Outside fun

This afternoon, Mark had some baseboard projects he really wanted to work on, but they're things which require Nora to be elsewhere.  So Nora and I braved the heat index of 110 and put on swim suits for some backyard sprinkler fun.  We ended up playing out there for an hour and a half, which let Mark make serious headway on his projects.  Nora had so much fun!  We played in the sprinkler, played on the slide, did the sandbox, picked a few veggies, and took a bunch of pictures.  Enjoy!

Sprinkler:  First she was shy of it, then we caught water in the bucket, then we started drinking from the sprinkler and running through it.

Garden:  Nora "helped" me pick some cucumbers (and then she hid some of them in the grass).  Also, here's a picture of my biggest watermelon.  And then here's my Roma tomato plant.  I got it for free in early July, when it was "too late" to plant them, so I figured I had nothing to lose by trying them.  I found a couple little green tomatoes on there today, so it looks like it'll pay off, if even just a little bit.  :) 

Berry patch:  I had just about given up on the berry patch, because we planted so late and the rabbits were so bad.  They ate the blackberry bush almost all the way down, but it looks like it'll pull through after all!  And the strawberries finally came up, and they're going crazy!  You can see the tiny green berries in the close-up.

General playing:  Just some fun pictures of Nora.  Trying to eat a rock (I took this while simultaneously saying "NO!" and grabbing her arm), picking flowers to give me, and just looking super adorable. 

family fun!

We spent the evening at Mark's parents' house to celebrate Nora's cousin Jake's 8th birthday today.

We checked out the amazing progress on the totally cool tree house that Papa B is building.  It's going to be a blast for all the kids for a lot of years!

Nora's cousin Cade gave her a car!  It's a riding toy he is finished with, so he passed it along to Nora.

After eating dinner (fried chicken and mashed potatoes!), we got all the kids together for a few pictures.  We had limited success. Happy birthday, Jake!
And then, when Jake was opening gifts, Kirsi helped Nora put a pretty ribbon in her hair!

We will miss you, Grandma!

I know I haven’t posted in a very very long time. A million things have happened since my last post, and soon I’ll write a blog to catch up on the big ones, with pictures and all that. But this post is about my grandma, Verniece TerLouw. She passed away yesterday morning at around 5:30. She has been very sick with cancer for quite some time, and we have all had time to prepare. It is still very sad for us to lose her, but we are so happy for her that she is no longer bound by pain and illness, but is Home with her First Love. I wrote about her life for the funeral program. Here it is, minus the long lists of extended family.

Verniece Vroom was born September 3, 1926 to Catherines J. Vroom and Jennie Dykstra Vroom. For the first years of her life, her family lived in a house they had built on their farm near Leighton, where she attended a two-room schoolhouse. Her family lost their farm during the Depression and had to move. Over the next few years, they lived on several different farms before settling down in Oskaloosa around 1940.

While Verniece was growing up, her family spent a lot of time with the Dykstra side of the family. Verniece enjoyed playing games with her cousins, especially a game they called “corks.”

Verniece was close with all of her siblings. She had two sisters named Mary Jane and Margaret and a brother named John. Verniece and her younger sister Margaret were very close in age and spent much of their time together. One of their favorite activities was roller skating.

It was while roller skating that Verniece first met a young man named Henry Grootveld. She married Hank on January 17, 1946. They had three children named Larry, Cindy, and Mark.

Hank and Verniece began their marriage living on a farm southwest of Fremont. About 10 years later, they built a house on a farm south of Fremont, IA, where they lived with their three children and raised hogs. They later turned the farm work over to their oldest son, Larry. In 1977, they moved off the farm and soon after, they built a new house in Fremont.

Verniece loved music. She sang in the choir at Fremont Methodist Church and passed her love of music down to many of her children and grandchildren.

Verniece loved to stay busy with a wide variety of favorite hobbies, many of which are now shared by her children and grandchildren. Among her many interests were gardening, canning vegetables from her garden, caring for her house plants, and sewing.

Hank and Verniece were avid card players. Their favorite games were bridge and pitch. For years when their children were young, they played bridge every Saturday night with their neighbors, the Hedges. They would put the children to bed at the Hedges’ and later load them, asleep, into the car to go home. In later years, she and her children and grandchildren would spend vacations together playing pitch, fishing, and jet-skiing. She even purchased a jet-ski for her family to enjoy.

Verniece loved the outdoors. Fishing and camping in their camper were among her favorite activities. She and Hank fished locally, as well as in Minnesota and Canada. They built a fishing cabin with some friends on the Skunk River.

When they retired, Hank and Verniece spent 16 winters in their camper in Florida enjoying the warm weather, meeting people in the trailer park, playing cards, and swimming.

It seemed that no matter where she went, Verniece could strike up a conversation with a stranger and soon discover that they were somehow connected, whether by family or by friends. Her son Mark is fond of saying, “If you parachuted Mom anywhere in the US, she could find someone who she knows or who is related to someone she knows.”

In 1993, Hank, Verniece’s husband of 47 years, passed away.
While on a church mission trip in Kansas City with Habitat for Humanity, Verniece caught the eye of Paul TerLouw of Pella. After rebuffing his offer to buy her an ice cream cone on the trip home, the relationship developed and they were married on October 28, 1995. Verniece moved to Paul’s farm and home just outside of Pella. She loved living in Paul’s house in the timber, where she was able to have large vegetable and flower gardens and see lots of birds and wildlife. Both Paul and Verniece were thrilled to instantly double their extended family. Together, they participated in several church mission trips to Mexico.

When Paul and Verniece married, the TerLouw family welcomed her wholeheartedly into their lives as a mother and grandmother, and she loved them dearly. Paul’s children and their families were important fixtures in her life over the 15 years that she was able to share with them.

Verniece faithfully hosted “Coffee Time,” a TerLouw family tradition, almost every Saturday morning for many years. She loved having friends and family come together in her home, filling it with laughter and lively conversation. She had a great sense of humor.

Verniece enjoyed many activities and had many hobbies, but her greatest joy was in seeing her children and grandchildren following, loving, and serving God. The faithfulness of her children and grandchildren brought tears to her eyes every time she spoke of them. She took great joy in the new lives of her six great-grandchildren over the past several years. Between the Grootveld and TerLouw families, she had a total of 19 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren.

Verniece’s favorite Bible verse was Romans 8:28. “All things work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.”

Cancer was a long and painful journey for Verniece, but as her favorite verse says, God worked all things together for good, as she was called home to her Lord for eternal life and joy on March 14, 2010. She will be dearly missed by us who remain.