Finally a New Post!

We took a little bit of a blogging break... hope you didn't mind. Most of you who come here want to see pictures of Olivia so I will throw those in further down. 

We are in Portland for the week, and we are excited to be visiting people and hanging out with friends. If we haven't called you and you would like to hang out with us, shoot me an e-mail, we would love to see you! 

Now for some Olivia... 

 

We're Home!

We made it! We are back in Bellingham, and after a restful weekend we have the energy to post something on our blog. 

We had a wonderful time visiting friends from camp in Kansas. From there we drove, and drove, and drove from Kansas to Bellingham with a quick stop in the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. I can't believe we have such beauty in our country! We had a great time waiting for Old Faithful and stopping for Buffalo in the road (see video). 

I would call our trip a great success! We had a wonderful time visiting our friends and family, and we watched God do some amazing things! New support is coming in almost every day and we are exited to be moving forward in that area. We are feeling the prayers of our supporters and we continue to gain a passion for unchurched students in Burlington! 

Now for some pictures! 

Michigan, Chicago, Minneapolis and South Dakota!

We have had quite a few more wonderful visits with friends and family.  We visited Jonas' cousin, Sheila in Grand Rapids, MI.  I loved being there because she reminded me so much of his mom Pam.  She went out of her way to make us feel so welcome and loved, it was nice to see her loving on Olivia as I can imagine Grandma Pam would have if she were here today.  "Thank you Lord for that little piece of joy".

We also had a great time visiting Jonas' dear friends (and mine now too), Charlie and Mariah Trimm in Chicago.  We got to tour around the Wheaton College Campus, which is so beautiful.  We then stopped in Minneapolis, MN to see dear friends from Redding, CA, Rob and Kathy Kilen... WOW, what a beautiful area they live in!  I felt like I was in a movie as we strolled through the park alongside the water and admired the lovely old houses that graced the streets. Oh, yeah, and Olivia got to meet the Jolly Green Giant!

From there, we went to South Dakota to visit the Wolgamotts; Mr. Rick and Mrs. Beth, the pastor couple from the church I grew up in in Louisiana.  What a great visit that was as we have not seen them since Mr. Rick married us in the summer of 06.  Every visit we have had has been so very rich and we are constantly reminded of how incredibly blessed we are to know so many of God's precious people.  "Thank you Lord for all of the beautiful people you have placed in our life to love, support and spur us on to walk with You".  We are so very grateful of the opportunity to see so much of God's creation as we travel hours and hours in the car to get to our next destination and be greeted with open arms by friends and family!  

OHHH OLIVIA

Just thought I'd blog about how crazy it is that Olivia is only 4 months old and by the time we get home from our trip, she will have been born in California, moved to Washington, have a grandmother survive the nasty feats of breast cancer, visited Oregon, California, Arizona (including the Grand Canyon), New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, South Dakota, Kansas and Idaho.  She will have also been introduced to approximately 30 family members and about 50 friends of ours!  She had her first "big girl bath", rolled over from her tummy to her back, put her noonie in her mouth all by herself, grabbed a toy and put it in her mouth, received her first dolly, discovered how to make bubbles with her mouth, slept in a suitcase, grew out of a pair of shoes and a pair of pajamas as well as size 1 diapers!  And BLESS HER HEART, she won't remember one bit of it!  Thankfully, we will and we have a lot of this on video.  Olivia has been such a trooper.  For those of you who are wondering, she has been doing SO well.  We do realize that there are not many babies we could do this with; we are very very blessed to have such a laid-back baby!  She just goes with the flow and adapts to whatever we are doing or whoever we are with.  

Some Time in New Boston, MI

We are hangin' out in New Boston, Michigan with Melanie's family. Here are some great pictures of Melanie and Olivia and their cousins Tara and Cameron.

Family Fact: Melanie and Tara are a month apart in age and the babies are two months apart. 

Olivia and her dolly!

We had a great time in Louisiana!  Wonderful visits with all of our friends and family.  Thank you, to all of you who took time to reconnect with our family.  Sure do miss the people and the food.  The weather... not so much.  This is turning out to be a great trip; we really are having fun.  Above are pictures of Olivia with her first doll; given to her from the Miceli family.  As you can see, she absolutely adores it.  Oh, yeh... and that's Olivia sleeping in my suitcase... it makes for a perfect bed for her when we stay somewhere that only has one bed for us :)

Crawfish Boil (Part 2)

Another great video of our fun family feast....