Our year in Pictures

Our Christmas Letter

Dearest Family and Friends,

The Adams Clan wishes you and your families a very Blessed Christmas Season. We hope that you are enjoying all the blessings the Lord has bestowed upon you this past year and are looking forward to the blessings of another year.

This has been an unusual year in the Adams' house. The winter began with the kids practicing for their Children's Theater production of HONK!Jr. It was a lot of work with long practices, but in the end they enjoyed it and would like to do another one soon. The final performance was in May and lots of family and friends came out to see our little froglets.

In early spring we got to visit Greenfield Village with Grandma and Grandpa Adams. We actually did this several times over the course of the year, but the spring visit was a Civil War reenactment. The boys even enlisted in the army and were mustered out on the field. Poor Daniel thought he was really joining the army. He had a very sad face as he and his brothers marched out onto the field for some practice drills.

In June school ended and VBS began. Joel and Ben Brenner came for their annual visit while Mark and Renee went to Mexico for their 10th Anniversary. Lucky them!!! We had a great week with the boys. It is always fun having 5 boys and 2 girls in the same house for a week. It is true what they say though, after three or four kids the more you add it isn't really any harder, just louder!!

In July Grace, Sarah and I traveled with my mom and dad to North Carolina to see cousin Amy get married. We had a great time. The girls were great in the car and for the whole trip. Grace pretty much lived in the hotel pool and Sarah and Peyton, my niece, were joined at the hip! This was a trial run for our big family trip to Florida this coming June. I can't wait to write about that in our next Christmas letter.

August was quiet, but September brought big changes. September 1st we moved into a rented home in Hillsdale so that the church could handle some major repair issues at the parsonage. The rental house was big, beautiful, and temporary. We moved back to the parsonage on October 25th. On October 27th Doug received a call to be the sole pastor at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Britton, Michigan. After several weeks of heart to hearts with God, Doug accepted the call. So, November 23rd was Doug's last Sunday at St.Paul's in Hillsdale. We moved into the Emmanuel Parsonage on December 5th and Doug's installation was December 14th, just in time for Christmas. We have hit the ground running here, but are excited to see what the Lord has planned for us in this place.

We are all still occupied with our old hobbies too. Warhammer for Doug and the boys, violin for Grace and just being kids for Daniel and Sarah. I keep busy keeping everyone else busy and I find time to read an occasional book or surf the web. We look forward to hearing from all of you. We hope you have a very Merry Christmas as you celebrate the birth of our Lord!!

Blessings to you all,
Doug, Robyn, Grace 9, Nathan 8, Jacob 8, Daniel 5, and Sarah 3!
10925 Welch Rd
Britton, MI 49229

Offline

We will be going off line for a while. The new parsonage doesn't have internet yet. It is in the works. In the meantime I may find free wifi somewhere to keep you all posted. The movers will be here at 8am. Keep us in your prayers.

Our new address is 10925 Welch Rd. Britton, MI 49229
our cell phones will stay the same. Hope to talk to you all sooner than later.

Installation is Sunday December 14 at 3pm with dinner to follow. Please call the cell if you are planning on attending!!

We love you all!!

Blessings!

Some Thoughts

Tomorrow is election day. Are you voting? If you are registered you should. I will be. This is an important election. So much is riding on whom we put in office tomorrow. I won't give you my speech as to who you should vote for or why. Just vote. Oh and check out the "It's Time for More Coffee" blog. Interesting, very interesting.

Do you Facebook? I have caught the bug. I find myself checking my profile for updates at least three times a day. I call it a little mini reunion each time I log on. I have caught up with some dear high school friends and have been able to stay in touch with college friends too. Honestly, some of them I never would have seen or talked to again with out Facebook. Not that I didn't want to but I had no way of finding them to make contact. Facebook has given me that opportunity. It is exciting to see what everyone is up to and how we have all changed. Although I don't think we have changed as much as we think. Facebook has even given a forum to a group of College kids from our congregation in Hillsdale to petition Doug to stay at his call in Hillsdale. That brings me to my third point of the night. Oh and by the way, if you aren't on facebook yet, you should be. I would love to catch up with you there.

Doug received a call to Emmauel Lutheran Church in Britton Michigan this week. He has a few weeks to make a decision. We have looked over all the documents they have sent us and we plan on visiting this week sometime. They have a growing ministry in an area of the state that is growing. It is about 20 minutes south of Ann Arbor. Other neighboring towns are Techumsea, Dundee and Saline. It has a parsonage too. All of which will factor into Doug's decision. We have grown to love the people at St. Paul's and they us. Ultimately we know, however, whether we go or we stay, that the Lord has a plan for us and both congregations. He will provide for St. Paul's if we leave and he will guide Emmanuel to find the right pastor if we stay. He has a plan and we all need to remember that. Prayers are what is necessary now. Not selfish prayer, but prayers of thine will be done. Trust that the Lord will do what is best for all concerned, even if it doesn't look like it in our sinful eyes. Those are the hardest prayers to pray, I know, believe me, but isn't that what we want in the end. Imagine the world if we always got our sinful way.

No pictures tonight. My camera is broken and there is no where in Hillsdale to have it fixed. You can check out Aftermath for some good pics from this summer. Dad has made another great musically inhanced slideshow. Blessings all!! Spell check didn't work. Sorry for any spelling errors.

"Shut the Damn Door!"

Of all the things I worried about my kids picking up from watching Harry Potter movies, this was not one of them. I worried they might think magic was real. That there really was a Hogwarts or any number of other things. I did not, however, forsee the three year old picking up this obscure quote in the middle of the third movie. Maybe she picked it up because when I slip this is one word I use, more often than I care to admit. And add that to the number of times I am telling kids to shut doors around here, maybe that is why it stuck. Whatever the reason Sarah now says that phrase whenever she wants someone to shut the door. Cute? Not really, but as bad as it is, technically, it is funny. Can't you just here her screaming at an Elder at church to "Shut the Damn door?" I pray that never happens, but I would probably laugh before I punished her. :-)