Happy Birthday, David Paul!

Today is the birthday of our nephew, David, the talented two-fisted-s'more-eater pictured here. We would have loved to have our baby share a birthday with this great guy, but I guess it wasn't meant to be. David is a nephew who's easy to be proud of because he truly strives to use his abilities to honor the Lord. He's headed to college this fall to study engineering and missions. What a neat combo! Another great thing about David is that he's better at playing with our kids' toys than they are. He creates some really amazing structures with building toys, like these tinkertoys. We send "D.P." our love and best wishes today!

Glory

"...whatever you do, do all to the glory of of God."
1 Corinthians 10:31b

Camping

After church today we headed down to a nearby State Park where Matt's parents are camping for a couple weeks. Matt's brother's family came down, too, and it made for a really fun afternoon and evening. The kids swam at the beach with their cousin, Nathan, who is much-loved, then took a boat ride. After cooking a supper of "pudgie pies" over the fire, we had a surprising amount of fun with some rocket balloons. Last of all, of course, we made s'mores. (Found out that Erin prefers hers without marshmallows or graham crackers.) The perfect summer outing! Thanks, Grandma and Papa!

New Addition!

Psych! No, this isn't THE new addition. I just wanted to post a picture of our newest pet. After much gentle persuasion, Matt was enticed into letting us bring a kitty home from his parents' farm a few weeks ago. When we arrived at the farm for a visit, Patches had already had a week of being "loved on" by the visiting cousins, and she would still purr when our kids picked her up and flopped her around! I decided, "Nice cat," and Ellie simply fell in love with her. (She is really cute!) So now she's at home in our garage and seems quite happy roaming the yard. So far, so good. I'm glad to say that she is getting lots of love and attention, and I think her prospects look pretty good, as a cat's life goes. Not to mention, Matt got to be the benevolent hero who made his kids' dream of a kitty come true!

As for our other addition, he seems to be quite content where he is for now, although I think I see a full moon up there tonight...Dream on, Bob.

Cruel Parents

Tomorrow we will finish our two-week swimming lessons course here at our local pool, which our kids believe is filled with water sent via pipeline from the Arctic. We like the end of July for lessons because it's usually plenty warm by then, even for the 10:00 lessons. These past two weeks have been unusually chilly and cloudy, though, leading our kids to believe that we simply enjoy torturing them by sending them to lessons each day. I do feel sort of sorry for them because I know how it feels, but they've been pretty strong troopers with it all. Here's a couple shots of them looking their most pathetic this morning as they finished class. Keep in mind that Erin's class is only half as long as Joe and Ellie's, so she has a little more to smile about.

Something Had to Give

Well, the news that was never published on the blog is that we are expecting Baby #4. He's due any day now, and we're all very excited about it. Unfortunately, this pregnancy just zapped me of energy and clarity of thought. I'd never been pregnant at 35 before, and it's definitely different than just a few years ago! Actually, it wasn't so bad as long as I was getting rest, so I cut out the majority of my Internet activity. I hope to be back now, as I really have missed blogging and reading other blogs. Sounds crazy to try to make that commitment when I've got tons of sleep deprivation coming on...We'll see how it goes.

I plan to announce the baby's birth here, so check back if you're curious. He's due August 4, so I'm hoping he'll be born tomorrow...although it doesn't seem likely.

This is what my kids look like now. (My, haven't they grown since the last time I was here!) This is one of my favorite pictures of them now. They look good together, but I think the main thing I like is how still they are standing. We don't get a lot of that these days! I'll try to fill in more of our lives lately as the energy and inspiration hit.