No titles needed. It happens always. =)
We can still do most of our office work on the road but there are certain things we can only do at home and inevitably the office work piles up. Yummy coffee drinks from our very own personal barista help us get through the mountains of emails and projects! =)
Company time! One of the best things about being back home!
Practice, practice, practice…working up new music.
The youngest four loved taking history lessons from Miss Carolyn. This dear friend did a history class with us oldest five back when Hudson was a baby! Now it’s the younger ones turn to learn from her. She is an amazing teacher and makes learning so fun.
(pardon the messy room; this must have been one of those mornings right after company, in which sleeping bags and such were still piled up from the extra people of the previous night)
Our first week at home was spring cleaning at the hotel! Allison organized all the details and hired her willing siblings. Our crew varies from year to year but we always have a riot doing this-working hard and blasting our music throughout the hotel with the stereo cranked to 10 as we work.
There were several babies born at our church while we were gone. It was such fun to get home and meet them!
More company! People ask us sometimes what we do when we have company visit; well, there’s never a dull moment, and the activities vary quite a bit!
This particular morning (pictured above) we all got a free group vocal lesson from the mother of the family visiting us from Ohio.
Allison + I made a much-anticpated visit up to Manitoba to visit our cousin + her husband and meet their most charming little son who was born while we were on tour. We had a lovely time and capped it off with stopping in MN on our way home to surprise/meet with several dear friends for a birthday celebration. Of course the sister bonding time of the trip was wonderful as well.
Later on in April, Allison organized a surprise birthday celebration at HuHot for an Iowa friend!
April means…spring planting starts! One of the most wonderful times of the year! We were blessed with lots of rain and sun and a good planting season this spring.
Well what do you know…it’s company again. =) We love these sweet friends..they are currently living full-time in their bus and we are thrilled when they can stop by the farm and visit.
We celebrated Josh’s 19th birthday! (His birthday was actually in March but he opted to wait for his party til we got home)
We give unique gifts, as you can see from several of the ones he is holding above. =)
Some days the kitchen looks like this and it is quite discouraging….
We enjoyed a short weekend visit from this dear girl!
A beautiful Sunday lunch at the home of this dear legendary friend. What a treat.
Sunday dinner + afternoon relaxing with a dear friend from our church.
Sunday afternoon hymns around our friend’s grand piano. Sadly we didn’t have very many “just sit and play music together” moments in April. The littles did lots of individual practice and music lessons, but us older ones honestly didn’t get our instruments out hardly at all.
All the babies. Allllll the babies. =)
April also means time to get in the gardens and get things growing! =) Mom + her trusty crew of the six youngest spent many hours planting and getting things in shape.
Rebecca loved visiting with this little guy…only one week old! We had him and his family over for Sunday dinner after church one Sunday.
with the group of children while the moms had their study together.
So much fun to see all the pics! Love your heart for hosting guests & hospitatlity 🙂 Miss you guys!
Great post. Looking forward to seeing your family at New Hope tomorrow night!!
-Jennifer
Wow-I still can't believe y'all had us over after only being home 2 days! We loved it-thanks so much! Your hospitality is such a blessing to so many! I love seeing all your happy pictures=)
and btw…could y'all possibly teach our family the "do you love your neighbor" game when y'all come in September?(!!!) Allison was telling me about it at the retreat I think, but I forgot most of it=)
Tell Allison that I am glad she did not put coconut in the banana cream pie. I am have had to ask to get adopted. I got me a nice surprise for my birthday. It was a week late but I didn't mind. No physical gift though. I was voted by the church to train & become a Deacon of the church. Ooops maybe I shouldn't have wrote that here for I like my low profile to much. I can't wait for the celebration to see everyone again & keep the posts going as I love to read them.
i reckon ya'll were glad to be back home! looks like ya'll were busy and had fun! and those babies looked soo cute!
Clo, Is. 53:5, #UNASHAMED, heresclo.blogspot.com, YouTube channel-Clo Hale
Recognize some special memories in here, aww! And, amen, the word "legendary" sums up Mr. Christmas' hospitality so well. What a gent. These recaps are so great! ❤️
We're do u get all your clothes?
Rachael-absolutely; we would love to teach y'all! =)
Ash-haha, all over the place!! =) We are blessed with a fabulous consignment chain in Iowa (they have five locations across the state) and we get the majority of our clothes there. Also we love garage sales + thrift stores that we go to all across the USA. =) And Canada for that matter-if you ever visit Canada, be sure to go to a Value Village thrift store! =)
Other than that…we like Ross, TJMaxx, + Maurices (us girls), and Kohls + JCPenny (guys dress clothes) to name a few. Probably our favorite store for the whole family that is very dependable (as in that we can usually find what we are looking for there!) is Burlington Coat Factory.
I'm hoping to do a full post about this over on my personal blog sometime (www.daughterwithavision.blogspot.com) so stay tuned!=)
-Chelsy, for the Bontragers
grt
fantastic! We'll have to remember that!
And that thrift store…I will just have to visit again someday so I can see it for myself=)