Happy Summer (At least according to the calendar. . . )

Dear Friends,

A good Monday morning to you! Can it really be that summer is upon us? Mother Nature celebrated yesterday by pouring rain and hail on us yesterday, and today's high is supposed to be 68 degrees. Really, we are beginning to be tempted to put our garden hoses away for the summer! We'll see how long the rain lasts; and Frankie's cloth diapers, since the laundry is getting a little backed up (Yes, we do have a dryer, but no, we don't like to use it.)! Hmm, now might be a good time to try potty training. . .

We received a lovely package the other day from our dollhouse friends in North Carolina; this time they sent a little reading material for the library, which all the dolls here couldn't wait to take turns with!

AnnaMarie's clothespin doll, Eleanor, taking a reading break.

Audrey's doll, Mabel, looks like she likes posing more than reading~

Whilst Tasha's doll decided to share with Raggedy Andy.

And look here, two little peas almost ready to be picked~



"Here, Clara, let's take your picture by the peas!"


"Is this close enough?"


We had a lovely visit with my sister from Utah over the last four days. Her adopted daughter Skye (the China Doll) gets along so well with the girls, that I hardly get to see her when she's here, as they have her squirreled away in their bedrooms!


To help finish my little "Lord of the Rings" story, I've been reading the book and we've watched the movies (Usually I don't go for scary monsters in movies, but we just skipped the scary parts for the little ones). Now the girls and Frankie have been busy becoming hobbits and Gollum, and coming up with some very interesting scenarios, let me tell you.

Whenever I watch "The Return of the King", which was the first of the three movies I saw, I am taken back to AnnaMarie's near-death experience of having diabetes and going to the hospital. We had seen the movie a few months before it happened, and when she was lying unconscious with her eyes open, suffering from "ketoacidosis", I felt like Samwise as he held Frodo in his arms after being stung by Shelob. I even told her not to go where I can't follow, since that was where she was headed. At one point when she was delirious, she said she was dancing on the sand with a king, and in the hospital she stayed in the "I SEE YOU" (I.C.U.)! She even suffered a wound that hasn't healed, like Frodo did on Weathertop.

One of my favorite scenes of the movie, though, is when Gandalf explains death to Pippin the hobbit. It is one of the most comforting explanations of death that I have heard. I can't help weeping every time I watch it. I know that, even if the worst thing imaginable were to happen, and AnnaMarie were to die from diabetes, she would indeed be in a much better place, full of light and in the arms of the Lord. What could be bad about that? We are all headed there someday, sooner or later. There truly is nothing to fear in it.

So it goes with life, there is inspiration and comfort all around us, if we look for it. We all of us are going through our own great adventure, no less difficult than destroying the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. There is so much to learn from all that we experience, and so many things to do.

May we take the time each day to truly recount what we are here for, and to be grateful for the mission that we each have, no matter how insignificant our efforts may seem. They are not, not in the eternal scheme of things.

Blessings to you and your family today,

Love,

Marqueta

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Pippin: "I didn't think it would end this way."

Gandalf: "End? No, the journey does not end here. Death is just another path…one that we all must take. The grey rain curtain of this world rolls back and all turns to silver glass. And then you see it. . . . White shores…and beyond. A far green country, under a swift sunrise."