God is like Super Grover

     So God is like Super Grover. Over the past few months, Wes and I have had the opportunity to enjoy many a mornings snuggled up under a blanket, with our juice, watching Sesame Street. There are many educational, funny, wonderful parts of this tv show that I grew up loving and it hasn't changed too much. There are still sweet moments, lessons brought to you by the letter "C" and plenty of examples of the #14 to get the point across. One of the most recent skits on our favorite show is about the adventures of Super Grover 2.0. It's all about a super hero that does the best he can to help people and he actually does, but his selling point is that he shows up. Literally the one thing I remember about the beginning of every skit is "Super Grover 2.0: He shows up". 

     God is like that. He shows up. In fact, He's been sighted several times over the last few months at the Hassmer house. 

     David was told originally that VCHS would give $435 to cover the cost of his 9 credits at VCU this semester because he is currently an employee there. He was also told that because this is his first semester as a VCU student working towards his grad degree he owed $835 in fees. Let me say that although we are quite blessed to both have jobs during this time, we are by no means living "high on the hog". $835 is almost our entire mortgage. And GOD showed up. When David checked his student account so that we could make a payment schedule the computer screen read: Account Balance: $0. He showed up. No explanation, no change in the balance since last week. Just like Super Grover.

     This week we received a letter. Hand written from our loved ones. Wrapped in the letter were two Visa gift cards. $125. We can now pay for groceries this coming week and for David some new shoes so that he will be set for the semester of being a chaplaincy intern at MCV. And there we go. He showed up. again.

     No doubt GOD is probably not sporting a cape and a mask. And HE's probably not blue and fuzzy. But they do have one obvious thing in common. They're both there. Right when you need them. 

     

Oh Irene....

As many of you know, Hurricane Irene came in like a lion last Saturday and brought with her heavy rains and high winds. She took our power and left a BIG mess in her way. We have been incredibly blessed in the wake of this storm and still have our house, our health and will be continuing the clean up today with a chain saw. We lost all of our food in the fridge due to being without power for 4+ days but have been able to replace it little by little.  GOD has been so good to us and we are so thankful for the help of our parents during this time. David, Wesley and I stayed with my parents for our 4+ days without power and only had to take a few cold showers:) Here are a few pictures of our backyard post Irene. A large piece of a tree glazed the top of our roof, took out our floodlights and cable line (that wasn't hooked up anyway) and then landed on our shed. Thankfully the shed is still in one piece with tiny damages. I'm sure we'll get it fixed little by little. In the mean time, just thankful that we're all safe. 

 This is what we found when we came back after the storm on Sunday afternoon. Oh the cleanup. Much of it was done by my wonderful husband:)

 The front yard faired pretty well. Just a lot of branches and limbs to clean up.

Our poor shed. 

 My very sweet muscle man:) So blessed by him! He did a great job clearing all the debris!

The very best thing about Hurricane Irene was getting to spend precious moments with my parents. My Dad got to snuggle his grandson with blankies and milk and cartoons. 

And just for some added cuteness... Here is our hurricane dance:)

And.... we're back!

So this two weeks ago we went on our yearly adventure to Ocean City NJ to enjoy the sun and sand and spend time with our wonderful family. My sweet boy LOVES the boardwalk:) That's a good thing because his Daddy does too. For some reason this year we were quite sad when our NJ journey was over and so I decided to surprise David with a 2nd trip to the beach this past weekend! 

This is the picture I drew and put on the fridge. I didn't leave it there. Just took a video of it and then after dinner out at Fridays, let him watch the video. The car was packed, the reservations were made, and he was thrilled!

Daddy and Wesley got right to playing in the waves as soon as we got there. They thoroughly enjoyed the ocean and the sand! I think we both got our work out chasing Wesley around. Our days of sun bathing while sitting still are completely over:) Now, we sun bathe on the go!

 My precious boy learning about the ocean and listening to the waves. Probably my most favorite of all the pictures we took that day.

Wesley enjoyed playing in the sand with his awesome Walgreens sand toys:) I love watching him learn!

Basically, my summer has been spent enjoying, loving, snuggling, reading, traveling, kissing, tickling and holding my precious baby. I wouldn't have spent it any other way. We are so blessed!