Pictures

the picture on the right makes me giggle....she really does like that blanket that's just the type of day we had today. A good friend of mine knit it for me....and this picture only captures part of its splender. It's a keepsake for sure.

snuggles with Daddy

first day at home

e-mail campaign

Hello to those that followed the link. 

If you are looking for more pictures here are a few options

tumbler @lofstromadventures

instagram @cmlofstrom or @mollz2

a few are on facebook because I didn't know my tumblr was linked to facebook. 

Thanks for visiting our blog and I hope to get more pictures up here soon along with my promised "Marcelyn Story" of the day she was born. I have some great pictures from that day thanks to my mom-in-law and brother...they just happen to be on our laptop and not on my iPad...yet.

Anyway enjoy!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2014!
Can't believe another year has passed already.  Once again I did a horrible job of keeping this updated.   A lot has happened but nothing quite as heartbreaking as the passing of my (Molly) Grandma Dinkel.  She was 87 years old, but one of the hardest things I've been through yet.  Thankfully though nothing near as hard as I was expecting. Her passing was not sudden, but she did not linger either. She went very peacefully and as comfortably as possible.  Letting go is, from what I've learned so far, a process.  She's been gone for almost two months now and it still doesn't feel real. When we were together Christmas Day it felt like at any moment she would burst through the door and start bossing us around.  It was very weird not having her there.

Lots happened in 2014

Found out we were pregnant 4 days before mother's day so I got to tell my mom on mother's day she would be a grandma. Best day ever!!

Okay I have to tell you the story :) Mother's day is a Sunday so I could have told her at church, but knew she's hate me forever because she would have freaked...and dad would have cried. We had the family over to the house for lunch and mom opened gifts. Chris and I got her a willow tree figurien that said grandmother on it...thankfully kind of small. I wrapped it out of the box because it said it rather largely on the box on each side. Anyway the story gets a little funnier if we back up to when everyone was getting there. my brother Chris and Amanda had driven together and as they were walking in Amanda said, jokingly, "it would be really cool and funny if Chris and Molly told us they were going to have a baby hahahaha" LOL!! She called it. Mom unwrapped her gift and oooed and awwed over it, but didn't get it. I told her to read me the bottom (that said grandmother on it) she couldn't quite read it, but Amanda who was sitting right next to her read it and screamed "Are you serious??!!!" Mom finally gets it to where she can read it and just says "Really?!!" and Dad was like "What....what does it say....?" Then he called it....are you guys preagnant or something. OOOh YEAAAY....hahaha it was great. I have it on video somewhere, but promised I wouldn't share it.  I was glad we got to surprise them. it was fun. Oh then after all the rush wore off she said "I'm so glad you didn't give me a rose at church, I wouldn't have handled that well." I don't remember exactly what she said word for word, but I do remember he telling me she would have hated it.  

Chris and I celebrated 5 years of maraige and took a trip to San Fransisco in June.  We posted pictures of that on facebook. I'm not sure what my favorite part of the trip was. I got to go to China Town, cross the Golden Gate Bridge, ride in a cable car past Lumbard Street, touch the Pacific Ocean (which happened to be cold) and go see Redwood trees.  I got to experience my first passenger train in the US outside of an airport, and try some new sea food.  I also learned why so many people love California, it's because everything (even the most boring highway) is beautiful.  There was a house that literally had 15 different types of trees and shrubs in their front yard it was amazing.  

in July my older brother got married in Albania which is still a little of a hard subject to talk about.  Everyone downplayed it like it was going to be a small happening and it wouldn't be a big deal that we miss it....well it was fancier than most weddings are here in the the states. and I missed it. I got to see pictures and videos....but I missed a lot....it was beautiful and I missed it. They came back to the states and had a wedding in September so that made it a little easier, but just as I had suspected it wouldn't be the same....it wasn't their first. They weren't.....well you get the point. I was the maid of honor....which I found that detail out like 3 days before the wedding. I texted Visi some details and she replied "you're such a great maid of honor" lol so that's how I found out I was the maid of honor. 

at that point I was 5 months pregnant and we didn't have dresses picked out until about 4 or 5 weeks before the wedding....and I was growing each week....so anything that we bought in the store was going to have to be majorly altored. So mom made the executive discion to sew the dresses. Long story short mine ended up with a corset back because I grew 4 inches in a week and she was working on my dress a week or two before the wedding and we didn't want to have to resew my dress the night before the wedding. 

Then baby drama started. The last trimester was a roller coaster. Baby Lofstrom was transverse and riding rather high up until the last two weeks or so before she was born.  To read that whole story you can read that in the next post. 

And rather than read through this for the 100th time and not post this. I'm going to post this and just apologize for typos and spelling errors. I'm writing this while on my iPad trying out a new keyboard.  It's also kind of late....anyway it's my post about 2014 to get you up-to-date. 

Oh the life in a trailer park.... and the story of Li

It's March already!
And YES we live in a trailer park....

Not that there's anything wrong with living here, we are truly blessed to have such a nice home and to have the opportunity to own our home in such a short amount of time.  This blessing has come with lots and lots of stretching though.  It has been good for both Chris and me.
I have realized that not only are we in one of the poorest parts of our town, the people that live her are some of the most interesting....and unusual people I've encountered so far.  They view themselves as stuck.  To them there is no hope, no hope of ever having a life any better than what they have now.
Chris and I moved to this neighborhood because we were tired of renting, but weren't ready for a life long commitment of a house mortgage.  We know that we are only going to live here for a short time.  When driving through the neighborhood one can tell who has our mind set (we are only here for a season and to better our lives) and those that do not.  Those that do not....well....we will just say you can tell without much study to their home.  It is VERY easy to get caught up in the fact that this neighborhood is messed up and hopelessly headed in a downward spiral.  Thankfully there is hope....named Jesus.  God has placed us here and each day we drive through it becomes more and more apparent that He has placed us right where we are.  I regularly have to remind myself of this.

It's March already!

And YES we live in a trailer park....

Not that there's anything wrong with living here, we are truly blessed to have such a nice home and to have the opportunity to own our home in such a short amount of time.  This blessing has come with lots and lots of stretching though.  It has been good for both Chris and me. 

I have realized that not only are we in one of the poorest parts of our town, the people that live her are some of the most interesting....and unusual people I've encountered so far.  They view themselves as stuck.  To them there is no hope, no hope of ever having a life any better than what they have now.  

Chris and I moved to this neighborhood because we were tired of renting, but weren't ready for a life long commitment of a house mortgage.  We know that we are only going to live here for a short time and not for the rest of our lives like some people do.

It is VERY easy to get caught up in the fact that this neighborhood is messed up and hopelessly headed in a downward spiral. When driving through the neighborhood one can tell who has our mind set (we are only here for a season and to better our lives) and those that do not.  Those that do not....well....we will just say you can tell without much study to their home.   Thankfully there is hope....named Jesus.  God has placed us here and each day we drive through it becomes more and more apparent that He has placed us right where we are.  I regularly have to remind myself of this.  

It's a hard group of people to reach out to, we have learned so far.  I personally have learned that Chris and I are, very much, people that like to improve the environment, and our neighborhood is one that likes to maintain or what they try to think is maintaining....when in reality it's falling apart before their very eyes.  We have learned that this mentality is a poverty mentality.  To do nothing at all is maintaining.   Poverty says if the way you know how to fix it doesn't work, then it can't be fixed.   I recently came to this revelation when Hays received record amounts of snow a few weeks ago.  Our maintenance system, I'm not really sure what to call it because, well I guess I'll stop and explain.  Ok, so when we first moved here we had an actual hired and payed maintenance man that lived and worked in our neighborhood.  Now they've decided to out source this job to a company.  When we got all the snow they were supposed to plow our streets, well after being snowed in for 3 1/2 days I decided to call and see why we weren't getting our streets plowed.  Now keep in mind we are talking 18" of snow on the ground, and I drive a G-6. I talked to our manager and she said our neighborhood plow was broken down and stuck in Salina, KS.  Yes, stuck in Salina, Kansas....90 miles away.  Why our plow was an hour and half away I have no idea.  Oh and our manager said that we were going to have to wait a week before it would be back.  I though about asking her if she had talked to the City, but if she had the streets would probably be plowed.  My next call was to the city, and guess what? The streets were plowed the NEXT DAY!! What I learned from this was that our manager is probably stuck in this poverty mentality, which would be why our streets and neighborhood is the way it is.  What I can do now is either sit back and nit pick at what she is or isn't doing or I can offer her a solution.  I would have to say the first one is what I have been doing up to this point, but it was because I honestly couldn't understand how someone could be that clueless to the world around them.  I now understand that she's not only clueless. She had no idea, and probably no way of getting one because of the way she was raised.  Yes, that sounds condemning, but isn’t that what the world is?  Putting you in a place of constant failure with now hope of ever amounting to anything.  

My goal now is first and foremost to pray for her, but also find common ground to hopefully share the gospel with her.  At this point I have no clue how to do it in a way that she will accept it. 

As far as life at our house things are going well.  I'm still working at the local Christian radio station and for the lady that goes to our church; and Chris still works at Hess Services as a CNC programer.  I'm amazed to watch God continue to use us.  I will confess that every ounce of me wants to be in China, and it breaks my heart every time someone asks me when we will go next.  I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt we are exactly where God wants us.  I also know that my burning desire for China is no accident either.  God continues to show me new ways this calling can be met.  We recently have had the honor of befriending a Chinese student.  Well actually he's not the student his girl friend is.  I guess I may as well tell you his story.

The Story of Li:

Li comes from a very rich family in China and he was enjoying life.  He had studied graduated from college, but decided to live the life of a partier.  His girl friend did not like this life so several months ago she broke up with him and came to Hays to go to Fort Hays State University.  Sounds like a movie right?    Li is here on a tourist visa but is here to prove to his girlfriend that he knows how to work and is willing to do whatever it takes to win her back.  Cue Americans.  About a month ago we had a special speaker at our church and dad was at the hotel to pick him up.  Outside the hotel was a very confused and lost Chinaman.  Dad being the nice helpful American asked Li if he could help him.  Li asked if he could get a ride to F-H-S-U. Then dad called me and gave me his contact information.  (this was a Saturday).  He's now been to church every week since he's been here AND he works every afternoon at the church.  He says his relationship with his girlfriend is on the mend (of corse not in those words).  We have not met his girlfriend yet, but we can tell he still has very strong feelings and we can only pray she has some of the same feelings as well.  We have known Li for about a month now and it is amazing to see how he has fit into our family.  God really knows how to work things out for his glory, just when we all needed a little breath of fresh air he sends a young man from China.  Li plays the clarinet just like my little sister does so Li has gladly taught Amanda some very helpful tips, just when she was about to throw in the towel on band too.  I had just been going through a rough spot wondering why I wasn't in China....little did I know God would bring China to me.  Li has opened my eyes again to the huge Chinese student population at FHSU that is largely unreached.  What amazes me most is how well Li speaks English and how much he has taught us about his culture.  I'm looking forward to watching the relationship to grow and God only knows where it will lead.  

To Be Continued

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Wow how 2012 flown by!
What a blessed year it has been too! I was able to send out Christmas cards this year for the first time on my own.  I would have liked  to have had a letter inside all of them to give everyone a year update, but it just didn't happen.  Feel free to scroll down and read other posts to see other happenings from the year.  I'm going to pick up from my last post.

Since my last post we harvested our garden several months ago and have several quart size bags of peppers and glass jars of tomatoes in our freezer that we are slowly enjoying.
September we started a new year of Royal Rangers and Girls Club.  I started teaching my first year and Chris is teaching his second full year.  Our wednesday night activities were quickly out growing our down town facility so God blessed us with a new FREE facility.  It's actually the church building Chris and I were married in and is two doors down from my parents house.

we now have plenty of grass to enjoy, our class room space is still a challenge, but nothing compared to before.  We are all very thankful and have had a terrific semester already!  I am teaching girls grades 3-5. I currently only have two 3rd graders and 1 4th grader. Next year I will gain more girls.  Chris is teaching 5th-8th graders right now.

Looking back over this past year Chris and I did a lot of traveling. In march we took a last minute trip to Colorado Springs for a weekend getaway.  June we took a week long trip up to Minnesota to see Chris' grandparents.  Here are pictures from that trip.

We spent about a week up there.  While up north since we were only 2 hours from the Canadian boarder and both Chris and I have passports we decided we'd like to go see Canada.  We also learned that when touring a country and going through customs when asked the question, "What is your reason for visiting Canada?" the answer, "We just want to see Canada, we've never been there before." is one that will keep you in customs for 30 minutes or longer.  We did get through after being asked the same question by 3 different boarder patrol officers! We did a little shopping had lunch and left.  It was great fun.  I enjoyed being up in Minnesota.  It was the first time for me that I could remember most of the visit. I knew I had been up there when I was really little, but I didn't remember much.  Since we drove through 3 states to get there, and we also drove through all 3 state's capitols we of corse stopped at those, along with seeing Lake Superior and wow was it cold! 

The first part of october the whole Dinkel family was able to travel to Branson, MO for the annual Foursquare Conference.  We also took some leaders from Liberty, but it was such a blast to be able to have some quality time outside of Hays.  The conference was in the middle of the week, and since it was a 10+ hour drive to Branson we arrived a day early which allowed for more family time, in addition to the drive out to Branson.  Matt was only able to stay for one day, but the rest of us enjoyed meetings and on the last day Chris Amanda and I went to Silver Dollar City for the day.  Amanda has finally met her match for thrill rides. They both had a blast! and I enjoyed a leisure day in the park.  I did ride all of the roller coasters at least once which was huge entertainment for Chris and Amanda because I screamed....loudly!

Then later that month we traveled to Tulsa to see family and friends and to Celebrate Chris' 30th birthday.

Tulsa was a blast, just like it always is. The year always flies by way too fast it had been a year since the last time we had been down there.  We were able to make it to a Victory service while we were there and it was fun to go back and for it to feel like we had never been gone, and just like we were at home.  

God really had blessed us this year! I probably could keep going and going with more stories like how we also built our deck for 1/2 what it would have cost to buy a kit or to hire someone else to do it for us, and that we also put in a carport 100% paid for, and both projects were around $1000 or more. We are still loving our new home, funny at lunch today we had a whole discussion on the fact that we live in a "Manufactured Home" not a "Trailer" and I'm learning that there really is a difference! Not much but there is. (To me anyway).  If we want to at some point we could very easily move our house onto a real foundation and add onto it with no problems and possibly without anyone knowing that it used to be a mobile home. *sigh* some day.....

Anyway that's all I can think of for now. Thanks for reading!

Harvest time

I love fall. It's hard to say if I like Fall or Spring better....both are so refreshing. This spring and summer we planted our very first vegetable garden. I quickly learned we have REALLY good soil, as our tomato plants grew taller than me by the first part of July. Had we put another cage on top of the cage this plant was in it probably would have grown even taller. In this garden we grew lettuce, onions, banana papers, chili peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, green papers, and cilantro. It all was great fun. This past week has been sad though. It froze two nights in a row and then again last night. (A few days later). I was shocked to learn that one of my tomato plants survived along with our peppers....I think. Now comes the fun part. Pulling all of the fruit off the plants that died. If you see the picture with all if the bags. Those are all tomatoes and 4-5 green bell peppers. We had a good year.

Oh how time has passed! It is June already! Just celebrated my Dad's birthday this evening and two weeks ago we celebrated my Golden Birthday (I turned 24 on the 24th).  Then two days after we celebrated with all of our family and friends we left for Northern Minnesota to visit Chris' grandparents for the week. We left Sunday morning at 6:00am and made it all the way to St. Paul. We then traveled on the next day to arrive that afternoon.  We stayed with them till Friday at which point we started our way back home by way of the Mall of America and Some State capitol buildings.  We saw Minnesota's, Iowa's and Nebraska's So I have not seen 8 State capitol buildings up-close and personal.  (Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas? Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and I'm probably forgetting one.) One thing on my bucket list is to see all 50, but I think I would settle for 48 if I had to.
The Mall of America was everything that anyone has ever said it was and more.  I was overwhelmed by the massiveness!!! That's pretty much all I have to say about it too. I really can't even begin to describe it. More shopping that any woman could do in one day. Plus and amusement park. AWESOME! I had a great time and am definitely looking forward to the next time we get to go. I'd say I, but there's no way I'd go to that place all by myself.

I did read my last post about tripod and my new years resolution. I had actually forgotten I put that on here, but I've stuck to it.  She now knows "go lay down" and will go lay down out of the way, but close enough to see or hear anything drop to the floor.  She is such a wonderful addition to our family.

Also happening at the Lofstrom residence...
We have planted a salsa garden.  Almost everything we are growing can/will go in salsa. The only thing that won't is our cucumbers and lettuce. I'm pretty excited about it. YUM!
My amazing husband built one of the nicest porches in the neighborhood!!!

Spring Spectacular!
So over the past few months it seems just as we would fix one thing something else would break. It all started with the AC we had a hot spell in the beginning of May (I think) and we quickly learned that our AC was not working fixed that. Then the kitchen faucet started going out.  We knew is needed to be fixed soon since it would constantly drip, which in the winter time we used to our advantage, but over time it got worse. So we ordered a new faucet. The week after that the hot water heater got jealous and couldn't hold her water in anymore and spilled her guts on our floor. Thankfully I had taken most of the hot water when I took a bath, but soon found out that when I used all the hot water she wasn't going to fill back up without spilling most of it on the floor. Wet-tacular! Oh and the wonderful thing about our house is that if there's a water issue anywhere the only way to stop it is to shut the water off to the whole house. So we spent a couple of days without water. Thankfully it didn't take as long as some of the contractors thought it might to track down supplies.  OK....so I guess I'll just tell the whole story.
Sunday night. I decide to take a bath...a nice "hot" cozy bath. I'd been soaking for a few minutes, but realized my water was kind of cold so I turned the hot on to warm it up. Well it wasn't hot....it was colder than my bath water. Chris goes and checks the water heater and finds a rather large pool of water by the water heater. so he shut the water off and I finish my luke-warm bath, and then go assess the damage the next day some people come out and look at it, and give me an estimate. I decide I want a second opinion since the kid looked my age....probably younger and had looked at it for about 30 seconds. The next guy comes and looks at our hot water heater and gives us the bad news that it's toast and a new one like what we have will be around $1.600 which is a specially designed mobile home gas hot water heater. (Rather than venting out the top like normal hot water heaters do, a mobile home one vents out the bottom) He went on to suggest that if we wanted to go that way he wouldn't put it in for us because he thought it was a dumb idea to begin with. He recommended getting an electric water heater, and that's what we did.  While we are out at home depot trying to pick out a hot water heater we run into the plumber and he was able to help us get what we needed. Since we were putting in an electric water heater that meant we had to get the spot wired.  Which the plumber was friends with an electrician and about 30 minutes after we had decided we were going to get an electric water heater the electrician showed up to survey the situation.  He rattled off a bunch of stuff I didn't follow and said he probably wouldn't be back till thursday (this all happening on a monday) Tuesday rolled around everyone was there and working by about 9:00am and they were all done by noon on Tuesday.  So by Tuesday evening not only was our water back on...it was hot too. We've had the water heater for about a month now and it works really well and it is sooooooo much quieter than our old one.

other than trips and fixing things not much is happening in Lofstrom world. Thanks for reading!