Settling In Gradually

Sorry if you couldn't read our blog for a while. I tried to let people know on Facebook that I was going private for a while. But, several people didn't seem to get that message and were wondering why they couldn't view our blog. I had done the switch at the time when there was a known child predator/murderer roaming our streets here in the Arvada/Westminster area. But, thank God, he was caught! So, I decided to go public, again. I'm so thankful to the perpetrator's mother, who voluntarily turned her son in, by being the one to call the police on him when he started admitting what he had done to her. It's so sad that he was just 17 years old, Penny's age! And he brutally murdered a girl who was just 10 years old. She was attending the same elementary school that the murderer attended just a few years prior. This girl was abducted just within two blocks of her home on her way walking to a park to meet friends to walk together to school. This all happened just a couple weeks after we moved in. It all happened within 5 miles of our new home. That was enough to make any mom nervous. I was already uneasy about moving to a bigger city. But, then again you just never know what can happen, anywhere. My family lives in a much smaller city and just last night my brother witnessed a robbery before his eyes at the convenience store where he works. Good reminders that we are just in God's hands and must be grateful for each moment that we've been given. The good part about living in the city is that there are lots of opportunities for field trips. Denver has lots of "Free Day's" at their museums, zoo, etc. So, we've already taken advantage of the Free days at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the Zoo.

We were so excited to see the new Elephant Exhibit at the Denver Zoo. They modeled it after a Thai Elephant Refuge that the zoo officials visited. There are even signs in Thai at the new exhibit.

Parts of it were fun for Penny to see and some parts made her sad that it wasn't quite the same as Thailand. We're gradually settling in and are finding the home school enrichment group on Fridays to be a great way for Penny to begin to connect with nice girls her age and for me to meet other moms with similar interests. In fact, the director of the musical for the home school group lives really close to our home and it turns out that we're going to help each other out with pet sitting while our families are both gone on vacation during different weeks in December. We're so thankful for new connections through that and through our church, where the home school group meets. Now comes the busy holiday concert season. So, you can all be praying for stamina for Jay as it's one of the busiest times of the year for a music teacher. After he wraps up that season we're planning on visiting family in South Dakota not only to celebrate Christmas, but also to attend my brother's wedding!