Here, There, and Here again

Hang on, everybody, this is going to be a long one. I'm trying to catch up before we leave. Be patient with my pictures .... my amazing husband bought me a new camera for our tenth anniversary and I'm still learning how to use it .... here we go! Don't forget, you can always click on the photo to make it larger.


Since our last post, we've been here, there, and everywhere, but we're still here. Here, in Maryland! It's been a busy couple of weeks, with lots of goodbyes. We're thankful we have so many wonderful friends! Here are some photos, in no semblance of order ...


We've spent a lot of time in the car these past few weeks (and months, really!), which is a big switch for the kids and I, as we're used to spending most of our time at home. Nearly every morning we've been dashing out of the house to spend time with friends or run errands getting ready for our departure.

We've packed, unpacked, and packed again. Living out of a suitcase is quite overrated :) The kids love hitching rides on the luggage cart. We've spent so many days in hotels this last month that the kids now call it the "home-tel" :)






We stayed at the house of some dear friends while they were on vacation. It was so nice to have somewhere to spread out and relax, cook our own food, and The kids loved skating on their wood floor :)


Isn't he cute??


Bard talking to his parents on Skype.


Uh, oh, not so cute ...


When it was time to clean up the house we'd been staying in, we found we had a surplus of food, so we invited family over for a clean-out-the icebox party. On the menu ...
watermelon
bacon, eggs, toast
guacamole and chips
cheese
salad
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
chocolate milk
and a few other odds and ends and leftovers

We had such a great time, we just might have to make this a regular event, whether or not the icebox needs to be cleaned out!



Sunday afternoon we had dinner with all the family. We've had to move our dinners to the church fellowship hall as we've grown and grown. It's nice for the kids to have room to spread out and run around.

Good food, as always ...


Emma making a list of all the cousins' names



silly Cecelia face ...

This is the prelude to a picture of all the cousins. While all the parents were trying to wrangle the kids into place Emma got to hold Cecelia. She was glowing :)

And here it is ....
As usual, it's nearly outdated .... Rich and Lesli announced that they're expecting a new little one in the Spring!


Mathis and Kate have two wonderful teachers on Wednesday nights at church. They're sisters and they love our children! They worked for months to hand make two amazing quilts, one for Mathis and one for Kate. I'll have to post pictures later of the quilts, they are truly amazing. They quilted their names into the quilts several times. I got this picture of the cousins trying to find Mathis' name.



sharing secrets?


In our most exciting news, Mathis was baptized last Sunday. He had asked Jesus to be his Saviour several months ago. What a blessing to see our child trusting in God to lead his life!