What a wonderful day with my family! I love being at home with Holly. I was careful not to eat too much, and take several naps on Thanksgiving Day. I got the biggest drumstick I've ever seen! We had a super time with the moms, Carol and her friend, Don. We loved having you at our home Don!

Life's Not Always Easy

Hello from Hank! I've got some prayer requests today:

This week's been a busy one from a Police/Fire Chaplain's perspective. On Friday, Bourbonnais' First Responders were called to the home where a four month old baby had died. Please pray for mom and dad and the babysitter. My good friend, Chaplain Brett was on the scene and at the hospital with the family. He stopped by my office afterwards for a debriefing. He's got two very young children himself and this call hit "close to home".

On Tuesday, I was on the scene where a young mother was assulted by her husband with a large kitchen knife. She survived and his recovering in the hospital. Her two beautiful girls where home during the attack and they are pretty scared. The husband was captured early the next morning and arrested. For the last several days; I've been working with detectives, family members and various social agencies in the community to try and help mom get her life together.



They are beautiful children...Lizette and Brenda. Please pray for psychological, emotional and physical recovery for mom and for psychological and emotional recovery for the girls. Also pray that we find a safe home for them to move into, furnishings, etc. I'll keep you posted.

Also...during this last week I've been handing out promo materials to the Fire Departments where I serve. An awesome movie called "Fireproof", opened in the theatres on Friday, Sept. 26 and my hope is that every First Responder that I know goes to see it. It is an awesome story of a firefighter to rescues people from burning buildings, car wrecks, but cannot save his marriage. See: http://www.fireproofthemovie.com/

The message from this movie is one every First Responder needs to see and hear. (Actually everyone needs to see this one!) Please pray for the men in women in my fire departments and throughout the country. Their jobs are tough and many of them struggle with their marriages.

(Holly and I saw the movie last night and the theatre was nearly full (sold out on Friday night) and not a dry eye in the place at the end.

On the home front...well the very extended home front, Holly and I are grandparents. A little more than 10 years ago Holly and I had a young lady, named "Lena" from Russia live with us. We fell in love with her and we've often referred to her as the daughter we never had. We'd kept in touch for a long time, and were very proud as she completed her education and she's now a Cardiologist traveling to several countries in Europe and Russia. We lost touch with Lena for the last three years and we've learned that she's got a precious little girl named Anna.




So we're very proud "Parents" and very happy "Grandparents."

Thanks for "listening" and thanks for praying.

Hank

Summer Critters

This has been a summer filled with critters. Not like the big ones we had on the farm, but little ones. 'cept the snake that I couldn't catch in the back yard...that seemed to be five foot long and an inch and a half thick! I sprinkled stuff around the yard to get rid of it so Holly would come outside again and it disappeared.

This baby Robin was so tame it let me pet it.

This frog we found while bike riding was so big I could hardly hold it with one hand.










The other picture is his nose....oh, I guess it's a horse's nose.

















Here's the rest of the horse.

And our cat getting high on fresh catnip from the backyard.

Amie feeding the goats. They wanted to eat really baaaaad!










Here we have your basic pet banana.



Like I say, it's not like the farm was. This photo of my family is from July Fourth weekend eleven years ago. (Our last family get-together before Dad died.)


If you look really close you'll see that Dad's holding a chicken. Amanda is holding a newborn kitten. The deer were pretty tame.



Pretty great memories as I realize that the Lord has been very good to us.



God bless you and thanks for stopping by.

Trip to South Dakota June 2008

Holly and I took a trip to my hometown, Watertown South Dakota. We drove a day and a half to get there, stayed at the Midwest Bible Camp for one day and drove a day and a half to get back home. We couldn't stay but a day because I had to do a funeral on Saturday, plus we neede to keep a close eye on my mom. Here are some great friends in the camp kitchen, Mitzy, Gladys, Mindy and Kay.

While we were there, we drove 30 miles to see my dad's grave. It's a pretty lonely place, at the sight of the former Our Savior's Lutheran Church, where my dad's family attended when he was a boy. The church has been long gone, but the cemetary still exists.

It rests on top of a slight rise about three miles Northwest of Bradley, South Dakota. You can see forever as you look over the prairie

We've been havin fun all summer long!

Great News, mom hasn't fallen in over two weeks! We've got her glucose under control, she's been eating great and staying upright.

That's not all....she found a boyfriend when we were at the doctor's office to get her cast off her right arm. I was hoping that she'd find a rich doctor to take care of her (us) but this one's too skinny!












We went to a car show two weekends ago and what fun that was. I saw several great Chevelles and drooled over some Camaros, but this little roadster, a 32 Ford if I remember right, won my heart. I could have taken it home for about $28k, but I think I could have talked him down to 26.

Last photo for now. Lacey drinking from my glass. What a goof!

Holly and I have been enjoying the summer evenings bike riding and walks. I have been out rollerblading most days and find that my favorite place in the world is our patio.

I hope that you get a chance to enjoy God's goodness this summer...loving your family, resting, enjoying all the blessings you've been given. Don't spend it running and working...life's too short...yoouuuchhh, the summer's too short!

Memorial Weekend

Our friend, Amie drove over from Ohio on Friday and Saturday we (Holly, Carol Amie and Hank) loaded up the car and drove about 5 hours South and spent two days hiking and goofing off in the Shawnee National Forest.

First we hiked in the "Garden of the Gods" area.

Then we drove further south to the Cave in the Rock, and then circled up and east to Rim Rock. This was a fantastic place for photos.

More Backyard

I am embarrassed to say that I don't know the

names of our flowers, but they make pretty

photos. I'll call these the yellow ones.

Here is an Iris

And we've got Lacey staring out the window at the fish pond!

I took these off my camera and thought that they would be nice to post. The first few are photos of Holly's Mom's 87th Birthday party. We drove a half hour west to the Country Mansion in Dwight, IL for supper. Pictured, from left to right are my mom, Caroline; Holly's sister, Carol; Norma, (in the dark); Holly and Hank.













Here's the birthday girl up close!












Here's Hank's mom Caroline:










We really enjoy Spring around our home. Here are some photos of our backyard. I'll post some more flower photos later.

Help, my mom's fallin and can't get up!

Hank's mom has been in the hospital three times in the last three weeks. She went through cataract surgery fine, one down, one to go! Here is Hollywood herself in the recovery room.

Then, one Thursday morning, two weeks ago, she fell in her bathroom and broke her wrist. It hurts just looking at it. Please pray for her as it was her right hand and it makes it hard for her to do anything.

Here she is in the ER!

She had surgery to correct it, then on Tuesday as soon as she got home she started choking to Hank called the paramedics. She was ok though.

Three days later fell again in the middle of the night, due to low sugar, so we called the ambulance. Hank's paramedic friends came to the rescue again. She was transported to the hospital and there she stayed for three days until her diabetes meds could get regulated and she's home again. She's surrounded with Home care workers, therappists, social workers, neighbors and friends so she'll be ok for now. Yet we're checking out a "Supportive Living" Center for her which is just 7 minutes down the road from where we live.

We would appreciate everyone's prayers.

On a lighter note, I made friends with a baby robin while home for lunch one day.

Till again...thanks for praying!

Hey everyone, thanks for checkin out our blog! We're Hank and Holly Roso. I would like to say that we're a normal couple, but Holly says I'm abnormal. We have no children, just a dumb cat and two great moms that we keep close. We live in Bradley, Illinois. Where's Bradley? We're not sure yet, but if we drive for one hour North, we'd be in downtown Chicago.

We love God and we are pretty blessed with the life he has given us. Holly keeps busy with her Mom, her job as an Admin with Cigna Health-Care and a Minister's wife. Hank (me) is happy just to be with Holly, but also works for the Evangelical Church Alliance as the veep, (http://www.ecainternational.org/) an Interim Pastor for Immanuel Baptist Church, (http://www.ibck3.org/) and a Police and Fire Chaplain for the Village of Bradley as well as a Fire Chaplain for the Village of Bourbonnais and the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police.

We enjoy being involved with both of our churches, the one we still consider to be "our church" River Valley Christian Fellowship. The Sunday School class is great, allowing good friendships and opportunities to serve the community, (Holly pictured here, helping out as we replaced the roof of a widow's home.) Immanuel Baptist Church has become a second home for us as the people are so loving and kind, it's great to be a pastor and pastor's wife to such a beautiful group.

Life isn't always easy, so we try real hard to have fun, like with Hank's mom, Caroline...

Or Holly's Mom, Norma, a spunky and pretty 87 year old who'll probably outlive us all...

Or Holly's lovable sister, Carol....or...

...an old friend. Thanks for visiting and stop by once and awhile and we'll try and keep this current and interesting...