a surprise visit

one evening a few weeks ago, i was on a date with ethan at target, and we had been there way too long. we were walking out to the car, and my cell phone rang. as i fished for my phone in my purse, i figured it was brian calling to find out where in the world we were... well, i knew it wasn't brian when the number that showed up was local but unfamiliar. i curiously said, "hello?!" and the voice at the other end of the line was my surprise of the year! it was my dear, dear friend and graduate school roommate, julie! after i heard her voice, and i remembered that the number was local, it hit me that julie was in town! this is huge, considering that julie and her husband paul currently live thousands of miles away. i could not believe it. they were spending some time at the beach with paul's family and wanted to have us out to their condo for dinner the next night. we didn't have plans, but even if we had, i would have cleared our schedule to spend some time with my friend.

looking back, graduate school seems like one huge blur filled with stress over exams and missing my boyfriend (now my husband!) back home... but sharing those two years with my roommates was a tremendous blessing. there were 5 of us in our townhouse the first year, and 4 of us the next (sarah "gave up her dream"--as the 2nd year students called it--to get married after our first year, and now she is living her dream!). julie made sure that we had more to eat than frozen dinners and ramen noodles. she loved to cook, and often times, we'd give her money for the ingredients if she'd just cook for us... cooking relieved her stress, and it stressed me out even more. so it was a perfect solution. :) the church that julie and i went to was 20 minutes away, and we had some good talks and some good praise time to and from church. and some good opera-singin', silly girl time, too! :) we shared many, many, many tears during those two years together, and most importantly, we shared many prayers and scriptures to get us through those years. being away from home, studying for comps, and dealing with boyfriends will surely bring you to your knees! :) i will never forget that we kept a big sign on the inside of our front door that read psalm 18:29, "with my God i can scale a wall!" we surely had lots of walls in front of us, but God did indeed allow us to scale them. and God gave us each other. when i think of julie, i think of biblical encouragement. i think of hospitality. and i think of laughter. lots and lots of laughter.

so it was really really good to see my friends again. the last time we saw julie and paul, ethan was a baby, and i was pregnant with caroline. so we had a lot of catching up to do! we hung out in the condo for a little while and talked while paul's parents grilled some burgers down by the beach... as you can see, caroline wasted no time in hitting julie up for some "horsey" rides! (she's so shy, ya know.) and amelia gave her stamp of approval for paul. (which is a good thing, since they've been married for 4 years now!)



when the burgers were ready, we headed down to the beach to eat. paul's parents were so sweet and took the kids down to the water after dinner while we chatted. it was such a beautiful night to be down at the beach... at sunset, we witnessed a proposal by helicopter! the guy had his friends write "will you marry me?" in the sand, and when the couple took their helicopter ride, she saw the message in the sand. they flew by several times, so we're not sure if she had bad eyesight, if she was still making up her mind, or if she was like me and just wanted a bunch of pictures of the writing in the sand! :)


and here is caroline standing still just long enough to get eaten alive by mosquitoes on her shoulders... but i guess it was worth it for this beautiful beach shot...


when we ran out of daylight, we all went back up to the condo to visit until my kids began endangering the safety of the condo decor. (they were just a little wound up after playing at the beach and consuming X number of brownies in record time.) we just got to talking, and i had no idea it was 9:30 when we packed up to leave! no wonder ethan and caroline were going crazy! before they got wild, we did take a picture of all of us... aren't julie and paul so cute?? (and no, my kids did not knock that picture off the wall...)


it really was a wonderful evening. it was so great to hear about how their ministry is going and to share our children with them. i know julie can't stay away from the beach for too long, so hopefully we will be able to see them again in the next few years. and maybe before then, she'll start a blog. (hint, hint!)

a morning with my girls

tammy, jen, heather, me, & kristie
this past saturday, we girls had a morning out... just us! no husbands, no kids, and no diaper bags! heather's birthday was earlier in may, but she was out of town for her actual special day. before she left, i presented her with a card that held the following poem:

we wanted to take you on a birthday date...
just us girls to celebrate.
but you just happen to be going away
the weekend of your special day.

so this little ditty is to reserve
the morning of saturday, may 23rd.
we will pick you up at 10 o’clock
and we’ll drive a little around the block.
where we’ll end up will remain a surprise.
we may even make you close your eyes!

until that day, you can just stay curious
about our morning that is so mysterious.
everytime you wonder what we’re gonna do,
let it be a reminder that we love YOU!
so saturday morning came, and we picked up our birthday girl. we mysteriously drove around downtown a little because we were early for our 10:30 tea room reservation. when we arrived promptly at 10:30 (when they were to open), heather was so excited that we would be having a morning of afternoon tea! well, we found the lights off and a "closed" sign on the door. after knocking on the door and calling three times to get no answer, we assumed that they'd had some kind of emergency and were not there. (especially because i had tried to reach them several times the day before with no success.) WELL. i was really really bummed. we had been planning this for over a month, and i was really looking forward to my pot of english breakfast tea and those delicious scones. oh yeah, and celebrating my sweet friend's birthday! :) my favorite restaurant was our quick back-up plan, so i couldn't stay upset for too long. they had a table ready right away, and boy oh boy, did we feast! our five omelets were made to order, complete with sides of to-die-for french toast and kick-it-up-a-notch breakfast potatoes! we were ready to be rolled right out of there when the bakery treated heather with a piece of birthday cake--her choice. she and i ran right up to the cake counter to make the big decision. i was just a little excited about the cake...


heather ultimately chose a strawberry creme cake, and it's a good thing they gave her 5 forks!! her piece of cake was ginormous!


our morning together ended all too quickly. what a blessed few hours we shared talking, talking, talking! it had been a while since we'd had this girl time thanks to a series of illnesses that plagued our households in succession... so we enjoyed every second of this brunch! these beautiful women of God are incredible, plain and simple. they continually encourage me with scripture, challenge me as a wife and mother, and bless me as a friend. God has truly been so good to give me these girls. (and we were so excited to have jen join us for our morning out! she's on the left between tammy and heather in the top picture. jen, her husband sam, and two adorable girls have recently moved here, and we are really really enjoying getting to know them. her daughter lola is one month younger than caroline, and her daughter amelia lynn is 6 months old... so we plan on having lots of fun with them in the next few years!)

anyway, we were so glad to finally get to celebrate heather's birthday! heather is such a precious and gentle friend. we are blessed to live right down the street from each other, and her kids avery & savannah are the same age as ethan & caroline. my kiddos adore avery and "fanana" as caroline calls her. :) in the two years that heather has lived here, i have either been working part-time or pregnant, so i feel like i have been a slacker of a friend in many respects. BUT i have two more years to make up for it! :) we are planning many trips to the beach together this summer, and just today, ethan had his first bike ride with his super-fast friend! avery's ability to fly down the street really motivated ethan to get goin' on his bike! :) heather and i are both preparing ourselves for the great big world of homeschooling, so it will be a blessing to walk that road together as well. all of that to say... happy birthday, heather! i am so thankful to call you my friend!


(and the rest of the story of the tea room being closed is that the girl that owns it called my house around 11:00 looking for us since "we didn't show up for our reservation". that would not have been an issue except that my phone was on silent, and my mom--who was watching amelia while brian took the kids to lowe's-- got worried when i did not answer my phone and we had not shown up at the tea room. 30 minutes later, i looked at my phone to see that i had seven missed calls and that my phone was on silent. shoot. after apologizing to my mom a hundred times for worrying her that we'd been in an accident, i called the tea room back to find out that there had been an emergency that had delayed the owner. apparently she was so delayed that she could not let us know that until 30 minutes after our reservation. and she was so delayed that she could not tell my mom that she wasn't there at 10:30 so we might have tried to in fact be there... small tiny detail, i guess. and she was so delayed that she could not sincerely apologize for totally throwing off our morning. just a tiny little bit of groveling would have been nice. she actually sounded really annoyed at the whole situation. which was supposed to be my role in this whole thing. but i was stuffed full of french toast by that point. and bitterness does not go well with syrup and powdered sugar...)

amelia is 4 months old!

another month has flown by! this sweet baby has turned into quite the chatterbox. (hmmm, don't know where in the world she gets that!) amelia is definitely experimenting with her voice and is loving it. her vocal experiments get quite loud and to the untrained ear (ha!), they are mistaken for fussing. but oh no, she is as happy as a lark. and as loud as a baby with a bullhorn. her favorite time for testing out her lungs is on her way to sleep. she goes down happily and within a few seconds, she is belting out a few stanzas of tarzan's vine swingin' tune. this is all fine and good until i want her to fall asleep in the middle of Bible study... but i'll take baby-yelling over crying any day of the week! this is pretty much what she looks like during her vocal experimentationalisms...


amelia is still sleeping at least 12 hours a night and is taking great naps, so i cannot complain. she has begun the teething process... we see lots of drool and bubbles, and her bottom gums are as hard as rocks. it has yet to disturb her sleep too much, but i'm expecting those bad naps to come before too long. amelia loves to play under her little toy gym, and she can usually be found in the back corner of this area because she has scooted backwards as far as she can go... the child never gets tummy time and thus has yet to roll over, but she digs those heels into the ground and can really move!


well, amelia may not have been in many st. augustine pictures, but i am about to make up for that! we are trying out a friend's nikon d60 (thank you, mrs. lori!), and amelia and i had a little photo shoot this evening.




and these were obviously taken before we borrowed the d60... i love all the faces she's making these days!





so there... i think we're all caught up on amelia pictures now. :) she's getting big, isn't she??

i'll end this with two videos that really portray amelia's personality right now. she loves to be sung to and talked to... in the first video, i am singing our kids' bedtime song, and she "joins in" several times. i don't really care to hear myself sing on this video, but i knew it was the only way to get her to "talk" to me. this night, i was putting her to bed in her quiet, dark room, and she was just a talkin' to me while i sang. so i ran to get the camera to video her, and for the video to show up, i had to turn on her light. well, after singing to her again and talking to her with all the lights on, amelia was not going to sleep. so she just talked and talked to herself for a good long while. and eventually, she fell asleep. but it was worth it to capture this:



and in this last video, you will see how easily amelia gets the hiccups... but oh her laugh is so wonderful. sorry for the crazy videography. i was using mrs. lori's flip video recorder (she is full of fun electronics, isn't she!?), and i was still getting used to it.


we continue to count our blessings... our cup runneth over. God is so good!

of steps, the sea, and sails

one place we had not yet visited in st. augustine was the lighthouse. every year, we'd run out of time, and every year, we'd say we'd do it the next year. well, 2009 was the year for the lighthouse! :) after our day at the pool, we ventured over the bridge of lions to finally see this lighthouse. we arrived as they were preparing to close up shop, but they allowed us to take as long as we wanted to tour the grounds. the kids were not tall enough to climb to the top of the lighthouse, so brian and i sacrificed and stayed on the ground with the kids while kristie got to climb the 219 steps to the top. (truth: we really had absolutely no desire to climb it... kristie was so great to make the climb so we could all have pictures from the top. she is the most fit out of all of us, and she was completely worn out by the time she caught her breath at the top!) there was a lot of neat history to take in at the museum, and i wished we'd had more time to look at everything. we will definitely go back and visit this lighthouse again.

therrrrre goes aunt kristie!

that's a lot of stairs.

a beautiful view on the way to the top

and she made it!

overlooking st. augustine

such a beautiful sight

our red, white, and blue kiddos!

ethan was so happy about this magnet that aunt kristie bought for him.

ethan was not so happy that he was not tall enough to climb the steps. mommy, on the other hand, was very happy! that was an easy "no". :)


the museum used to be the keeper's residence. what a beautiful place to live!

on our way home from the lighthouse, we stopped by the water so that brian could get his annual fix of boat photography. i loved watching him take his time to get the shots he wanted... and he did not expect me to roll down my window and take a picture of him with our camera. :) but i'm so glad i did. here is my man in his element. he's got the telephoto lens on, tons of boats just waiting to smile, and the kids all strapped in the car and out of the way. ha!



here are my favorites out of all the boat pictures he took...





well, that about does it for our vacation. thanks for coming along on our 2009 tour of st. augustine! if you've been to the old city, what is your favorite spot to visit!?

makin' a splash!

i LOVE the pool at our condo in st. augustine. it is a zero-depth entry pool, which made frolicking in the water so easy and fun for our kids. they were confident to play independently while we relaxed within close proximity. my kids are fine as long as they can have their feet at the bottom of the pool. when they get deeper, that floating feeling just unnerves them for some reason! i wish we had access to a pool like this in town. anyway, the kids made great use out of our $1 ring floats from wal-mart...the smaller size of these rings is a perfect fit for our kiddos! more than worth the money! :) every other trip to st. augustine, we've ended up only going to the pool once during our trip due to weather or busyness... well, this year, i was determined to get to the pool every day... and we did! on the two days that we toured downtown, the pool was such a nice way to cool off before a late dinner (so our 4 PM lunch actually worked out great!) we spent the majority of the other day at the pool, which the kids just absolutely loved. there were no other kids in the pool, which was surprising to me. but i guess we went in between spring break and summer! so here are the kids having a ball in the pool...






this one's for pappy... lock 'em and load 'em!

almost a mirror image!




caroline didn't get the memo that she was only in 8 inches of water!
she is holding on for dear life!
and finally, sweet amelia's swimsuit debut. she slept in the stroller most the time that we were at the pool, but she did sit with me and put her feet in the water for a few minutes. it was a little too bright for her out there, so we hurried back in the shade for this picture.


this picture is more evidence that she really did go on vacation with us. i know there's not many of amelia on here lately... but today is her 4 month old birthday, so i will be posting some pictures of her soon!

one more vacation post to go! and it's a good one!

recharging our batteries

this post is really a compilation of random photos from our trip that i wanted to share. they are mostly from our time hanging out in the condo, though kristie took the first picture when we stopped to eat lunch on the way to st. augustine. while i fed amelia and brian was ordering our food, kristie took the big kids to a grassy area next to the parking lot to run out some energy. i watched ethan and karina stoop down to observe some bugs, and i was sitting in the van thinking, "oh i wish i could take a picture of them!" right at that moment, kristie ran to her car to grab her camera... she read my mind! :)

so "recharging our batteries" is not really that accurate of a title for the next two pictures... it's more like "running down our batteries"! as soon as we arrived at the condo, the kids were giddy. they were so happy to be out of the car and so happy to finally be in st. augustine! since we were on vacation, we let them jump on the beds... they were in hog heaven!


i love the kids' smiles in this next picture. it's not the highest quality picture, but oh, just look at those ear to ear grins! we get so many pathetic "cheeeeese... mom-will-you-just-hurry-and-take-the-picture" smiles these days, so this one is definitely a keeper!


how sweet is my niece looking out this window? i tried to get caroline to do the same pose, but that wasn't gonna happen...


so this next picture is pretty funny. see these two containers? they're both full of sugar. kristie brought some decaf coffee for us to enjoy (with our moose tracks ice cream!) at night after the kids went to bed.... so she brought sugar. and i brought sugar. guess which container was mine?! (i also packed way too many clothes for us.) a girl can never be too prepared for coffee!


after the kids' bath one evening, we were hanging out in kristie's room and she was "poofing" them with this water gun thing we had for the pool. the kids got the biggest kick out of waiting for the poof of air to hit them... ethan looks so funny to me in this first one...


can you believe i caught the "poof" on camera!? we have laughed over and over at this picture... crazy hair!!


and this next shot is going to be printed, framed, and displayed. we have tried over and over and over to get good pictures of caroline and karina together, and since they've learned to crawl, it just really doesn't happen. they have their own agenda, and while they may be obey and stand still for a picture, we have never really been able to get them both to smile at the same time. i'm sure that's a component of murphy's law. so when i captured this moment, i squealed a squeal of victory!


and since we were letting them jump on the beds, we also let them eat spaghetti in the living room while they watched a movie. :) isn't that what vacation is for!?