Jael's 1st Birthday

Grandma B got to go to Maryland for Jael's first birthday on December 13th. We had a great party with friends and family. We had lunch and banana bread with icing for birthday cake, played games, and Jael opened lots of gifts. It was a fun time! I was so excited to be able to be there! Happy Birthday, Jael!

Jael and Delaney are both walking all over the place now. We will see everyone for Christmas, too! Yeah!!!

Jael's tricks

Delaney's First Birthday!!!

This past week we traveled to Ohio to celebrate our grandaughter, Delaney's first birthday! Yeah, Delaney!!! She is sooo cute, walking all over the place. Briana made chocolate cupcakes with pink icing. Delaney loved it! The whole fam was there. It was wonderful to see everyone, but especially our beautiful grandaughters! Jael has some special tricks, too. Love you all!

Luke preaching...

Hi All! Just thought you might want to check out our son-in-law, Luke's preaching debut at Mountain Christian Church in Baltimore, MD. The website is mountainchristian.org. Your can hear it on the podcast. He did a fabulous job! Love you, Luke!

What Martin does when nobody is watching!

He watches Animal Planet, of course! Actually, Mike puts him in the den and turns on Animal Planet whenever we have our Bible Study group here. (And you thought he didn't like Martin)

Honor Flight

Grandpa Dave went on the Honor Flight this week to Washington DC! They went first to the WWII memorial. Then they took a bus tour to many other memorials. They saw the White House from a distance. He said they don't go too close anymore. 88 Vets from Rochester and the area and 44 guardians (those who went to help the vets) took a charter flight from Roch. airport. When they returned at 10:10 p.m., probably 500-600 people were there to greet them. A bagpipe band played national and military anthems. Grandpa said he never shook so many hands before; all thanking the vets for their service!

When it rains, it pours...

Hi All! It's been awhile and boy, have we been busy! Things around the Benson house have been buzzin'. The last month we have had things go wrong: dishwasher troubles, water softener repair, clothes washer died, car accident, etc. etc. etc. So, we have gotten the water softener fixed, bought a new washer AND dryer, and are buying a new car to replace our wrecked van. [poor Olivia :( ]

I LOVE my new Honda Fit, "Belle!" And now we will be getting another Honda Fit (red), "Rudy!" This came about because of a car accident Mike had on Friday, Oct. 3. Another car ran a red light and BOOM! Thankfully, everyone involved is ok.

It was homecoming weekend for Mayo High School (Jim) this weekend, also. He had a friend come up from Iowa that he had met at camp. Candace is a lovely young lady. We were delighted to have her stay with us. It was VERY cold at the football game and, unfortunately, they lost. I heard the dance was great!

Sad News/Good News

No pics, just want to let everyone know that this past two weeks has been very hard. We got our mother-in-law, Millie, moved up to Rochester. Then we took her to doctor appointments. They told us to get her into the hospital right away. She was in a lot tougher shape than we knew. On August 6, she passed away. That is the sad news for us. The Good News is that she is now in heaven with her heavenly Father, and Kenny, and Karen. Thankfully, all knew and loved Jesus so we know that they are in a wonderful place. We will someday join them!

Back to Work

August 1st means back to the office for Mike. He will be continuing to get ready for the new school year at Crossroads

College.

We also want to say how proud we are of our son-in-laws. Luke finished his Master of Divinity program at Emmanuel and the fam will be moving to Baltimore soon to begin a new service for the

Lord with Mountain Christian Church. Ryan will graduate from

Notre Dame with his Masters in Accounting on August 8. They live in Columbus, Ohio. Congrats, guys!

Moving Miracles

In the past 10 days we have cleaned out, cleaned up, SOLD Grandma Millie's house, and moved her to MN. It actually sold before it even had the for sale sign up! She is now living in Arbor Terrace, an independent living center for seniors in Rochester.

Here are the new digs. It's a two bedroom apartment with lots of

amenities like 3 meals, nursing care when needed, housekeeping,

etc. Come and visit! It really was a miracle to get all that done, and

also selling Grandpa Dave's house in 5 days!

Summer Time

It's been a while... It's summer and Mike and I both have an academic schedule now, which means, SUMMERS OFF!!! We have been VERY busy taking care of parents and their houses. We have been cleaning out Dad's and will work on Gma Millie's this next week. We are planning to move Gma up here in the same facility as Gpa.

Summer trip to Sweden... Mike and Jimmy took a great trip to Sweden and Norway. They visited both Stockholm and Oslo and had a wonderful

time! Everything was VERY expensive. Even a Burger King chicken sandwich cost $10. There was lots of water. They saw lots of harbors, took a train trip across country, and experienced Scandinavian culture and cuisine (cold fish for breakfast??? not!). But they are both glad to be

home.

We spent some time in Illinois, too. Jael and Delaney love their Great-Grandma Benson. Briana and Delaney, and Holly and Jael

came to visit with everyone. The girls met both great-grandmas and great-aunts and uncles and cousin Tess. Then I got to go to Briana's house and spend another whole week with the girls! I've been in grandma heaven this summer! It's a good gig!

Relaxing Holiday

We had a nice, relaxing holiday weekend. The weather was beautiful here. See our beautiful tree? We putted around the house and yard some. We went to see "Indiana Jones" on Friday evening. Grandpa Dave was with us on Sunday. We went to the cemetary and put out some flowers. We watched BOTH the Indy 500 and NASCAR races.

We also went out to the Honda dealer to look at the new Honda Fit cars. They only had one that someone was buying at that time. We walked in to the dealer and the salesman asks if he can show us anything. Mike said, "No, I know what I want. I want to order a 2009 Honda Fit!" So, just like that, we ordered one, delivery in Dec .

(Easiest sale that guy ever made!)

On Monday, WE STAYED HOME!!! Really! We didn't run any errands or anything! We sat around the house all morning. We took a nice walk around the neighborhood. We had our small group over for a great cookout. We saved gas. I can't believe I'm saying this, but we are so green. Ha! In all, we had a great Memorial weekend. Hope you did too.

I are a college graditate!

Yeah for Michie! She is now a college graduate with a

degree in English and minor in Journalism. She earned

her degree from Millersville Univ. in Lancaster, PA.

The whole Benson bunch was there! Turns out

that Mike and I can't dress right for pics though.

What coordination :) But, hey, at 9:00 p.m. it

was just good to have the babies awake and still

long enough for a picture.

Prom

Jim had prom Sat. night for Mayo High School.

He went with his friend, Kajo (Kaitlyn Orwoll).

Don't they look F A B U L O U S !

Jim's B-day!

Jim is officially 17 today! We had his favorite supper of Chinese food, followed by German chocolate cake... a very international supper! He had a party with some friends at our house. Mom and Dad and Martin are stuck up in the den. My baby is growing up :( or maybe :)

Half a Century!

Happy Birthday to me! On Friday, April 25th, I celebrated my 50th birthday. I got some beautiful flowers from my wonderful husband delivered to me at work. A co-worker brought in some donuts. I received a few other gifts from friends. Then we went to the Crossroads College Dream Banquet that night. Gene Appel, the senior minister from Willow Creek Church in Chicago, was the speaker and was very good. They honored my Mikey for all he did filling in as interim president the last couple years! Very cool! The only bad thing was that is was freezing outside and actually SNOWING!

On Sunday, we went out to Olive Garden restaurant with family. Then we came home for cake and ice cream. A good time was had by all! And I'm still 50...

The best gift of all was a scrapbook album made by Mike.

He collected old and young pics of me and family, got recent

grandbaby pics (how adorable they are!), and notes from

my wonderful kids. It is the most fantastic labor of love!

How I adore my Mic! Love to you all! Thanks for such a

Great birthday!

Spring has Sprung!!!

Finally, Spring has sprung so we were outside today cleaning up and raking the yard. It's 68 degrees! Yeah!

As for everything else... Grandpa Dave is in a nursing home getting some therapy for a couple weeks. We are in the process of looking for an assisted living apt. for him. It's a tough step, but good to think he will have some independence but yet always have someone else around.

Grandma Millie gave us a scare this weekend, too. We got a call that said she was in the hospital with possible heart problems. They believe her medicine was slowing her heart and making her short of breath. Hopefully its all figured out now. She will be going home tomorrow.

Grandma B. (IL) also has some treatments this week. We wish the grandmas were all here in Roch. so we could see them more and help more in their care.

Have a great week and we'll post some news next weekend after someone around here gets old...

What a week!

We've had quite a week around here. My dad, or as most of you know him, Grandpa Dave, has been having back problems and other problems for some time. In the last couple weeks, though, we've seen a decline in his condition. We brought him to our home to stay for a while, but it was harder than I thought. He can't even get himself out of a chair and definitely not the bed. Sooo, yesterday we took him to the emergency room. (We tried to make a dr. appt. but couldn't get in for 2 weeks.) They admitted him and we're now talking trying to get some rehab in a nursing home. The social worker will come by Monday. Other than that, We had company on Thur. night for supper and had a great time. Then, our former youth minister, Jerry Ackerman came to town to speak at our youth MN Christian Convention. He stayed with us Thur. night, too. It was great catching up with him. Mike had to go to WI for their convention. My plan was to go along, but that all changed. I had also planned to do a lot of other things this week as it was a spring break from work and school. But, I guess the Lord had other plans. "A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." Proverbs 16:9

Our Easter Darlings! :)

Aren't they beautiful?

These are our gran-

daughters, Delaney

and Jael.

How you doin?

Hey der from tropical Minnesota! It's a balmy 40 degrees here. I'm just starting this blog thing. Hope I'll figure it out. We have Spring (??) break this coming week. My plan is to clean out the basement. Mike still has to work so no vacation for now. But today is Friday (and Sunday's comin'!) so we will go out to dinner with some friends from our small group Bible study. We had a great Easter last Sunday and announced the soon to be name of our church. It will be changing as we build on some property in SW Rochester. It will be called Hope Summit Christian Church. OK, I've got to figure out the rest of this so, I'll write more later. Post some comments!!!