The Jespersen Family: Dylan's Bday and Then Some

Dylan turns 16!!! And he gets to spin the incredible wheel of fun. I can't believe he's 16!! He's a really great kid, and brother. The kids love when he comes to visit. He's smart, helpful, and handsome! Happy Birthday Dylan!!

We went to Incredible Pizza in Springfield and had some fun with friends.

Very intense

They had them all....

Opening cards

Molly just being cute

All the guinea eggs hatched and I think there were like 28 keets at one point!! But they dwindled down every night. They hatched pretty late in the season and the nights were already getting cold.

Crazy bunch

Once again we forgot to take a family picture while Dylan was here - so this is as good as it gets 😂

Molly is so tiny - she loves to hide whenever she can

Remember this when you are looking at pics of Molly in the future. She was once Much tinier than Jay!

Awwwww - my heart 💗 She is so cute

And this is the reason she climbs all over us when we try to exercise.

Steve making some elderberry syrup

Straight out of nightmares

I potted some elephant ear plants

I'lm always amazed at the details.

I was out trying to catch lightening. Have you tried that? Holding the camera? No timer? It's extremely hard.

I caught one!

And the end of one too!

Here is Molly hiding under the bench at the vet's office. Enjoy it while you can puppy

Check out my new vehicle!

She's real pretty. Her name is Scarlett Overdrive. She'll be used to tow our work trailer, our van (which I loved and it was hard to say goodbye) just can't tow it. (I'm going to write how the spiritual events played out....for my kiddos.) So I prayed about what we should do. I was very insistent that we don't settle for just any vehicle. We always just buy the first car we see that makes our heart patter a bit. This time in order for me to make a commitment like that we would have to find the one that had all the things on my list - down to the color. We actually researched for the first time before buying a vehicle!

I started fasting one morning and got a call from Steve about 20 minutes in, about a 2017 Red Durango. What?!! I was feeling all mixed up because - geez - it had only been 20 minutes! He was in town getting his vehicle worked on and there was one in the lot. He said it was real pretty, low miles, but had some spots that he wasn't too sure about. But that he was going to bring me back up that same day to look at it. Then not too long after, he called me again to say there is another one exactly like the first (right down the street) with lower miles and the body was cleaner. What??!!! This was the first time in a long time that I fasted and I wasn't too sure this was how things were supposed to happen..... So I continued to fast and pray.

He comes to get me, we drive back into town, and stop at the first place. The dealer was so nice, he pretty much just handed us the keys and said take a test drive (without him! And he didn't even get a copy of our license!). So I test drove the Durango (this was also the first time I ever test drove a vehicle since I got married...I always just felt safer with Steve doing it). It was very pretty and drove just fine, but I didn't feel like it was my car. I can't explain it, it just wasn't it. We sat down with the dealer and I could barely keep my head up. It was the weirdest thing. I just wanted to go lay down and sleep. I didn't, but that's how I felt, like my body was too heavy to even sit.

We ended up leaving and stopped at the other dealer. This guy was definitely more business, got our licenses, made sure we had insurance...blah, blah, blah...then we were off. I test drove this one too. Before we left the parking lot, I knew it was the one. My chest was filled with the burning of confirmation from the Spirit. I was energized, when I could barely hold my head up at the other place. We still didn't just go ahead and buy it. We went home to talk about it more. On the way home I asked God to help me to know that this was the right move, one last time. I was worried because we weren't making many sales, would we really be able to make the payments? Within a minute my phone makes the cha-ching sound - I had made a sale. It wasn't a huge sale, but I figured that I should trust how the Spirit had guided me so far.

When I try to do my stretches the dogs fight all around me

This will be much more of a pain when Molly is bigger

August 21, 2017 was a total solar eclipse that happened just about an hour away from us. Jack took the kids to see it. They said it was so cool. It went dark and you could see the stars. I can't believe didn't go!! Oh well - next time! It was still cool seeing it the way that it was when you put glasses on.