Summer in Minnesota

Although most of our summer was spent in South Dakota with my parents, we did take two quick trips to Minnesota to see Paul's side of the family.  Paul had a work convention in Minneapolis for a week in July, so the littlest boys and I took a quick trip there to see him and his family who lives there.  The 2 older boys couldn't come because they were in the middle of the city baseball tournament, but grandpa took them fishing so they didn't mind missing Minneapolis a bit. :) We stayed with Paul's mom and spent lots of time with Paul's brother Dann and his wife Rachel and their kids.  It was so much fun!  We love Dann and Rachel so much and wish we lived closer to them.  They are such fun-loving, God-loving people--the kind you just want to be around.  I love to hear my husband laugh when he's with his goofy brother, and I love to hang out with Rachel who feels like the sister I always wished I had.  If only we could get them to move to Montana!  :)  While we were there, we went to the Mall of America to see the aquarium and ride a few rollercoasters; we also went to the Minnesota Zoo, but I think the most fun was had at Dann and Rachel's house playing with all their cool outdoor toys!  :)  Paul's family was so generous and let Paul and I steal away for 2 date nights (overnight!) while they took care of our kids.  It was an unexpected treat and so good for our marriage.

My little ones with their MN cousins at the MN Zoo.

A beautiful butterfly at the MN Zoo's butterfly sanctuary.  

I would have loved to spend all day inside the sanctuary---it was so peaceful.

Nathanael at the Mall of America's LEGO-Land

Rowan, Kennedy, Isaiah, and Dominic at LEGO-Land

Dominic loved spending time with his cousin Rowan.

They were like two peas in a pod,

or should I say 2 farmers in a John Deer?

Precious pictures of Nathanael with his cousin Kennedy.

Kennedy was such a sweet helper with my little ones the entire trip.

A heart of sunshine and gold that little girl has!

Paul and his brother Dann chillin' and grillin'...

How I wish the two of them could spend more time together.

The final big trip of the summer was a trip to Paul's family reunion in Minnesota at a large, lovely cabin on an island in Lake Vermillion (near the Boundary Waters).  Again, it was so great to watch all of the cousins play.  They all got along so well and were instant friends even though they hardly ever see each other.  The days were spent fishing, tubing, kayaking, canoeing, catching crawdads, capturing snakes, playing beanbag toss and a giant Jenga game on the deck, picking wild raspberries, eating amazing food, and just reconnecting with everyone.  Grandma Jean and Grandpa Dick spoiled all of us with their generous hospitality!!!  As silly as it sounds, the highlight for me was praying the rosary in a canoe with our family of 7! :)  The family reunion was a great grand-finale to our summer and then we drove 18 hours back to Helena to start our adventure of moving into the rental and looking for a new home!

Now that's one huge happy family!

(except for one unhappy camper in the bunch) :}

Grandma Jean was so happy to have all 15 grandkids together!

She was also thrilled to be surrounded by her sons :)

Joseph with his cousin Gabriel: fast friends

Dominic and Rowan spent tons of time together tubing, fishing, and catching crayfish

Paul having fun playing a giant Jenga game

Dominic loved catching snakes all week long!

He says he wants to be a zoologist when he grows up;

perhaps he'll be the next Crocodile Hunter :)

Michael and Isaiah had fun with the snakes too

Michael was constantly catching something.

Here he is with a crawdad.

A sweet baby bear cub at a nearby bear sanctuary.

He was super high up in this tree, and even though it looked like he was barely hanging on and might fall any second, he looked so peaceful and relaxed.  

I wish I had his same trusting and peaceful spirit!

This canoe ride was the highlight for me in Minnesota.

I was pleasantly surprised that our semi-large family still fits in a single canoe together.

It was special to be able to steal away from the busy-ness of the reunion to pray a rosary surrounded by God's gorgeous creation.  

This summer was filled with so many graces, and I know my near-sighted vision only saw a small number of the blessings God was sending my way every day.  To be totally honest, I have really been battling this past year with anxiety, depression, spiritual warfare, and various insecurities, and this summer was just what my soul needed:  lots of R-and-R, quality time with family and friends, a religious pilgrimage with my spouse, and time spent in God's great outdoors.  I pray that this year my spiritual vision will improve so that I can see more graces, feel more gratitude, and give back more blessings to all those around me in order to glorify and thank God!  

Thank you, God, for all your gifts that you bestowed on my family this summer.  Thank you for filling us up with graces to help us get through this upcoming school year and drawing us ever nearer to Your Sacred Heart and Your Mother's Immaculate Heart.  I know that if we stay near those Two Hearts we can get through anything this year has in store with peace and joy!

Have you heard of Charlie Johnston???

A few holy and trusted friends of mine have recently brought the story of a man named Charlie Johnston to my attention, and I believe it may have some credibility since it reflects similar messages from other apparitions in recent years (namely, Medjugorje, Kibeho, Garabandal, and Fatima). I'm attaching a link that discusses his background and the messages that he has allegedly been receiving from God.  It's possible this guy is wrong (or plain crazy), but I believe there is also a possibility he is right. So, in that case, I'm trying to prepare myself and my family as much as possible...especially our souls. You may think I'm crazy, but more than that, I hope you know how much I love you and want to be helpful. If there is any truth whatsoever to Charlie's story, then I would want all of my loved ones to know about it.  After our pilgrimage to Medjugorje this summer, I am more and more convinced that God is trying to get our sinful world's attention in many ways (like sending His Mother to appear daily for 34 years with messages of love, peace, and conversion) so that we can prepare our hearts to spend eternity with Him.  These messages of Charlie's might be another way God is trying to get people's attention.  And whether they are true or not, they should not frighten us, but simply remind us to trust in the Lord who tells us to "Be not afraid."  But, I also believe that preparing ourselves for disaster is a prudent thing to do (especially with children in tow) and preparing our souls for eternity is the purpose of this life.  So, here you go...read and discern for yourself.  Pray about it.  Pray for me and I'll pray for you! I love you all!

Our Lady, Queen of Peace, pray for us!
Jesus, we trust in You!

Here's the link to Charlie's background and messages: http://www.mysticsofthechurch.com/2014/12/charlie-johnston-alleged-prophet-with.html?m=1

And here is a link to Charlie's blog with a post that gives some more info on future events:
https://charliej373.wordpress.com/2015/08/29/be-not-afraid-god-has-a-plan-repost/


P.S.  I'd love to hear what any of you think about all of this, and what some of things you are doing to prepare your souls and your families for these events if they occur...

Summer in South Dakota

Spending the summer in South Dakota while Paul worked on getting the house sold and our stuff put in storage was a blessing beyond words.  The kids and I will treasure the memories we made this summer forever.  Our days were relaxing but busy, and jam-packed with joy.  How I loved watching my kids bond with my parents and watching my parents find so much joy in spending time with my kids.  When you live far away from family like we do, simple things like fishing with grandpa or baking cookies with grandma are all the more special.  I admit it was hard for the boys and I to be away from Paul for so long, but our days were always filled with so much fun and activity that time swept by, and thankfully, Paul was able to come for three visits over the summer.  Here's a list of some of the treasured memories we made while in South Dakota, followed by some of them that I captured on camera:

• playing countless card games with Grandma and Grandpa (4-corner Kings, Tick, Golf, Garbage, Canasta, and Speed)
• building card houses
• swimming at the YMCA
• bowling
• fishing with Grandpa and Uncle Mike
• swimming, tubing, jet skiing, and fishing at Uncle Mike and Aunt Shawna's house
• numerous trips to Storybook Land
• walking to parks
• playing tennis (this year my 12-year-old could beat me fair and square!)  :(
• lots and lots and lots of baseball for the oldest 3
• staying up late to watch MLB
• baking cookies with Grandma
• Dominic and Natey building with Legos for hours on end
• 4th of July reunion with Maria's side of the family
• my college roommate, Chrissy, coming for a visit

Our boys with Babe and Paul Bunyan at Storybook Land

Our boys at the Wizard of Oz section of Storybook Land.  

Frank Baum, author of  Oz, lived in Aberdeen for a short period of his life, 

which is our small town's only claim to fame (so they built a theme park) :)

Maria and the youngest 3 at Storybook Land.

These boys never tired of the place, especially now that it has a roller coaster!

Maria and her college friend Chrissy at Storybook Land

Maria and Chrissy--still friends despite the distance!

I was able to spend time with many of my old friends from Aberdeen over the summer.

It was so special to reconnect with all of them and encourage each other on this journey towards heaven, where hopefully we will all be together forever someday.

Grandma Theresa and Grandpa Pat having a treat at Storybook Land.

They treated us to countless meals, snacks, gifts, and fun memories all summer long!

We are forever grateful and feel so blessed for their presence in our lives!!!

Grandma Jean gifted us with a month pass to use the YMCA water park!

All of the boys enjoyed it, but especially the little ones.

Grandpa Pat took Joseph and Michael on many fishing expeditions.

Treasured memories and tasty walleye to eat!

The local bowling alley allowed 1 free game per kid per day,

so we did lots of bowling, especially on the hottest days of the summer!

Dominic is our master builder---he loves building with Legos or cards or just about anything!

Isaiah loved bonding with Grandma Theresa all summer,

especially when she was baking cookies!  :)

Isaiah also loved Grandma's toy box...

especially throwing all the toys out and climbing in!

Dominic loved jet-skiing and tubing...

His mommy loved his crazy hair :)

Paul and the little ones having fun on the jet ski!

Michael and Dominic were fearless on the tube and loved taunting Uncle Mike to see if he could throw them off (which he always did!)  :)

Maria's side of the family had a fun reunion on the 4th of July.

I am so blessed to have such a loving and fun family!

Paul and I at Storybook Land during one of his trips to come see us in South Dakota.

The past year has been a very difficult one for Paul and I,
but this summer did wonders for us.
The periods of being apart made our hearts grow fonder,
and the graces we received in Medjugorje gave us some healing and renewed hope.
God is good.
Please keep praying for us though!  :)

(More summer memories and photos to follow:  including baseball season photos, our trip to Minnesota, and our trip to Medjugorje!)

I'm back...and buried in boxes!.

I apologize for my complete lapse in blogging this summer!  I thought I would have time inbetween all of the craziness to post pictures and give updates, but it just didn't happen.  So, over the next few weeks I will try to give little summaries of the main events of our crazy, but grace-filled summer.

First, however, I 'll give you a quick update on our housing situation.  While the kids and I were spending the summer in South Dakota with my parents, Paul worked diligently to move us out of our home that we sold and put everything into a storage unit until we found a house to buy or a rental.  I am so proud of my husband for all the work he did; hopefully he got rid of some purgatory time with all of his hard work and sacrifice!  :)  Unfortunately, we still have not found a house that we like, or any land that we would like to build a house on, but thankfully God has blessed us with a rental house in the meantime.

We just got back to Helena last weekend.  It was very strange coming "home" to a rental that does not feel at all like home.  We are buried in boxes, and it is a challenge to decide which boxes to unpack since we don't know if we will be in this rental for a month or a year or (please no!) even longer.  The rental is a 4-bedroom, so there is adequate space for our family, but we do not love the location and there have been struggles that I did not expect--like the amount of cleaning that needed to be done (a bachelor had been living here and left it "as is"...use your imagination), and also the joy of learning how to take care of chickens.  Yes, that's right...we are now taking care of 20 chickens that the rental owner has.  I am learning that I am NOT a farm girl like my mother was!  At first I was kind of excited about the idea of having fresh eggs every morning, until the first day that I attempted to make a bunch of scrambled eggs for lunch...  I cracked a few eggs into the bowl, and then the next egg had a baby chicken in it!  I threw that batch out and started over...and the same thing happened again!  We had cold meat sandwiches instead.  My mom tells me that won't happen again if we make sure to gather the eggs daily.  The eggs I was using that day were ones that the rental owner had in the fridge, and apparently he had not been gathering them regularly.

Anyway, this has been a huge learning experience and God has been stretching me in ways I did not expect! :)  These past few days I have been feeling like Bilbo Baggins..."like butter scraped too thinly over a piece of bread."  I'm tired of being scraped and stretched, but I'm sure my soul needs it.   Please pray for me, as I am feeling more than slightly overwhelmed this week and have already shed quite a few tears.  I am trying to have the attitude that this is an exciting adventure, but it is a struggle at times.  Please pray for peace and joy for our family during this adventure, and that the Lord directs us to the perfect home for our family (soon!)  :)

God's will be done!
Jesus I trust in You!
Our Lady, Queen of Peace, pray for us!

SALE PENDING!!!

This lovely house that has been our home for the past 9 years will no longer be ours as of July 17th.  Putting it on the market this year was such a different experience than last year.  Last year we had it on the market for 7 months with only one very low offer.  It was a miserable 7 months because we were in "constant cleaning mode."  It was so hard living in a house with 5 busy boys and trying to be ready for a house showing at all times.  I was constantly stressed out and felt more like a witch than a mommy...  In fact, I'm pretty sure if the boys would have dumped a bucket of water on me I would have started to melt just like the Wicked Witch of the West!  :}  So this summer we decided not to go through such misery.  We got the house in showing condition and then we left the stress behind and headed for grandma and grandpa's house for the summer!  The crazy part is that within 3 days the house was SOLD!!! :)  The offer came on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which was a beautiful confirmation that God is guiding us on this crazy adventure.  We are so grateful that it sold so quickly this year, but now we need to find a new home (or a rental until we find a new home)!  Please help us to pray for patience and openness to God's will as we search for the perfect house God has planned for us!

JESUS, WE CONTINUE TO TRUST IN YOU!!!

How do I love May, let me count the ways

May if full of things that make me happy...here's just a few of them:

• First of all, May is the month devoted to the Virgin Mary who I love dearly.  I have lost count of the times that she has untangled the knots in my life and protected me under her loving mantle.  This month my women's prayer group finished the book "33 Days to Morning Glory," and we all consecrated our hearts to Our Lady.  It was very special and I highly recommend Fr. Gaitley's book which beautifully explains why Catholics entrust our lives to Mary:  in short, because she will lead us on the most perfect path to Jesus.  I especially love the May Crowning Mass at my boys' Catholic School, where the entire student body honors Mary by placing flowers at her feet while singing "Queen of the May."  It is so beautiful...it must make Mary and Jesus smile! :)

• May is also the month of Mother's Day, and I have happily continued my dad's tradition of planting flowers on Mother's Day.  This year was too cold to actually plant the flowers on Mother's Day, but a week later I was able to get my hands in the dirt and make our front yard look lovely.  I love planting flowers.  It reminds me of all the years planting flowers side by side with my dad, which was our gift to my mom on Mother's Day.  Also, there's just something therapeutic about digging in the dirt and creating something beautiful.  I am hoping that our pretty flowers will inspire someone to buy our house this summer.  We are putting it on the market in June...  This is the second summer that we are trying to sell it.  To be honest, last summer was miserable trying to keep the house constantly clean with 5 active boys in the house, so this summer we have a much better plan...  The kids and I are heading to South Dakota to spend the summer getting spoiled by Grandma and Grandpa, while my sweet husband stays behind to keep the house ready for showings!  Why didn't I think of this last summer?!  Anyway, please pray for our house to sell quickly and for God to provide us a new home that will be perfect for our family.  St. Joseph, pray for us!!!

• May is also my birthday month.  I honestly forgot how old I was turning this year and had to do the math to figure it out!  :}  I guess that means I'm getting so old that I don't want to know how old I am anymore!  Hopefully it's not early onset Alzheimer's!  Anyway, it turns out I am 36.  This year I was totally spoiled by my husband who bought me a full-suspension mountain bike so that I could bike with him and our boys on some of the very best mountain-biking trails in the country!  I don't know if I will be able to keep up with my adrenaline-junkie boys, but I am very eager to try and to get my exercise in the fresh mountain air and gorgeous scenery!  Paul spent many months searching for the perfect bike in my favorite colors (chocolate brown and sky blue), and he even bought me a sky blue helmet, sky blue pedals, and sky blue handle grips so that everything would be completely color coordinated!  Boy, he sure knows me well. :) 

• And last, but not least, May is also the month of my anniversary.  This year Paul and I celebrate 15 years together!  They have not all been blissful or easy years, but they have been fruitful and sanctifying years.  We have learned how to make handsome boys (I wonder when will we learn how to make girls?), how to forgive, how to sacrifice, how to fight, how to kiss and make-up, how to fake it 'til we make it, how to cling to Christ when we want to give up, and how to keep guiding each other towards Heaven.  Marriage is nothing like I thought it would be, but just what my soul needed to learn how to be Christ-like.  Our anniversary gift to each other this year is something we have been dreaming about since we were courting...  We are making a pilgrimage to Medjugorje, the place where our love first began.  When I made my first pilgrimage to Megjugorje as a senior in high school, I made a deal with Our Lady (dangerous, I know).  I asked her to send me my spouse my first year of college, and if she didn't I would take it as a sign that I was meant to pursue the vocation of religious life, which was something I was seriously considering.  My frugal nature didn't want to waste time and money going to college if God wanted me to be His bride in a convent, so I wanted Mary to help me sort out my vocation right away.  And she did.  At Christmas break my first year in college I came home to visit my family, and Paul was on vacation from the Navy visiting his family in the same hometown of Aberdeen, SD.  While he was home, he happened to chat with my brother Steve (they were highschool classmates and friends), and Steve mentioned to Paul that I had recently made a pilgrimage to Medjugorje.  Paul's curiosity was piqued because his devotion to Mary had grown immensely over the past few years, so he gave me a call to ask me about my Medjugorje experience.  I was delighted to share my story and a sweet friendship was born.  After months of beautiful courtship via phone calls, love letters, and occasional trips to visit one another, it became abundantly clear to my heart that this man was Mary's answer to my very specific prayer request in Medjugorje.  We got married a year and a half after that first phone call, purposefully choosing the month of May to exchange our vows because we truly give Mary the credit for bringing our hearts together.  Perhaps that gives you a better idea of why Paul and I are so thrilled to be making this pilgrimage together after all these years.  We leave for Medjugorje on June 22nd.  Please pray that we have a safe and holy pilgrimage, and we would be honored to take any of your prayer requests with us to offer to Our Lady while we are there...you can send them via the comment section on this post or via email:  pmhurlbert@gmail.com.  

1000 Gifts and Counting...

Like Ann Voskamp, I continue to scribble my gratitude list and click my camera at things that make me see God's love and grace-filled gifts in my life...  These past few weeks there have been just too many to count or capture in pixels, but here are a few:

One single blossom on a tree that otherwise looked lifeless,

a sign to never lose hope,

a sign that all things are possible with God.

Pushing this sweet boy in the swing,

listening to him giggle as I give him under-dogs, under-cats, under-hippos, under-cows... :)

This boys' freckled face melts my heart whether he's smiling or serious

Our tree covered with ladybugs...

hours of entertainment for my little boys...poor ladybugs!  :}

Watching these hands work diligently---

seeing Paul's passion at fixing things

and doing outdoorsy things like conquering a mountain on a bike

Bubble-making boys in the backyard...

Like mother like son... :)

Daddy and baby wrestling on the bed

Watching my husband play ball with his baseball-loving boys

Boys immersed in Grandma's storytelling

Crisscrossed paws and a bundle of fur blending in with our  new bedspread

Dominic the tree-climber with his massive mop of hair...

how I love his massive loving heart!

Signs of new life and hope everywhere I look...

even within my heart!

Thank you, Jesus, for all these gifts and so much more!