We're Baaack!

One week ago, we arrived safely at our home sweet home! That was no small feat, considering we saw 10 states and 5,000 miles in three weeks. It was a completely wonderful and blessed trip-- in which we got to see many of our friends and family in their home places, and were able to worship and serve God many miles from the comfort of home!!

As you can imagine, we saw many landscapes. Without intending to, we planned our itinerary around a most gorgeous time across the midwest: just before harvest, when thousands upon thousands of acres of corn, soybeans and wheat are readying for harvest. Honestly, I expected to see more "nothingness" across eastern Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota. Instead, we were greeted by ever changing landscapes-- from mountains and valleys to plains and plateaus; we saw a lot. In our own little world at home, we only see what is out our window, or the view during our commute. But it was awe inspiring to think that all of this land, all this creation is honoring God every minute-- day and night-- even when we aren't there looking at it. He is.

Psalm 104 (New Living Translation)

1 Let all that I am praise the Lord. O Lord my God, how great you are!
You are robed with honor and majesty.
2 You are dressed in a robe of light.
You stretch out the starry curtain of the heavens;
3 you lay out the rafters of your home in the rain clouds.
You make the clouds your chariot;
you ride upon the wings of the wind.
4 The winds are your messengers;
flames of fire are your servants.
5 You placed the world on its foundation
so it would never be moved.
6 You clothed the earth with floods of water,
water that covered even the mountains.
7 At your command, the water fled;
at the sound of your thunder, it hurried away.
8 Mountains rose and valleys sank
to the levels you decreed.
9 Then you set a firm boundary for the seas,
so they would never again cover the earth.
10 You make springs pour water into the ravines,
so streams gush down from the mountains.
11 They provide water for all the animals,
and the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
12 The birds nest beside the streams
and sing among the branches of the trees.
13 You send rain on the mountains from your heavenly home,
and you fill the earth with the fruit of your labor.
14 You cause grass to grow for the livestock
and plants for people to use.
You allow them to produce food from the earth—
15 wine to make them glad,
olive oil to soothe their skin,
and bread to give them strength.
16 The trees of the Lord are well cared for—
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
17 There the birds make their nests,
and the storks make their homes in the cypresses.
18 High in the mountains live the wild goats,
and the rocks form a refuge for the hyraxes.
19 You made the moon to mark the seasons,
and the sun knows when to set.
20 You send the darkness, and it becomes night,
when all the forest animals prowl about.
21 Then the young lions roar for their prey,
stalking the food provided by God.
22 At dawn they slink back
into their dens to rest.
23 Then people go off to their work,
where they labor until evening.
24 O Lord, what a variety of things you have made!
In wisdom you have made them all.
The earth is full of your creatures.
25 Here is the ocean, vast and wide,
teeming with life of every kind,
both large and small.
26 See the ships sailing along,
and Leviathan, which you made to play in the sea.
27 They all depend on you
to give them food as they need it.
28 When you supply it, they gather it.
You open your hand to feed them,
and they are richly satisfied.
29 But if you turn away from them, they panic.
When you take away their breath,
they die and turn again to dust.
30 When you give them your breath, life is created,
and you renew the face of the earth.
31 May the glory of the Lord continue forever!
The Lord takes pleasure in all he has made!
32 The earth trembles at his glance;
the mountains smoke at his touch.
33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live.
I will praise my God to my last breath!
34 May all my thoughts be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the Lord.
35 Let all sinners vanish from the face of the earth;
let the wicked disappear forever.

Let all that I am praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord!

Every mile the Lord protected us from car trouble, accidents, and injury. The only "difficult" portion occurred when we found ourselves on a ferry across Lake Michigan for what I predicted would be a fun way for the kids to travel. Instead, there were 20 foot swells and a violently rough ride, and we all (except Aaron) became so sick, all we could do was sit with our heads down and thank God for the puke buckets the ferry provided. We were all very happy (and healthy) to be on dry land again after 4 hours! Considering the miles we passed, we were very fortunte.

The children all did very well; they never resisted getting into the car for another stretch of the journey. Aaron began to crawl 2 days before we left, and had some practice on the trip. Now that we're home, he easily crawls across the whole house and steps from one piece of furniture to the other when standing.

I made a little -- er, big slideshow of our trip. The new blog music are songs that I thought would be fitting with the photos. The slideshow is 327 photos, condensed from the 610 original photos. If you would like a CD of all the photos, or some prints mailed to you, please just let me know by email and I will be happy to send them.

Enjoy, and I pray that God blesses you as he has so richly blessed us. "Forget not all his benefits..." --Psalm 103.1

uh-oh

Aaron is pulling himself to standing! He did it last night, and I thought it was a fluke, so I set him up again this morning, and he duplicated the action before the camera! 1....2...3...4!

I'm a bit surprised by this, because he just began sitting up about 3 weeks ago. I'm a bit CONCERNED by this, because he lacks the sense to hang on once he's standing! ;)

Here's our family before we hiked the "M" in Missoula a few weeks ago.

Aaron "helping" daddy assemble a fly rod; camping at Georgetown Lake

Dave and the girls enjoying a campfire

The Event At Rebecca Farm

Kalispell, MT

We were in Kalispell with Adrian for work last week, so I was pleased to take the kids to this World Cup horsemanship event! The weekend consisted of Dressage, Cross Country and Show Jumping (an equestrian triathlon). I LOVED IT!!

When I first arrived, I found several "warm up" arenas, and spotted one horse rearing in the background:

The kids at a fountain on the property:

An overview of one side of the cross country course:

Horse & rider crossing water

A paint & rider crossing the course:

This picture shows how close spectators were to the action: notice the horse running up hill just in front of us:

Racing uphill!

The jump was right next to us, too:

Neat, neat! I have a renewed hope that someday we'll have horses ... even if I'm not competing at this level, it will be wonderful to have them around!

Father's Day, 5 month boy, 2 year old girl

Aaron Rio at 5 months; always ready to smile!

Jaci Claire on her 2nd birthday

A bruised lip and food on the face, but still beautiful at 2:

This photo is titled, "I can't hold him any longer!" (he's 17.5 lbs now)

Jaci with her doggy cake

Father's Day 2010. He would look just as good with another kid on his lap next year, wouldn't he?

Daddy wanted to snap this photo of Aaron's "chub" on our way to the hotel pool!

A picture that captures Tessa's unbridled love for her baby brother. She sometimes actually hurts him with her kisses, unable to hold back *ALL* that feeling! Tessa captured this feeling with words pretty well this week when she told me, "I want to marry Aaron when he grows up!"

mmm, lilacs!

Aaron and a doll friend

The girls at Georgetown Lake on Sunday

I love how you can see from the rocky lake bottom up to the blue sky in this photo! (That's Jaci with Daddy trying out his new float tube for fishing!)

Do you think we're over the weight limit for the float tube?

before & after

All in a day's work: Mom and I started weeding to put in some annuals, and one thing led to another! We ended up re-landscaping the space surrounding the fountain!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

We managed to have an absolutely wonderful couple of hours with Grandpa & Grandma visiting our little place this evening!! Here they are with 3 out of 4 (Tessa was napping).

We miss you Grandpa Aaron! (Would be 4 generations):

Aaron with the sun hat / Jaci-gave-me-a-kiss-after-eating-frosting-look:

start of summer

Our 3 beautiful daughters, all ready to go!

Mom is here visiting, so we took advantage of an opportunity to photograph all 6 of us. Can't wait to get some professional shots, hopefully next month! (I need to talk to Elissa about that!) :) So here we are squinting in the sun (not complaining ~ we haven't had much this year) with the brown hills of Anaconda in the background!

Mom with the girls ~

A self portrait, 'cause we're still in love after all these years!

Tessa on her first day of preschool!

A friend in town is hosting a small pre-school for 4 year olds 2 days per week for a few weeks this summer. The location is 1 block from our house, so it is an ideal set-up for us. Tessa gets to do something without being in Ella's shadow, and Ella and I get some good one-on-one time to do higher level schooling! We will be officially done with Ella's kindergarten year June 30.

We're loving the sunshine, and ready to get outside! It's time (finally) to plant some annuals, and get the yard looking colorful! God bless you and keep you ~ a.

Tessa is 4!

Thank you everyone for happy wishes for Tessa. She is a beautiful child, and we're so thankful to be celebrating 4 years of having her in our hearts and home.

This one's for you, Gramma Mary...

Tessa with birthday cupcakes, served at the party with friends...

A PICTURE WORTHY MOMENT: I had 3 out of 4 kids sleeping at once yesterday!!! Ahhhh, the peaceful feeling......

The Barbie cake ~ it turned out ok, other than the fact that the cake "dress" wasn't tall enough for Barbie's legs, and I learned you can't remove Barbie's legs without breaking them, and this is Tessa's favorite Barbie...

... so the cake was cute at first (when I took these photos)... but after a few hours of sitting in the fridge, she collapsed. We're eating it tonight anyway!

4 months

Time to post an update of Aaron. He was 4 months old yesterday, so here are a bunch of photos I've taken over the past 2 days. What you can't see is the sound this boy puts out! He's pretty vocal! When in a good mood (pretty much all the time), he goes around squeaking and squealing and making exclamations in high pitches. If he is set down somewhere and wants mommy, he begins to mildly complain, and is very patient, until I pick him up. Then, immediately the leg kicking excited squeals come. I'd compare them to a baby piglet or a baby foal's neigh. Only cuter. Hopefully I'll get that on video to show him later.

A profile shot: lightly reddish tinted fuzzy head, just like Ella & Tessa had.

In my opinion, he still looks the most like Adrian, Adrian's dad, Adrian's Grandpa.
But in this photo, he totally reminds me of my brother Paul when he was a baby. I'll have to see if my parents agree...

The bumbo is new to Aaron this week (thank you Pam!) We all love it!

... a bit sleepy...

...and sporting mommy's favorite jammies. They're just so soft and cuddly, worn by my soft & cuddly baby. Oh, did I mention he's 16 1/2 pounds now? Yeah, not such a small baby anymore, but still extremely cuddly. More so than any of our girls were!