A L-O-T of Catching Up.....

Thank you for all the comments we got about our blog.  We never dreamed there were that many out there still following our blog.  I'm glad you're enjoying it and every once in a while, just drop a comment.  That makes it SO much easier and much more fun to post on here.

So here is what has been happening in our life the last few months......

The usual for April....mud!

 We got to meet some of our family and visit the Sights and Sounds Theater in Branson and see Jonah. 

We took our playhouse and chickens to Misty's where they are enjoying their new home. :)

Grandma and Papa got to be here for Easter. The next day Grandma and Grandpa came and we had an egg hunt before we started our trip to OH for IHC.  It was SO fun to all be together for a week.

 

 While at IHC we met with the EFM board and they approved us to serve under them as missionaries and they also approved KENYA as a brand new EFM mission field......what a HAPPY, HAPPY DAY that was!!!!!!  (for more of our story, you can visit our mission Facebook page - Keith Crystal Schaper)

  

May was Graduation and our sweet Megan graduated! 

 

We have some very special friends here at Troy that we will miss! 

The Grandma's and Papa got to come up for Graduation - so special!  

 

Awards Night was a special night!  We are so proud of our children for their hard work!!

 Mother's Day was a wonderful day. Keith fixed a turkey he had shot the day before - SOO yummy!!! 

 I squeezed in pictures of the kids.

This Miss was having difficulties with her pictures.....

 These boys are best friends! I love their pictures.  None of these were posed...they just love being together and making each other laugh.

 Our Little Man growing up too fast!

 Our sweet Young Lady

Our Bucket of JOY!!!

    

Our little Man-Cub!

 Aaaaaand the old Mom and Pops!! :D

 

Grandma helped us out with getting a Prayer Card picture...whew!! Glad that's behind us. :D  

More visits from Grandma which are always special and getting spoiled rotten by Mr. Ron!  He always brings goodies to clean-up day for camp.  He brings Twizzlers for straws and then they can eat their straw.....  Thank you for taking an interest in our kids, Ron.

 

 Okay, believe it or not, that's not even a tiny bit close to all the pictures, but I think I'm done for right now.  We are in an extremely busy time in our life, but I don't see it slowing down any time in the future months.  I will do my best to keep up as we go along.

Prayers are GREATLY appreicated!! Our blog is personal. Our FB page is mainly mission related, so I may not put certain things on that page.  Please pray that God will give us strength this summer - it will be very busy with MANY miles on the road. 

I hope to not wait so long to give an update again.  I REALLY, REALLY do like comments, just to know who is out there enjoying our pictures and interested in our life....that's not too much to ask, is it?  :)  

Thanks for hanging out with us!!!

What to do...

I am not sure what to do with our blog.

We were advised to get a Face Book page for our missionary journey because it seems everyone is on FB now.  I'm not sure if anyone still looks at our blog and there is no way to know unless you leave a comment, which going by our recent post, it would seem that we don't have anyone looking at our blog.  Heehee!!!!!  Maybe you're just lurking out there.....  ;)

So I'm not sure if I will delete our blog....keep it going, if anyone still looks at it....make it completely private for only our close family to see (because I probably won't be putting very personal things on our FB page as it will mainly be mission "stuff")....I'm not sure what to do.

So until we decide what will be done, I guess it will stay like this. :D

If you have an opinion, we'd love to hear it....even if you're a lurker. ;)

A GREAT weekend!!!

A couple of weekends ago, my wonderful brother Jeremy and his (equally wonderful) wife, Trelanie came up to help us have our garage sale.  We would have NEVER had it without them for a multitude of reasons, but with their help, we got rid of a lot of things we won't be needing.

After we cleaned up, we headed out to Uncle Micheal's farm and spent the rest of the evening enjoying the great outdoors, complete with hotdogs and "smarsh-mellows".

Two tired, post-garage sale Mama's.

One crazy, post-garage sale Dad....yikes!!

Filthy, tired, HAPPY boy!!

Thank you SO much, Jeremy and Trelanie, for coming up and helping us.  We never could have done all that without your help!!  We appreciate you all!!! :D

St. Louis Arch

A few weeks ago, we had a wonderful visit from Misty and Wesley and their family.  It was so fun having them here for a couple of days.

As they were heading home, we all went to the St. Louis Arch.

This was the first time any of our kids had been up to the top.  In our little cubical ready to head up. Megan was a little worried going up, but was fine coming down.

 

At the top, the kids were so excited to see our suburban and tiny people walking around.

On the bottom right picture you will see the largest St. Patrick's Day parade in the US.    The boys thought the Cardinals Stadium was neat to see.

St. Louis Skyline.

 Under the Arch there is a museum that is very interesting.  All the kids wanted to fill out the books to become Junior Rangers. They took this job VERY seriously....Daddy did, too, I think. :)~

May I present the new Junior Rangers of America! 

*I love this picture - Kaylee is holding her hand up like she's being sworn in and Owen has his hand over his "heart" (wrong side) like he's saying the pledges.   Heehee!!!!

After a few fun hours in the museum, we went outside for a picnic.

After we left the Arch, we decided to go over the Stan Musial Bridge over into IL. This bridge was finished last year and it's a very neat bridge.

 

 Old St. Louis.

Thank you for stopping by and visiting the Arch with us.   We love your comments. :)

Day in the Woods

Did you enjoy the two beautiful days we had this week?  Boy, we sure did!!  Here's a little bit of what our day looked like yesterday.

 Our "Baby" Girl.

 This boy loves his daddy!

 Two pretty chipmunks!

 The Gang!!

 Blazing new trails....

 Family pictures, courtesy of an old stump. :)  

Thanks, Stump, for being such a great photographer for our family when we needed one.

 Said stump!

 *Irish jig* ...or something like that.

 Our handsome man-child!

 Hmmmm.....

 Two tired girls - one strong daddy.

Kissing ow-ies.

 His treasure rock.

Looking for treasures.

Thanks for stopping by to check on us.  We'd love to hear from you. :D