Around The Home
Ah, spring/summer has arrived! I say summer because we’ve been blessed with some pretty warm weather this past week! Needless to say, we took advantage of it and did some more painting on our home! We are officially DONE painting the house, the deck, and just have to do a few touch-ups on the garage, then we will be DONE painting! What are we ever going to do with our time you might ask? Well, we want to stain/seal the deck, put up a new fence between our house and the pool, and just clean up the yard a bit. All things that do not have to be done tomorrow, but all things we’d like to have done by Memorial Day, so that we don’t have these little things hanging over our heads during the summer.
We’ve learned you can do a lot in life, for relatively cheap, if you watch a few videos, do a little research, and put some (okay, maybe a lot) of sweat equity in it. Making our house our home has just been such a joy. We have learned so much and couldn’t ask for a more perfect home!
This week I go in for a heart checkup at the U of M. I haven’t felt this great in SO long, so I’m hoping for a great report! I am pretty certain I am still retaining fluid, considering how much I am in the restroom, but at least the medication is working. To me, that is encouraging. Of course my dream is to come off of some of my meds, but as I learned at my last appointment, when they only put me on more, that I have to trust the process and just be thankful for the medical professionals who take such great care of me! To be feeling this great only 6 months after my two surgeries, it’s humbling. I have to remind myself to give myself some grace OFTEN. Clearly I’m always in the sanctifying process in life! And I’ve gotta long ways to go!
Anyways, here’s what’s been going on this past week at the Sterks!
Just doing a little painting before church last Sunday night!
On Monday, it was GORGEOUS outside, so we decided to put on our swimming suits, pull out the beach/pool chairs, haul out the water table for Mazy, and sit by the pool! Call us crazy, but it was AWESOME.
Mazy loved playing in the water again!
Okay, maybe we were a little crazy…no leaves on the trees, the pool cover still on, but hey, we soaked in the 80s the best we could!
Time at the park is always time well spent!
Mazy is very much into the imaginative stage of life and this week she wanted to pretend to be a dog. Specifically, our friends’ dog Remy. She even had to “drink” her water from a bowl! Surprisingly, she actually didn’t make that big of a mess!
Working on painting the garage! Even though the vinyl is just fine on the garage, we wanted it to match our house. Also, it was yellow and our house is now blue…we didn’t want to SCREAM that we were Michigan fans!
This is what our backyard used to look like, before Dan put a deck railing on the deck last summer and before we painting the deck and back of the house:
The finished product!
This week we also visited a friend and checked out a local kid’s museum!
The face painting was by far, Mazy’s favorite part!
When a nap is skipped and she just couldn’t hold on any longer! No complaints here!
This past weekend was the Dandelion Festival in my hometown of Borculo! It had been well over 12 years at least, since the last time I had been there! It was before Dan and I were married, and we will be married 12 years this week! Anyways, Mazy had an absolute BLAST! Kudos to Borculo CRC for putting on an amazing parade and carnival-type day! All for FREE. What an incredible ministry and outreach opportunity that they capitalized on! Plus, the weather was absolutely beautiful!
Mazy playing the bean bag toss with Grandma!
Waiting for the parade to start!
Mazy has some sensory sensitivity when it comes to noise, so the noise-reducing muffs were definitely a must! Thanks to Dan’s hunting muffs…
Gotta love the simplicity of this parade, but what fun it was!
As I said earlier, Dan and I will be married 12 years this week! Crazy to think about, but what a ride the past 12 years have been! Though, I wouldn’t trade one of those years for anything. What we have learned, how we have grown, and how we have only grown closer together, nothing can replace that! Having gone through some tough times in life, the whole in life or in death, in sickness and in health, has really rung true for us. By all means, we do NOT have a perfect marriage. We are two totally different people still figuring this all out. But I must say, some things just aren’t as big of a deal as they used to be, thanks to the trials and triumphs God has taken us through. So much to be thankful for!
