Kenyan Bounty

My mom just got back from a mission trip to Kenya a couple of weeks ago. She has gone a few times now and they are doing awsome things there. They go to a refugee camp and have a medical clinic that they have built and give the refugees medical care. They also held a Sunday school teachers conference this time, that my mom was in charge of. They had 245 pastors come and learn more about how to share Jesus with kids. They were able to give each pastor a resource bag and binder to help them in their teaching.

It was fun to hear about it when my mom got back, despite her exhaustion after their 36 hour trip home! She had some fun souveniers that she brought back for us. Each grandson got their own "safari" hat, each son/son-in-law got a hand-made knife, and the girls got baskets or purses. I had put in a special request for a produce basket if she saw one for my garden produce. The one I got was beautiful and I have used it tons! Thanks mom!!!

Dedicating our baby...

We feel it is very important to dedicate our children to God. He, after all, is the one who blessed us with such beautiful little boys! With our family by our side, we dedicated Mason at church last Sunday. It was such a special thing. Adam's family was there. My family, except my mom who was on her way home from Kenya, and my cousin Sarah, were there as well. Our pastor who is my Uncle Time and my Grandpa Johnson performed the dedication which made it even more special! We are so thankful for this little boy. He is such a joy and has taught us so much in the past 8 months. Jesus makes it so clear in the Bible how much he loves kids and we are excited to get to raise Mason to follow Him.

North Carolina

Our big summer vacation this year was going with the Bucher family to North Carolina to visit Adam's grandma and grandpa Bowman. It started off as an adventure with three little ones on the flight! We had Keith and Michelle with their 2 month old, Gage. Adam's parents and Neil, and our family. The 8 hours of planes and airports on the way there went incredibly smoothly with hardly a peep from any of the kids! Thank goodness for portable DVD players and little boys who are fascinated with airplanes!

Once we got there we settled in for a week of vegging! Adam's grandparents live on a lake which is always about 80 degrees. We swam, kayaked, and lounged on the dock a few afternoons. Cole was an absolute fish! We put his life jacket on and he could have swam all day!

The guys got a chance to go golfing a couple of days too, which was a nice break for them. We ate lots of authentic North Carolina pulled pork, dranks gallons of sweet tea, and had plenty of fried chicken from Pleasers, the restaraunt that Adam's extended family owns. It was delightful!

One night we went to Simms BBQ which is in the country in an old barn. You walk in and they have all you can eat chicken and pulled pork, corn bread, rolls, and cole slaw. There are a ton of long picnic tables that you sit at and watch an old country band and cloggers throughout the night. There is even a chance to join in a square dance during the evening! Cole joined in a kid's dance and had lots of fun!

It was great to see his grandparents who are in their 80's and doing so well! Living acrossed the country from them, we don't get to see them as often as we'd like. I want our boys to have pictures and hopefully some memories with their great grandparents. We feel so blessed to have them and to have been able to go visit!

Y-Not Tri (athalon)

On August 6th I did my very first triathalon! Okay, so in reality it was considered a "mini" triathalon and thankfully so. I don't know what kind of crazy you have to be to complete a full one! It was a 1/4 mile swim, 6 mile bike, and 2 mile run in Boise. It was actually fun, after it was over:-) It rained the whole evening and was pretty miserable for those watching, but it actually made the race itself nice and cool. I did it with my sisters, brother, sister-in-law and her friend Joanna, and my friends Tracy and Renee. I completed it in just over an hour and was very proud of myself for accomplishing my goal ... to finish!!!

Backyard Campout

Last weekend Cole and Adam had their first father-son backyard campout. Cole was so excited, all day he kept asking, "Is it time to campout yet?". When Adam finally got the tent out to set up Cole could hardly contain himself! He wanted to help with everything and couldn't stop going in and out of the tent. They set up their sleeping bags and got out flashlights, which was a highlight for Cole! Once it started getting dark, we roasted some smores in our fire pit and got ready for bed. They headed out for the tent and for the next half an hour I could see the flashlight moving around in the tent (Cole I'm sure). I was all comfy, watching a good TV movie, having the bed all to myself. About an hour had passed and I had just fallen asleep when the door opens and in comes Adam and a crying Cole. "I want to sleep in the tent!" he cried. Apparently he had been crying for a half hour to come inside and sleep in his bed. I realized I had forgotten to take his blankie and binky out with them, that may have had something to do with it. Once inside though, he wanted to go back out. This could have gone on for a long time but Adam distracted him by telling him he could sleep on the top bunk that night instead. That seemed to suffice and we all had a good night sleep! I think Adam was secretly glad, he wasn't looking forward to a night on the hard ground:-)

Oh well, you have to start somewhere. An hour of camping out is pretty good for a 2 year old! There will be lots more to come;-)

Garden

I can't believe I haven't posted a single garden picture so far this year! It's doing pretty well although I haven't kept up on my weeding like I should. They haven't strangled out any veggies yet though:-) We did put up a cute little picket fence around it to keep the dogs out which has worked wonders! I've gotten a lot of zucchini, after finally ridding myself of squash bugs. I've sauteed it, barbequed it, made zucchini fries, zucchini bread and muffins, steamed it, and have 3 bags of frozen zucchini in my freezer! Anybody have any recipes to share? I also have lots of tomatoes but none are quite ripe yet, a good amount of corn coming on, yellow and purple "green" beans, green onions, walla walla onions, sweet peppers (we'll see, they're not looking too good), carrots, cucumbers, lemon cucumbers, and watermelon which is completely hidden under my zucchini. In another little bed I have strawberries which had a very sad number of berries, and rhubarb which has done really well. I LOVE rhubarb crunch!!!

Anyways, overall, gardening is going well. Each year I learn a little bit more and figure out what I want to continue to plant and what isn't worth it. Someday I'll be a pro, but right now, I'm still learning! Happy gardening:-)

Catching up...

I haven't posted some fun things we've done over the past few weeks so I thought I'd catch up.

Troy, Jenny's little guy, turned one on June 25th so we had a big birthday party at her house. It was so much fun to watch him dive into his cake and open all his presents. Okay, I mean Cole open all his presents:-) I'm sorry Jen! He is such an adorable little guy and we love him tons! Happy Birthday Troy-boy!

Adam's Uncle David and Aunt Cathy from Pennsylvania came to visit along with his cousin Lori and her husband Dustin, from Arizona, and his other cousin Julie and her husband Justin, from New York! We had such a good time and it was fun to all get together in High Valley at his paren'ts cabin for the weekend. We had a great time 4-wheeling, playing blongo ball, having a wagon ride pulled by mules, canoe riding, fishing, and hanging out. We wish we could see them all more often. Thanks guys for coming so far to see us:-)

We also had a great 4th of July. We had a BBQ at our house, played bocce ball, got out the slip n' slide, and just hung around for the weekend. That was especially nice because we had been out of town for the past 4 weekends! I love getting to go places and it was great to have all those weekends off work, but there is something nice about a lazy weekend at home too! Cole loved the fire works at first but was plugging his ears and wanted them to stop by the end. Mason couldn't take his eyes off of them and I was worried he might go blind when we lit one of the strobe lights off. Our neighborhood had a great fireworks show too so we sat on our driveway and watched those. Good times!

Also, here's a picture of Mason in the bath. He doesn't want to have anything to do with his bath sling anymore because he has to lay down in it and all he wants to do is sit up and splash. I finally got the bath seat down and he loved it!