Our friend and mentor, Chuck Haavik (UMD XA) has said to us: "If you don't take your Sabbath's once a week, you'll end up taking them all at once." Oh, how we get that! We have been working hard at taking a Sabbath weekly, and right now we are north of Grand Marais, tucked back in the woods. No cell service, no text service, no cable. We do have internet :) And we do have one bathroom. wooohooo!
Our daughter Ilsa is interested in training horses, potentially for a living, so we are here to spend a week letting her learn training techniques from our friend Joel Lewis. We are documenting all her work in a blog, as she will get school credit for her work. So far it has been full of both fun and frustration, but she is hanging in there. Phil is working on the horse action with her, Maddie is getting a lot of reading done, I am working on the second edition of The Gift of Sam, and Eli is excruciatingly happy playing with the Meyer family children and their assortment of goats, chickens, bunnies and trips to local streams for swimming. It's hot here, for Grand Marais, and flies have been a huge distraction for the horse training, but really, in the end it works for her advantage. The horse needs to overcome distractions and put her attention on Ilsa. So that's the mission.
Faith- Ilsa's horse in training
Round pen action
Joel teaching Ilsa techniques
the family's pigs! They're hilarious!!
The girls and I also finished our second triathlon in Winona a few weeks ago- it was as fabulous as ever! Ian (The Gift of Sam) ran it with us this year, so the Thooft/Gloude clans were there in force. We had a wonderful time volunteering again for the Kids Trinona, and then competing. The weather was HOT (95), but we all managed to improve on last year's times. We're lifers!
Phil and Eli waiting for us all to finish....
Maddie finishing, behind Ian and Ilsa
Three happy finishers!
Mom coming in- Ian and Ilsa ran me in. Way fun. 
I got to drive this.....
My sisters....can you tell we're related?!?
Sister time....I miss them SO MUCH. :(AND, family, it does not look like we sold our trailer. This is a bummer. But at this point, I think the plan is to move out of it anyway (build the bedrooms/pantry in the garage, finish the kitchenette in the great room and just live with one bathroom for a year or so) and rent the double wide to students. We have a few already that want to rent, so that may be happening. So construction will be happening at our house, just not as much as originally planned. Everyone that looked at the trailer loved it, but couldn't get financing. They are interested in working on being able to buy it next spring.
I changed the layout of this blog! LOVE IT! Let me know what you think. And you can customize it as you read- the top right tab lets you choose the layout you are most comfortable with. How cool is that?
Another new development: my friend Kathy was telling me today that we should consider having a page on this blog for resources- books, movies, cd's- that have trained and encouraged us. If I put them on here as a link to Amazon, and someone clicks that link and orders (even if they don't order the original item in the link but search for something completely different) Amazon will give us a advertising kickback. You don't pay a penny more for the items you would normally buy on amazon, and you are helping to support this ministry! I realize that some may feel this is monetizing our blog, but we need a budget raised to do this work. We are working at the traditional route to meet that need, but why not take advantage of any option we might have? Especially if all it requires of you is to click a link before you search your item and order?
So next time you need to order a book, DVD, music, coffee grinder, toy, fishing pole- ANYTHING, would you consider jumping on our blog, clicking the Resources tab at the top of the main page, and clicking any of the links we have on there? (Or order any of the books/videos/music we have on there: you will be blessed!)Then do your searching like you normally would. Whatever you purchase on Amazon, if you do it through one of our links, will generate a 10-25% kickback for BSU Chi Alpha. A lot like saving cereal UPC's for our kids' school. We would really appreciate it!
We're getting ready for fall.....will keep you posted! Excited for our 9th year in Chi Alpha! thank you so much for your love and support!!
Phil & Michelle & Tribe
