Home Sweet Home!

Okay, you endured my whining about how much I missed home while we were in Canda.  Since we've been home, I've been planning a photo scavenger hunt to show you why I love my home so much!  But it has been very rainy, or I have been so busy that I couldn't justify a crazy outing all by myself.  Today, in all the heat and humidity, I took my camera and declared it pic time!
We live right smack dab in the middle of suburbia.  I'm the soccer mom (and various other sports and activities) who drives an SUV.  It's not that I want to damage the environment.  I need all that space because I've got so many kids!

However, God blessed us three years ago when we moved into our current home (and I've sworn I'll never move again).  Our lot backs up to county owned property for a park and lakes.  It's gorgeous!  Deer stroll through our yard.  We have a Thanksgiving Day parade of turkeys just about every day.  Love it!

Plus the lakes are very close by too.  To get to our home, we could choose to drive through neighborhoods filled with subdivisions filled with homes.  0r down the main strip lined with retail everything, fast food, and stoplights.  Or there is another way!  Over the lakes, across the damn, and through the beauty of the park area.

One guess which way is my favorite?

Even with a carload of kids, it is so peaceful. 

I'm not really a "lake person."  I think my younger brother ruined lakes and ponds for me years ago growing up when he'd freak me out teasing me about fish, snakes, and snapping turtles nibbling on me.  There was the time when I loved skiing and fishing...before it got yucky.  Maybe now I just love the lake because of memories?  It's so beautiful when sail boats are out .

Other things I love are watching the seasons change.  In the early spring you can watch the bare trees become covered in a veil of faint green before the leaves begin to burst out of their tiny swollen buds.  Then all the amazing shades of green are speckled with the pinks of red buds.  Autumn find the hillsides covered in blazing colors of reds, oranges, golds, and greens.  Even the bareness of winter is beautiful in the snow and ice as all of nature waits for new life in the spring.  Love it!

Watching the moods of the lake is fascinating.  Calm, clear, cloudless days where the blues of the lake and the blues of the sky are so vibrant.  Gray and stormy days when the waters seem to reflect the tempest in the sky.  Wind whipped days that stir the waters white-capped waves.  Love it!

So here is the beauty we live with every day...

The spillway between the upper and lower lakes is rushing with rain water.

This Blue Heron and I spotted one another at the same moment.  As I snapped a picture, he took flight. 

Do you see him against the trees?

When the upper lake is over full, water rushes down the waterfall.

The kids all love to watch it when it.

Had a hard time safely taking a good picture of the beauty of the waterfall. 

One of the first words Keziah learned from her Chinese speaking Dora DVD's was "waterfall"!

We gave Keziah's family a calendar with scenic photos taken from around our state.

The calendar included a photo of this tree with its branches bare in the winter at sunset.  BEAUTIFUL!

God just loves to show off the beauty of His creation!