My 8 year old has declared war. Okay, maybe that’s a little strong. What he said was, “Caleb, are you in or out? We have got to save the world! I could use your help. Hershey can’t get away with this. They are ruining the world for our grandchildren!” Yep! That’s really what he said.

Here’s the background … last November we visited the Hershey Factory in Hershey, PA. It was wonderful and smelled amazing! Ben was in Hershey Heaven as he is a huge fan of all things chocolate. When the kids are especially cooperative at the grocery store, I often reward them with their choice of a check-out-lane/lane-where-mom-caves treat. Ben nearly always chooses a plain Hershey bar … king size if he can get away with it.

Last week, Ben and I were horrified to see a story on the Today show that spoiled our entire day. (The women at my last retreat even heard me lament about it!) Apparently, due to higher cost of ingredients, Hershey’s is removing cocoa butter from many of it’s popular chocolate candies, and replacing it with cheaper vegetable oil. (I overheard Ben on the phone with his 8-year-old buddy, Drew. Ben was telling him all about this nightmare and how “vegetable oil” makes his tummy sick if he eats too much of it in candy bars! Ha!) Read the rest of this entry »

Friends, if you remember, last weekend I had the privilege of interviewing Nancy Moser at the Mall of America’s ACFW event. Nancy is writing some really neat things. I was very excited to hear about her newest release, John 3:16. While I have not read it yet, (I didn’t even sign up to read this one as I’m writing under deadline myself) I can’t wait to get my hands on it. I love football and the John 3:16 signs always intrigue me. If you get to read this before I do, let me know what you think!

Also, check out Nancy’s website. She is writing some amazing fictionalized biographies about fascinating women like Mozart’s sister. Read the rest of this entry »

I had the most wonderful and wild weekend and I have pictures galore to share. However, since we’ve gotten our new desktop, I don’t have my Creative Memories software installed yet. I’ll add pictures soon. Actually, as soon as Mike installs everything I need.   In the meantime, you’ll just have to picture it all in your imagination.

Friday I left for St. Paul to pinch hit as a retreat speaker for the White Bear Lake United Methodist church. I shared with a sweet group of ten women on Friday night and Saturday morning. The event was held at the St. Paul Monastery and I had the funnies sister who took delight in harassing me. Oh, it was all good natured. I’m quite certain she’s the “Maria” of this order. Ha! Hope she’s reading this and just in case she is … I counted my shoes twice and made sure my laptop was in my bag when I left. So there. Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t panic. We don’t have ants. Well, at least not several ants. Just one. Here’s the deal … stick with me.

This week we kicked-off our school year. Homeschooling grades K, 2, and 7 creates many new challenges. I’m … no, we’re still working out our rhythm. I confess that this week has been a bit overwhelming, and not just for me. On Monday, Kadi and I sat down and went through her assignments for the week. We wrote out the work that needed to be accomplished over the course of the next five days. Bless her heart, she has a thoughtless mother/teacher sometimes. I failed to recognize how overwhelming it would be to receive all new curriculum, new textbooks, at a more advanced level, and then to get a weeks’ worth of work dumped on you.  She was nearly in tears and clearly stressed, and I had to  bite my tongue not to say, “Suck it up, honey. This is life. Seventh grade is NOT sixth grade.” Gulp. I’m not sure I bit my tongue in hind sight. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you missed us? I have been getting emails from some of you wondering what on earth happened to the Tiedes. Sadly, our desktop died this week and we couldn’t get back to the blog. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we have a new desktop on the way from Dell and should be able to welcome its arrival early this week. 

For anyone keeping track … here is the count on lost or broken items for the Tiede’s this summer:
Mike’s crown
Mike’s glasses
Air conditioner / Furnace
Gracie’s battle with pancreatitis – near loss, huge expense
Big screen TV
Telephones
New tire on the van
Desktop – CPU

We are praying that the start of school will usher in a new season of wholeness and wellness for the family! Read the rest of this entry »

I hate to admit it, but I nearly forgot to post tonight. I’m afraid I don’t have any pictures to share as we were on the move all morning and didn’t take too many pictures. I wish we’d worn pedometers today as I think we put on several miles! We started the morning back at Quarry Hill where we did the Monarch tagging last week. There were two letterboxes there that we found. We were tickled to discover that our friends, the Beauchene’s, caught the letterboxing bug. They heard ab out it from our posts this week and called yesterday to get details about this “sport.” When we found both boxes today, they had beat us to the stamp! Fun! Our question for them is whether they took the “adventurous” hike to box #2 or the “easy” hike? They’ll have to post here and let us know!

After we recovered from the adventurous hike, we drank some water and opted to find a geocache treasure. We drove around to the other side of the park and left out car near a playground. This was the first geocache Kadi and I experienced. We ended up jumping over a creek to get to this box and after nearly breaking my neck … ankle … I refused to go back the same way. That might have been a mistake. After we found the Skippy jar with treasures, we began following a wider, mowed trail. However, after walking quite a ways we were getting concerned that it wasn’t going to take us back across the creek to our car. At one point I was about to set my foot down when something moved. It was a great big fox snake! I frankly didn’t care what kind of snake it was. I screamed and did a fancy little step that got my family’s attention. They had all passed the snake without realizing it. We had Gracie with us and I was a bit concerned that she’d go after it. Not so. My furry little friend could have cared less. Kadi on the other hand … well … she had already shared her rather strong feelings about a few spiders she’d seen. After we met up with the snake, she agreed to take spiders over snakes. I’m with her on that one. She just kept saying, “I want to go home. I want to go home.” Of course that only encouraged Ben (8). He pointed out several “snakes” to her as we navigated our way back to the van, which took a while I’m afraid. Next time we’ll jump the creek! Read the rest of this entry »

That’s what we did today … diddley. We took a family vote this morning about attending a water ski show. Only one person gave it a thumbs up. (Sorry, Ben.) Instead, I started my morning on the back deck, drinking coffee in my jammies … until 11! It was awesome! I don’t think my boys dressed until 2 or after. It was truly a day of R, R, & R … rest, relaxation, and reading.

Mike read “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. He’ll finish it in the next hour or so and I’ll let him report on it.

Kadi finished reading “The Notebook” by Nicholas Sparks and is now making her way through “The Giver” by Lois Lowry. I’ll let her report later too.

I read Julie Klassen’s debut novel, “Lady of Milkweed Manor.” It released in January and I had every intention of reading it sooner. I met Julie at a speaking engagement on December 1st and she sent me an early copy of the book. It was fabulous!!! In fact, the first person to post a comment here saying they want the book will get it! I have to tell you though, you will cry! Seriously cry. I think it was a bit of divine intervention that I read it this week. If you recall, the first night of our staycation we had a wonderful monarch butterfly experience. If you know about monarchs then you probably know that they eat milkweed. There are several butterfly references and beautiful imagery with the butterflies and milkweed. Near the end of the book, there were even two quotes from Journey North, the site I recommended in my original post of the staycation.

Read the rest of this entry »