was Tuesday. It was nice to catch up with all of the different families! I only have a couple Easter pictures, from the annual egg hunt at my Mom and Dad's. Obviously none of us are too old to go hunting for eggs!
Later on in April, we had a few visitors. One weekend, I got to keep my cousin Abby overnight when she came for the Single Group's invite-a-guest. She stayed here Friday and at her hostess's place on Saturday. I was so honored that she was willing to come visit me for a bit on her trek down to Iowa! The next weekend, a group of sisters came and stayed at my family's house to get together, so we helped "host" them. It was a fun and lively crew that involved three of the Steffen girls, along with two from Ohio and another from Belvidere. They brought a few unique games along, such as the one we are playing below.
We started planting the garden the last weekend of the month!
...and Matt surprised me by coming home with a violin he had found in Des Moines on Craigslist! This picture is when I first took it out and was looking at the directions on how to hold it, and at that point it still needed a couple strings and a peg replaced. Since then, I've been practicing and it is coming along well! What fun!
Now, instead of both of us playing guitars, we can make a little nicer sound with melody and harmony!
April is also when I officially became a Sunday School teacher when Josie, the teacher, had a baby girl! Matt and I later both got put in for the next two years so that will also be giving us something to do.
May: A visit from Alice started out our month! She was getting ready to graduate from college the next weekend, so I made a cookie to celebrate. For those who aren't privileged enough to be fluent in Chinese like me (I mean, like Google Translate), the writing says, "Congratulations!" And guess what? She said I wrote it correctly and it meant what I was trying to say! Congratulations to Alice! She plans to attend the College of William and Mary in Virginia for a year to obtain her Masters in Accounting, and then begin working as an accountant at Deloitte in Minneapolis next summer.
We were in the same program at the University of Iowa, so it is crazy to think that I would have been graduating with my BBA now too! We've certainly learned that God's ways are so much different than our own! It has been such a blessing to follow His agenda for our lives instead of mine.
Alice happened to come on the weekend of town-wide garage sales again! Matt found a good deal on a camera at one garage sale, so there were about three hundred pictures of me cooking supper that night as he tested out all of the settings. Sigh...some men and their new gadgets...
Alice's pending graduation also meant the coming end of yet another school year for all of our siblings and niblings! But before school could end, we had to get in the last of the elementary programs and high school concerts.
First we heard the Kindergarteners, which included Matt's brother Ethan and nephew Tristan.
Later that night, we listened to Quinn (photo one, front row, second from the right) and Jesse (photo two, back row, tallest one in the middle) sing with the rest of the third grade.
At the end of the week, Jonathan and Justin performed in the high school band and choir concert. The two of them also sang as part of a small acapella group in the photo below.
The next weekend was Mother's Day. My family came over on Saturday, and then we attended Lanz Mother's Day on Sunday.
Zach took our camera for the evening at the Lanz gathering, so we finally had a well-documented event.
We are so blessed with wonderful, God-fearing mothers for examples! Mother's Day is also a reminder of Matt's mother in Heaven, and we know there are several others who have lost their Mothers recently. Though Matt doesn't have a lot of memories of his mom, she does provide a special blessing by giving us an even stronger desire to help one another to Heaven so we can see her again someday!
As is always the case...God has been good. It was a blessing to spend so much time with family and friends this spring, as well as enjoy the peaceful beauty of God's creation!
