Saturday we had our 22 week checkup on our baby girl. She is doing great, Mom is doing great, Dad is doing great and everything looks perfect.

I am not sure if it is our age, losing our last baby, my sisters struggling with their pregnancies, or exactly what has changed, but whatever it is this pregnancy has been very different.

In a very good way.

I know we appreciated the other pregnancies, but this time around I think we know better. We know that getting pregnant and delivering a healthy baby is not an automatic package deal. We know that sometimes our hopes and prayers go unanswered and outcomes arrive that did not fit our plans. We know that everything can change in an instant, that life is a wisp, a breath, a vapor, and the challenge is to make the most of every moment because one day every moment will be gone.

We are so blessed to be able to experience the wonder of it all this time around. To be able to move past the understanding and mechanics and clinical definitions. To remove the surface marks placed by inferior intellect in vain attempts to comprehend divine design. To forget what you think you know and rely on what you know you feel and soak it in and rest in the peace of it.

To become child like and stare at the world for what it is.

It is an amazing feeling to place your hands on the wife of your youth and feel your daughter alive inside and simply experience. Linger in the moment long enough and before long everything else just fades to black. To quietly look and feel and hear and remember that life is in the living, experience is the truer pursuit over knowledge and the moment is all we ever have.

Foot

Profile

And the moment is quite enough.

Written on April 16th, 2008 , Deep Thoughts, Faith


Mulch is a funny word.

I don’t think I ever uttered the word mulch before moving out East. Perhaps my hinterland Minnesota readers can chime in on the usage of the word mulch. I just don’t remember it.

However, I have forgotten more than I remember.

The pictures above show the mulch beds I have added to my front yard. The mulch I used is cedar, which is really yummy. My whole lawn smells like an old blanket from Grandmas house.

I have moved much mulch.

Many much mulch I have moved.

Moving mulch, mountainous mounds, maintaining morning moist, makes my manly muscles meek merely maneuvering moist mounds of mulch my manic mind maniacally maintained must move.

I guess it is one of those days.

:)

Written on April 16th, 2008 , Everyday Life

We will be seeing much more of this color in the months to come.

:)

We couldn’t be more thrilled with the color choice.

Written on April 14th, 2008 , Everyday Life

It was a foggy misty morning on my walk today.

I grabbed the cell phone and took some pictures along the way. They are nothing all that great, but I did map them so you can see my neighborhood from space.

Explore Here

My brother sent me this picture of his walk this morning:

That is just cruel, nature.

Written on April 11th, 2008 , Everyday Life

A couple of weeks ago, we drove into our driveway and saw a lot of pollen in the air–at least that’s what I thought it was until Elizabeth urgently told us, “Look at all the bees!” She is very afraid of bees and they were definitely swarming around our car. David drove the car up to the side of the garage and got out, away from the bushes where they were swarming. Beth and I needed to run some errands, so we didn’t even get out of the car, we just drove away.

When we got back, the bees were back in the bush, but I have never seen anything like it before.

I can’t believe I got this close. Here is a better picture:

While we were gone, David had called our egg and honey source–The Ferguson’s–and asked if they wanted some bees. When we have been over there to get honey and eggs, we have seen the beekeeping stuff and know they keep bees. They were interested. So instead of killing all the bees, Mr. Ferguson got some honey.

First, he sprayed cool water on them to calm them down.

Then he took the big bucket and gently bumped the branch so the bees would fall into the bucket. He was hoping to get the queen, because if he got the queen, the other bees would try to find her, and he could get most of the bees and bring them back to start a new hive.

He placed the cover with a screen on it on top of the bucket and we waited.

As you can see, a lot of the bees started to congregate on the bucket. This meant that he had gotten the queen bee.

He pulled the cover a little way off the bucket, so the bees could get in to the queen.

After a while, he gently used his brush to brush the remaining bees in the bucket.

Almost all of them went in.

We were left with very few of them flying around. Mr. Ferguson said the bees would go back to the original hive they started from. Apparently, this swarm was trying to develop a new hive with a new queen, which is supposed to be common in the springtime.

I was so impressed with the whole thing. I didn’t even have beekeeping gear on, but Mr. Ferguson said they wouldn’t hurt me–and I stayed further away than he did.

Well, the bees got a new home and we didn’t have to kill them. I’m hoping to get some good honey out of the deal!

Written on April 9th, 2008 , Everyday Life Tags:
The Rohr Family

Blessed Beyond Measure