Today's Adventure

After all the wedding festivities this weekend, Joe had to fly back to NC last night. As much as we know we'll miss each other (and seriously do already), we decided it would be a good week for me to stay in MD with the girls. The 1st reason is to be with my Jules so she's not home alone while Dad & Rachel are away honeymooning. The 2nd is that Joe is coming back on Monday again for a week (for the Leaders Conference). While we are having an awesome time with Julie, each day this week I have a little adventure planned for the girls and I. Today was Brookside Gardens. Its a childhood favorite, and a great thing about having girls is they love flowers. Alathea was SO happy there!

Alathea especially liked that I let her sit in the tree by herself :) Abi was quite unhappy that she was not included in this!

We grabbed a picnic lunch and Starbucks on the way and enjoyed the gorgeous day in the gardens.

The rest of the day we spent with Julie when she was home, I mulched Dads yard and had dinner with Rocky. It was a wonderful day that ended with me calling 911 for the 1st time ever. Nothing serious, I just came home to a wide open basement door and was too scared to walk through Dad's 4,000 square foot house by myself with two little girls to see if anyone was lurking around. Yikes! I kept going between being fearful of someone kidnapping me and the girls to feeling completely ridiculous for being too scared to check out the house alone. I really wish Joe was with me :) And when he suggested I just call the police to check it out, I felt better about it. We had two amazingly wonderful police officers come over and scope out the house for me- and they didn't make me feel like a complete loser for calling them. All is well, we just have no idea how the door was wide open (we never us the door). Anyways, great opportunity to laugh at myself!

So that was our day. We miss everyone back home already!!

Going to the chapel...

...to see my DAD get married! How crazy, happy, wonderful & weird is that! But that is how we spent this past friday evening...but not at a chapel, in a ball room at a local restaurant. Here we are all ready to go...

Rachel is an incredible gift from God for my Dad. Just look how happy he is!

Dad and Rocky, the best man.

It was a short and simple ceremony, but Rachel was still glowing.

The three amigos. We stick together :)

The wedding photographer brought a box of dress ups.

It was a super fun idea and my girls loved it!!

Julie and James

My Grandpa and Jane enjoying the dancing.

One of the highlights of the wedding was that most of my Moms family came!! What a HUGE blessing to my siblings and me. Mom has 6 sisters and a brother and a very tight knit family. I grew up seeing them all the time and now they live all over the US, so it was a treat to be with them!

A moment with our Dad. It was funny being the kids at our parents wedding...

we were sure proud of him :)

The best part of the evening was watching our girls dance the night away!! Alathea was convinced we were at a princess ball. Rocky also convinced her that he was her prince! She held him to it and had to dance every song with him :)

Both girls had a blast dancing for hours. Way, way past bedtime :)

One last special picture of my Daddy & me.

I miss him this week while he's on a cruise with Rachel. I sure do love him!

Congrats Dad & Rachel!

Favorites

Just a few of my favorites pics of my favorite people. Chavia is a gifted photographer...but as much as I love her pictures, I love her passion for the Lord and reaching the lost even more. I respect you so much Chavia and am glad I got a chance to see you. You can see more pics on her blog here.

Rekindle 2009

Finally got my pictures up from Rekindle 2009! It only took me two weeks ;) This was our 5th college group's spring break trip together and it was the best one yet! SO many things that God did that week. One of the highlights every year is the privilege to baptize some of the kids who have been recently saved in the Gulf of Mexico. Below is a picture of this years group (along with Jon Shea & Joe who lead M28). God is so good! I LOVE looking at all the baptism pictures over the years.

Here is our little family at the beach (above). Joe leads the whole week and is very busy, but us girls love and savor all the time we get with him. And I'm so grateful my girls get to go every year...little college ministry babies...this is Alathea's 4th year!! Below is the view from our room...not bad! 

I love this boy!

Alathea & I went out on an ice cream date one morning. She had a great time all week, but by the end clearly needed some alone time with Mommy. It was special to be with her. And really sweet to see how happy she was to be just me & her.

The girls were in AWE of flying kites. Alathea did it all by herself!!

Feeding the seagulls from our balcony every morning.

Abi LOVED the beach! She was pretty fearless in the ocean too!

"Miss Hanna", our favorite friend and babysitter, came with us on the trip to watch the girls during our meetings (so I could attend them). She was the hugest blessing! As you can see the girls adore her!

This was the giant "sand mountain". A 5 foot drop on the beach just before the ocean. The girls LOVED it...they thought it was a slide. I got some hilarious video of Abi sliding head first down this, getting a face full of sand, then standing up and "running" into the ocean! She's my little adventurous one!

The girls & I drove down to Laguna Beach a day early with our good friends the Honea's (Lizzy & Jason are in the picture below). The three kids did great on the 13 hour car trip!! And I had a great time with Lizzy & Steve. That extra day was special time with my girls before the weeks craziness began!

What a wonderful, blessed week it was! College ministry is so fun...crazy games, lots of laughter, energy & enthusiasm. And I am so inspired by M28's zeal for the Lord and heart for the lost. They are the most loving, faithful evangelists that I know!! I'm grateful to be a part.