(And All My) Work Be Praise

If ever there was a year when I ought to have written a Christmas letter, this was it. In its place: a picture year-in-review. January Toby turned two within the cozy but getting-ever-smaller walls of our little rental house.  Unbeknownst to everyone else, I also got pregnant in January, which we announced in . . .  February Also in February, we found a suitable and very reasonably-priced house and left the aformentioned rental behind. The walls are much bigger here . . . as are the cupboards: Master bathroom closet, where at least four children could sleep comfortable. Moving actually isn't very fun at all. March We escaped for a long weekend to Lake Beauty Bible Camp with two other families, old friends from Isaac's seminary days. It was incredibly refreshing to relax, play games, worship (pictured below), and stay up late chatting with people we'd known for more than four months. We were treated by friends from church to o...

Sometime in early 2015, Isaac started talking about how neat it would be to be in Germany for the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in October of 2017. Each time he mentioned it, it was followed with, "but that's crazy; we can't do that," but after the third time, I thought: why not? Sure, international travel falls well  out of our usual budgeting plans, but we're both frugal people; surely, we could save for two years and make it happen. So, for last year's birthday (2015), I gave him the non-present of a promise: I'd do everything I could to save and earn money, and somehow, we'd make the trip happen. I solicited promises from both sets of parents as well, to get our "Germany fund" up and running. I haven't done nearly as well as I'd like at saving from our grocery budget (I had yet to find out how much more things cost in central Minnesota), but we've managed to pocket away funds here and there. (Did you know...