The Talens' Tales

This was supposed to be the first of probably a few post about our wonderful family vacation in Michigan with my parents and sisters. Instead it is a post about our vacation, on PEI. The kids at home with Oma, Opa, Tante Reina and Wilbert. Wilbert home with the kids or visiting me...at the hospital. At 4 am on the morning of July 15th, instead of going to the airport to fly to Michigan with the kids, Wilbert and I drove to the hospital where I was soon admitted and fast tracked to have my gall bladder removed. A little bit of background. I have been struggling for a while with random bouts of pain in my abdomen and back. Back in October of 2016, I did go the ER with this pain. At that time, the doctor determined I was having esophageal spasms, a surprisingly common thing for a woman who had a baby 5 or 6 month ago. After my time in the ER, I did not have any further issues until April of this year. In April, I had 10 of these episodes in 20 days. Most often they would last for ...

Are any of you on this "Word for the Year" things? I am not totally die hard about it, but as we have already flown through January, I have made an unofficial one for myself. Well, more of a phrase actually. Just do it. Which yes, I know it is the Nike slogan, but I am talking about many things other than running really fast. It plays out in many contexts, which is why I can't really find one other word or phrase to sum it up well. This just fits. 1) Just do those things you keep putting off. Like writing our will. Today, we had our appointment with our lawyer to sign those. They were pretty standard and we know we will need to change some things in 5  years or so, but after three years of saying we should do it, we finally did. 2) Just do those things with your kids. Take 10 minutes to colour a picture with Mataya before you tackle the farm book keeping. Take 15 minutes to read a book with Joash before you clean the bathrooms. Take 5 minutes to give Gideon all of...

Last week, I hosted a fun and unique event one evening. I had a Shoe Cutting Party for Sole Hope . The basic idea is simple. Invite your friends over. Have everyone bring a pair of jeans they no longer need or want and a pair of scissors. Then spend the evening tracing and cutting out pieces of the jeans you brought for the top half of shoes for kids in Africa. I had fully intended to take cute and fun pictures of my friends cutting out shoes during the party. Then, when I realized I had forgotten to do that, I made a mental note to take a picture of the piles of shoes we had cut out. Unfortunately, I remembered that after I had packaged the shoes in a box and taped it all up really well. So, the above pictures is what you get. A box with 25 pairs of shoes to be sent to Sole Hope's office in the States before being shipped to Uganda where the Ugandan shoemakers employed by Sole Hope will put these shoes together.  But, the party was great. I kept all of my materials beca...

It is hard to believe it, but we have a Kindergarten graduate in the house. Just one more 1/2 day of school and summer is upon us. We are all excited for that, especially since Grandpa and Grandma arrive from Michigan tomorrow afternoon. Joash's class had a very nice closing program for their graduation and it reminded me of so many of the things I love about Immanuel Christian School. Here are a few: Joash and all of his classmates singing songs of praise to God with lots of enthusiasm. Joash's whole class pray together The grade 8/9 class came to watch the program as well. What a neat community. Mr. Mann, the principle, sitting on a kid size chair so he could speak directly to the kindergarten class. We are so thankful for this school and all of the people who are part of it. We are already looking forward to the fall and what Grade 1 will bring.

Alas, our streak of good travel did not continue for the journey home. Let's start at the beginning. For some reason, we decided that we knew how to get the airport from my parents house. So we were in lead the driving and we totally missed the exit. And of course, there wasn't another exit to get turned back around for another 11 miles. Thankfully, we had left my parents house a bit earlier than we needed too, so we arrived in time. Check in went just fine. But, when we brought our checked bag to the counter it was 2 lbs over weight. When we travel to Michigan, we try to pack as lightly as possible. I always do laundry at my parents house, so I basically pack 3-4 outfits for each person and we just repeat through the week. So, all four of us had fit in 1 standard size suitcase and one backpack that we used for carry on. I was hopeful that the person at the desk would see this and let our overweight bag pass. But, no. We would have to pay a overweight baggage fee. Thankfull...

Sometime I find is hard to know what to share about my life and what God is doing in it. I feel I have a wonderful, but rather average life. I am a dairy farmer's wife and mom. My days consist of driving to places for my kids or husband, housework, cooking and laundry. I like to read, do puzzles and make cards in my spare time. I am involved in a few different things at my church. We are all healthy and we are not in great need of anything. So sometimes I think that what I see God doing in my life isn't really worth telling other people about. There is little drama or excitement. But for the past two years I have been a part of a group in our church whose main objective is help us do just that - tell our story. And to tell it to help disciple others in their walk with God as well. And something big in our lives happened this week that God has been prodding me to tell. So, here I go. That big thing is... we sold a house. Now this may not seem like a big thing in the gr...

Yesterday we woke up to a covering a snow on the ground. While it was mostly gone by noon, there was still a small pile that had slid off of our roof in the shade that had not melted by the time Joash got home from school. So he and Mataya eagerly played in snow for a while in the afternoon. While I am a not quite ready for winter yet, I love how my kids remind me of the wonder and joy of the changing seasons.

Now we really can't see out of the window. And Joash did not have school on Thursday either, so the poor guy is a bit out of sorts. And it has been too stormy and col for him to really enjoy being outside. This has been a really crazy week. Last week Saturday, we had 700 pigs move into our pig barn. Another farmer on the Island had a roof cave in on one of his barns, so they needed a place for these pigs. We are grateful to help, but it does make for extra work. More animals that need to be fed since the automatic feeding system no longer works. More area to snow blow since we now have to have access to all of the barns. Overall it is good, but I have one tired and hardworking husband (and father-in-law.) And while I always say I don't mind winter when I can watch it from inside my cozy house, I will admit I am going a little stir crazy. I am hoping to venture into the town tomorrow to stock up on groceries and I am looking forward to church on Sunday. I didn't get to...

We have been having some wonderful sunsets the last few nights. A great way to welcome fall and a nice welcome to our new house. Enjoy some pictures of our view from the farm.

Little boy plays in the rain. Catches water from the down spout in a bucket. Pours water from one bucket to another. Joy in the rain.  Little boy looks at little sisters animal blanket. "God made that, and that, and that." Looks at mama and states, "God made me because he loves me." Mama fights back tears of joy and talks about how God made and loves every person in the world.  His little bucket of a mind is filling up with things of God. This mama is so thankful for that. For a  family, a church and a community that also want to fill his bucket with things of God. Because the biggest prayer in this mama's heart is that her little boy will grow up to be a great big man who knows and loves his Creator. And that he pours the love in his bucket into others' buckets.

Sorry for all of you who have been following this saga on Facebook, but I thought the blog needed one post about the corn field. You see, this is a big deal. It is the first time in 27 years of farming on this Island that this farm has planted and harvested corn. It was the dream of my husband and this year it became a reality. Having grown up surrounded by corn fields, I never really thought one person could get so excited about a field of corn. But his excitement was contagious, both to myself and Joash.  There were many trips to check on the corn after it was planted. And then Monday was the day. The day to chop corn. While my almost three year old is usually pretty excited to get up in morning, I have never seen him as ready for a day as that morning. He ate his breakfast quickly, got dressed easily and then stood by the door and declared, "I am ready to go to the farm!" We bagged it this year and there was more corn silage there than anyone thought. We fill...

Yesterday was a wonderful day for me as a mother. Since it was Good Friday, when Joash asked where we were going today, I said, "Church. Even though it is Friday." I then tried to do my best to explain that we went to church today to remember that Jesus died on the cross to take away our sins and we go to church to praise God and worship God for doing that for us. He remembered that and even told it to Wilbert when he came in from that barn. At our church service, the ushers handed out pieces of paper with red dots on them. During the final song of the service, the congregation was invited to come to the cross, place the paper in a tub of water and watch it disappear. It was very crowded to get to the front, which is good. So, while we were waiting (and this pregnant mom was getting really uncomfortable. I just needed to stand up and stretch my back out a bit), I thought maybe we should just take our paper home and do it with Joash. Wilbert agreed and I snuck out to stretch...

This week has been a bit of a tough one. One of Wilbert's childhood friends passed away after a year long battle with cancer. He would have been 29 this month. He leaves behind a wife and two kids, ages 3 and 4, along with his parents and siblings. He was the youngest in his family. He leaves behind a dairy farm he was born to take care of. But with his death, he also left behind a year of pain and suffering. A year of being frustrated that he could not do the things he wanted to do. A body that was broken and wasting away. Today at his funeral, the pastor commented on how this man was a quiet man. But when he spoke, it was something important that he had to say. The pastor also said how really this man spoke through his actions, which really did speak louder than words. And when you look back on his actions, his faith is evident. What do my actions say to others? Is my faith clearly evident? As a person who loves language and words, I can often over look the power of actions...

This post has been rolling around in my head for a while. But, we were all under the weather the last part of the week, so I never got it up. So, some of you may have already seen the different pieces of this blog in other places. We are on our own. Wilbert brought his parents to the airport this morning and they are off for a three week trip in Europe. So, we are on our own as farmers for the longest time we have ever been on our own yet. It is exciting. And scary. Dipping our toes a bit further into what it means to be farmers and to be completely on our own. To know the good and the bad. That things don't always go right, or go like you had planned. Just this morning, twin calves were born. Too early. The cow was outside as she wasn't expected to deliver for another month. Nothing to be done and the calves were both lost. This is the life of a farmer. I am sure many of you saw this commercial during the Superbowl. It made us proud to be farmers and so many of the things...

Now that the Christmas tree is down, we have been getting creative again in our fort building. Joash really enjoys hiding out in the caves and showing them off of Daddy when he comes home from milking.  This one uses the space behind the chair and the couch cushions. Cheese! We have also been hiding out in Romans! We are two weeks into our memorization project and things are going well. I have been enjoying it quite a bit. It is so good to hide these words in your heart. I also really like having a whole week to learn the verses. It doesn't feel like there is a crazy amount of pressure to memorize, but by the end of the week, it is there. By doing a little bit every day, it adds up to a whole lot. One of the surprises of this was that Joash is memorizing little bits as well. I was so blessed to hear him repeat the words, "Holy Scriptures" over and over again while grocery shopping the other day. It just proves how much is soaks in of what we say. Proves ...

Joash likes to do puzzles. And he actually is getting quite good at them. When he does put a piece together correctly, I am quick to heap on the praise. "Give me a high five." " Nice work!" "That's awesome." Sometime he gets stuck on a certain piece and insists that it goes in a place it does not fit... He will jam it it, clap his hands, look at me and self praise. "Awesome!" squeaks out his little voice. I try to direct him to put the piece in the proper spot, but this often leads to stubborn protests and continuous jamming the piece in the spot he thinks it belongs. Sometimes, it leads to tears. I say, "Look Joash, this doesn't make a picture."  While I am happy to have an independent, thinking outside of the box child, when you are doing a puzzle, the piece have to go in the right spot. Otherwise you can't see the whole picture. Watching Joash today putting pieces in the wrong and the right spots today, I gave t...

As Joash grows, he keeps reaching for things. Like light switches. Now that we are in winter and it is dark so early, he is quick to say,"turn lights on." He is also learning he can do some of them himself. In the play room, he can reach the light switch if he stands on tiptoes on his little stool And in the basement, he does this... He uses a tool (rolled up posters that I saved from my classroom) to help reach the light switch. I was so surprised the first day he did this. Blown away by what the mind of a two year old can figure out. I, too, have been finding myself reaching for the last while. I have been challenged and humbled in so many ways be the people around me. Challenged to grow in my relationship with God. Humbled to see others around me who are in the same boat and making a conscience effort to do something about it. So, I too have been looking for ways to do this better. To learn more, to grow, to be the best follower of God, wife and mom I can be. A few...

 Happy New Year everyone! Joash took part in a few New Year's Eve traditions like the party blower (a non-noise making one thankfully) and had his first olie bolen. He did not however take part in the staying up until midnight tradition. He had a sleep over at Opa and Oma's house. We hope that everyone had a wonderful new year. We are certainly looking forward to seeing what this next year holds in store.

Today after lunch, Joash decided that he wanted to take a pretend nap with Dad before his real nap. Wilbert was more than happy to pretend with Joash. He even introduced Joash to the fine art of fake snoring. Soon, Joash would lay his head on his bunny and proceed to snore. It is was really cute, and reminded me of all the other ways Joash copies us already. For example, the other day we were reading devotions after supper. Wilbert is a finger-licking page turner. After devotions, Joash wanted to look at the Bible a bit more. He then licked a few fingers on one hand and turned the page in the Bible. He used the hand he did not lick to turn the page, but it was still really funny. Joash has decided he likes to brush his teeth now. He likes to try and do it himself, and his favorite part is rinsing off his toothbrush in the sink. He rinses the brush and then taps it a few times on the edge of the sink. I know he learned that from me, because we often brush our teeth together. Wil...

Remember this? Oh yeah. The house that we still  own in Minnesota. Thankfully it has been rented out the majority of the time since we have moved. Unfortunately, it looks like our renters are moving out the end of this month. So, we are back to the same old stresses of last summer. During the time it was rented, I sort of forgot about it. I got comfortable. I became self-reliant. What can I do? How can I make this situation better? And now I am a overwhelmed with the enormity of owning a home in a different country, wondering how on earth we are going to make our mortgage payments in a few months. I am pleading with God to bring the people to town who will buy this house and bring them soon. Like today. I sound like broken record. I am relearning the same lessons I learned last summer. I have more to learn about this whole trust thing. Prayers are appreciated as we learn to trust that God's plan is perfect in this. And if you happen to know of ...