Alaska Vacation

After our mission trip, Ryan and I were lucky enough to stay in Alaska for a few extra days.  This may be our only chance to visit Alaska! We all arrived back in Anchorage on Friday evening. On our way back we had an amazing view of Mt. McKinley that simply couldn't be beat.

We stayed again at Calvary Baptist Church, and Global Mission Partners allowed us to use one of their vans to drive around Anchorage and site see. We saw a moose!!!

Saturday morning, Ryan and I headed to the train depot where we boarded a Princess train (the same company that operates several Alaskan cruises). We had an 8 hour train ride up to Denali National Park. The ride was beautiful! The scenery was ever changing from huge mountains to lakes to tundra to taiga to little villages. We loved it. It was a very comfortable ride too. The seats are on the second level (dining in on the first), and the train cars are all glass dome tops. You had huge views wherever you looked. It was amazing!

Upon arrival at the Princess Denali Wilderness Lodge, we walked into our room, dropped off our things and headed out to explore. We took the little shuttle into Denali National Park and hiked down to Horseshoe Lake. We didn't see any wildlife, but we did see a beautiful forest and lake.

By this point, the last shuttle was about to leave, so we hiked back up and took it back to the Lodge. We enjoyed a delicious dinner on the back patio of the restaurant which overlooks the Nenana River. The views only made the dinner better!

The next morning, we enjoyed a quick breakfast and then got ready for our excursion tours. Ryan was so excited to take a small plane over the summit of nearby Mt. McKinley. Unfortunately, it was drizzly outside and not safe for the planes to go, so his tour was cancelled. He ended up being able to watch the World Cup final instead, which he enjoyed. Of course, his tour was cancelled about 10 minutes after I left for my tour. I went to a dogsled camp! Even better, I was the only one on the tour so I got to ask questions that interested me. It was awesome!

The first part of the tour was spent with a young guy who is a trapper. He traps with his grandfather each winter, from October through January. They trap foxes, wolves, mink, wolverines and beavers. He showed me how the traps work, and I got to feel each of the animals. It was really a very interesting lesson. While there, they served me hot chocolate and fry bread which is basically a big doughnut without the hole. Yum! When this part was over, I got to go outside to pet and feed their pet reindeer whose name is Red. He was very friendly and cool to see.

From here, we went to the dogsled camp. The musher is named Bill Cutter and his assistant, Emily, was there too. Bill has run the Iditarod 20 times; to date it has run 38 times so he has competed in more than half of them. He said his first race took him about 19 days and 8 hours to complete, but his best time was just over 9 days. I was amazed you could cut that much time from this race! All the dogs were so excited to see me there because they knew it meant it was time for a run. They were jumping all around and barking. They got them all ready to go in front of this big cart (it would hold about 9 people - obviously not a real dogsled) and off we went. It was awesome! We just went around the block, but I loved it! When we returned, I watched them feed the dogs (for insurance reasons, visitors aren't allowed to touch or play with the dogs), and then Bill showed me all the stuff he uses for the Race. I saw the boots he wears (they were incredibly thick), gear he takes and the sled he uses. He has used the wooden looking one that you probably think of if you think of dogsledding, but a few years ago, they all moved over to acrylic sleds which go much faster. This was really a fascinating tour, and I am so glad I was able to do this.

When I returned to the Lodge, we had a quick bite to eat and then we traveled by bus to McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge. This lodge sits about 40 or so miles from the base of Mt. McKinley, the tallest peak in North America. It's 20,320 feet tall - whoa! However, it was so cloudy when we arrived, you couldn't even see the mountain existed which was crazy. We had a delicious dinner and walked around the beautiful grounds for awhile before turning in for the night. However, we had signed up to receive a "mountain call." This is where Lodge staff call you if the mountain becomes viewable. Well, at 1:15 in the morning, we got the mountain call. I was utterly exhausted and decided not to go down to see it since we had seen such an amazing view of it on the plane ride back to Anchorage. Ryan was very excited though so he headed on down and got some good pictures of it.

Our wake-up call came about 6:30 that morning so we could ready and have breakfast before our excursion left at 8:00. We drove down to the river and got ready for our float down the Chulitna River. It was about a 17 mile float that took about 4 hours. There are no rapids at this part of the river, so we were able to bring our cameras and just enjoy. We saw a couple of eagles which was awesome. The mountain ranges were pretty visible most of the time too which we loved.

When the float ended, we were in Talkeetna which is a cool little town. We had lunch at the West Rib Pub which we had seen on Food Network's "Man Versus Food" show. Ryan had a caribou burger and I had a salmon filet; both were delicious. After this, we were able to just walk around town and do a little souvenir shopping.

About 4, the Princess train stopped in Talkeetna and picked us up for a 4 hour ride back to Anchorage. We enjoyed more beautiful scenery along the way. Ryan was even able to walk outside to the back of the train a few time to snap some pictures. This train still had the glass dome tops which was great, but we were assigned to a table instead of chairs. There we met Danny and Andrea, newlyweds from Missouri. We really enjoyed talking to them and getting to hear about their trip. We arrived in Anchorage Monday evening and checked into the Marriott (courtesy of reward points). We found another place featured on "Man Versus Food" called Humpys. At this pub, we enjoyed listening to a live band while we ate dinner. We picked up some cupcakes for dessert (you know I cannot resist cupcakes) and headed back to the hotel.

On Tuesday, we slept in and then thought we would take Danny and Andrea's suggestion to rent a car and drive down the Alaska Highway a bit. Unfortunately, Hertz was out of cars, and we didn't want to spend all day trying to find one, so we decided just to hang around town. We went to the Glacier Brewhouse for lunch. This was my favorite meal of the entire trip. Salmon encrusted with crushed macadamia nuts, an orange rum glaze with sweet cilantro infused oil and a mango ginger relish; put the julienned vegetables and jasmine rice on the side and you have a meal fit for a queen! Ryan really loved their delicious ribs too. We went to several art shops and saw amazing photographs and paintings of Alaska which we loved. By this point, the rain was starting to come down pretty hard, and we really didn't want to get drenched before our flight home, so we headed back to the hotel, hailed a cab and went to the airport; we had about 4 hours to kill but that was fine.

Our plane left about 7:30 on Tuesday evening, and we arrived at 6:45 Wednesday morning. Unfortunately, neither of us slept on the plane, so we were exhausted. We're still trying to catch up! The girls were so excited to see us when we got home. We arrived at the house about 7:30, and both girls were already up. As soon as the key clicked in the door, we heard Lily start running towards us saying "Mommy! Mommy!" Mia followed right behind her yelling "DaDa! DaDa!" They gave us huge hugs and were so so excited. It was great! Liz went out to get us Chick-fil-a while we gave the girls their presents and simply enjoyed being with them again. As great as this trip was, it was wonderful to be home.

Ryan and I are so glad we had the opportunity for this trip. We owe a humongous thank you to Liz who stayed with the girls the entire time we were gone. She had some weekend help from the rest of the Birmingham family and some weekday help from my parents. We thank you all so very much. We will never forget this trip, and we could not have done it without your help. We learned so much while we were gone and feel like our eyes were opened quite a bit. What an amazing world we live in! 

Alaska Mission Trip

An amazing opportunity was given to Ryan and me about 10 weeks ago. We were asked if we wanted to join a team for a mission trip to remote Alaska. We would go to a small village of about 300 individuals, most of whom are Inupiak Natives of Alaska. Something about this trip spoke to both of us, and we immediately jumped at the chance. So, last Friday, July 2, we all boarded a plane bound for Anchorage. Our 7 person team also consisted of our friends, Shane and Adrienne, their 7-year-old son, Jackson, and Shane's parents, John and Molly. We had an amazing journey! I will go on and say that there is absolutely no way this blog entry will do this trip justice. I spent at least an hour everyday journaling about the day's experiences, and it's just not possible for me to rewrite it all here for you. So, I will hit the highlights instead and hope you can understand how blessed we feel to have had this opportunity. Ryan and I would love the chance to talk to each of you about this trip so we can fill you in on more of the details that I simply can't write about on this blog.

We left on Friday for our 7.5 hour Delta flight to Anchorage. We made it with no problems and enjoyed some beautiful scenery on the way there.

We were greeted by Jay, a volunteer with Global Mission Partners ("GMP") which is the group that helped us with the planning of our trip. GMP is based out of Calvary Baptist Church in Anchorage, so Jay drove us there where they fed us a wonderful dinner (prepared by the sweetest gentleman from Chattanooga named Tom) and gave us dormitory-style accommodations for the evening.

The next morning, we were given breakfast and driven to the airport where we boarded Alaska Airlines and headed to Kotzebue. Kotzebue sits on the West coast of Alaska 33 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It is approximately 1.5 miles long by 1/2 mile wide. We planned on having a short layover before flying on to Ambler, a village about 45 miles north of the Arctic Circle that is inland on the Kobuk River. That is where we planned on staying for the week. On our way to Kotzebue, we had to first stop in Nome for a 20 minute layover. Unfortunately, when we arrived in Nome, we were told the fog in Kotzebue was too bad to land a plane, so they turned us around and we headed back to Anchorage. After landing in Anchorage, we spend awhile rearranging plane flights and collecting our luggage (we had 15 pieces between our personal bags and boxes with supplies and food for the week in it!) before heading back to Calvary Baptist. Luckily, they had room for our unplanned stay so we were given a place to stay again.

On Sunday, we were again in Nome when they started saying we might not make it into Kotzebue. The pilot was going to start heading that way and would see how things looked as we got closer. Can I tell you this made me a little nervous? I was already scared of a horrible plane crash and leaving our two sweet girls behind, but then this pilot says he will "try and see?" Sigh. Anyway, we managed to time the flight just right because we were able to land in Kotzebue without too many bumps. We were greeted by John and Terry, the pastor and his wife of Kotzebue Baptist. John is originally from South Georgia, so we enjoyed hearing a familiar accent! Ryan was able to take a quick knee-deep wade into the Arctic Ocean which was really cool (pun intended).

We had not originally planned on spending much time in Kotzebue, but our change in flight plans necessitated it. Thankfully, there was extra room at the church for us to spend the night. We spent a lot of time that evening talking with them about their experiences in Kotzebue and the bush of Alaska. He told us of the prophet Manillaq; an Alaska native who lived a few hundred years ago. He is highly respected by natives and many health care and social care areas are named for him. He prophesied that someday a big bird would bring the white man and his black book into Alaska to teach natives about the one true God. I had chill bumps thinking about that.

On Monday, we had some time before our flight, so John and Terry drove us around Kotzebue in the church van. We went on top of a nearby hill which gave us a beautiful view of the city; from far away, it looks like a quaint little fishing town. As we drove out a little bit, we saw the Early Detection Radar for missiles coming in from Asia and/or Russia; I couldn't decide if that was comforting or not. In the valley below this Radar though was a herd of caribou. Our first big wildlife siting! There were probably 100 or so that we had a good look at. That was pretty exciting. We continued our drive and passed several others eyeing the group too; I'm sure a few people had a delicious caribou dinner that evening.

Our tour ended and it was time for us to board our planes for Ambler. Because of our flight changes, John, Jackson, Ryan and I took one 8-seater plane while the other 3 were in a different 8-seater plane. Remember my earlier mention of my nervousness of a plane crash? This didn't help. I'm told bush pilots make these trips all the time which was somewhat comforting, but they don't make them all the time with Ryan and me on the plane.  Thankfully though we had a pretty smooth flight, and we all landed safely in Ambler. Finally, we made it! Upon arrival, we discovered our luggage had gone over the weight limit of the plane, so they left some of it in Kotzebue and would send it when they could. Also, our host missionaries, Paul and Glenda, were not in Ambler when we arrived. Paul's mother had passed away a few weeks ago in Louisiana. They were in the process of driving back to Anchorage to get on a flight to Ambler; some car trouble had delayed their trip. However, they had helped us arrange some transportation help from some of the locals which we greatly appreciated. We thought it was so cool that they drive 4-wheelers everywhere. There are no paved roads in the village, so there is no need for cars; the 4-wheelers are way better! Of course, they use snowmobiles (or "snow-goes") in the winter, but we experienced the fun of the 4-wheeler.

We were all taken to the Paul and Glenda's home which is about 20 yards from the church. They had two beautiful dogs, Kodiak and Sitka, to greet us. Kodiak looks like a Siberian Husky while Sitka is almost pure wolf. Sitka had also just had a litter of pups the week before. All that to say, don't go near Sitka right now. We were also surprised when we arrived at the home to find two individuals staying there. Steve and Amy were with a group called Campfire which teaches cold water safety around Alaska. Since the village sits right on the Kobuk river, these are important skills for the kids to learn. There was confusion because they arrived when we were supposed to arrive, so people thought they were the missionaries supposed to stay in the house. We got all the details worked out though because they were both super nice and flexible with plans. They ended up sleeping in the local school at night while our group had some sleeping in Paul and Glenda's home (which they arrived at on Tuesday) and some sleeping in the church. It actually turned out to be a huge blessing to have Campfire there. They offered a free lunch to the kids each day at 12:30; obviously this attracts a lot of kids! As lunch was ending, we would start with our Vacation Bible School activities which all the kids stayed for. When we were finished for the day, Steve and Amy would start back up with their swimming and survival lessons. Since the sun just circled around the sky and never truly set, swimming in the evening and nighttime wasn't a problem at all. It worked perfectly!

Each day we had great activities planned for the kids. Adrienne and Molly took care of these details, and they did a fantastic job. We had singing, skits, puppet shows, story time, crafts, snacks and play time each day. The kids loved it! The songs were praise music which had the kids up and dancing around. The skits were great too. One of the skits was called "The Smallest Man in Alaska." John was covered up and put his arms around Jackson. John was then charged with the task of getting Jackson dressed (putting shorts on his arms and shoes on his hands which is why he looked so small) and ready for the day (putting on a tie, shaving with a pretend razor, brushing hair, brushing teeth and eating cereal). John couldn't see what he was doing and Jackson couldn't use his hands to help, so it led to a big mess. All kids love a big mess! The puppets were used to tell lessons about sharing, loving your neighbor and God's love. For story time, the younger kids stayed in the church to hear Adrienne give Bible stories while Shane and I were outside with the older kids telling them about Joseph and helping them relate to him. Craft time included making faith bracelets, painting rocks by the river, making felt pouches and decorating beautiful crosses. This gave the kids some creative time which was fun to watch. Snack time was always welcome, and play time was just free time to be outside and be kids. We had lots of fun with kickball, bubbles, a pinata, frisbees and footballs. The kids really seemed to have a great time the whole week.  Here are lots of pictures of some of the precious children we met.

We also had a couple of ladies events where we gave out manicures. Several women attended, and we enjoyed getting to know them better. There was also a movie night where we watched National Treasure (a great movie if you haven't seen it), and a game night. We played card and board games inside the church while it was free play outside. Before we left, we also had the opportunity to meet a few of the elders living in the village which I loved. I wish we could have spent more time with them because I love listening to the stories of older people; they have so much experience and wisdom that we can all learn from. We were able to purchase handmade birchwood baskets and picture frames from them too which were so beautiful.

In the evenings while the kids were swimming, we enjoyed dinners with Paul and Glenda. They have been serving in Ambler for three years, and it was wonderful to spend time with them. They are both teachers in the local school. Paul leads the adults in worship in church on Sundays while Glenda leads the children in their home. We wish them all the best as they continue on in their ministries. Even though GMP had sent us to Ambler with so much food, Paul and Glenda were kind to share their caribou with us too. Ryan really enjoyed Paul's homemade caribou jerky. One night we had ravioli with a caribou marinara sauce which we all enjoyed. The best night though was when Glenda made her caribou chili. Wow it was delicious! I think Ryan could have eaten this everyday; he absolutely loved it.

One evening, Paul took Ryan, Jackson and me on his 4-wheeler for a tour into the surrounding hills. We ended up on top of Dome Hill which gave us amazing views of the Kobuk River and Brooks Mountain Range, specifically Jade Mountain. At one point, most of the jade from Alaska came from this mountain, but then the transportation became too difficult so it is no longer a working mine. It was truly humbling to see God's beauty here. What an amazing world He made!

Of course, the main point of this week was to make sure these precious children know that God loves them and we love them. We were thrilled at the end of our trip when a 9-year-old little girl started asking Ryan more questions, and she decided to give her life to Christ. We also found out later that Paul baptized three people in the Kobuk River this past Sunday. Praise God! We really became attached to many of these kids while we were there. We will not forget these children. The Inupiak Natives have such an interesting heritage, and we are so thankful for the opportunity to meet so many individuals on our journey. It is not easy to live in a remote village in Northern Alaska; we ask that you pray for the people that live there, especially their children.

My Favorite Customer

While I was doing laundry this evening after dinner, Lily came into the laundry room and sat at the little table in there. We started playing restaurant. Here's how the conversation went:

L: Cooker? (That's her way of saying chef)
M: Yes?
L: I would like to order dinner.
M: Okay, what would you like to have tonight?
L: Well, I need to see a menu first please.
M: Okay, here you go (pretend to put a menu on the table).
L: Thank you. (Looks over the menu for a few seconds). Okay, I would like a hamburger with pie and ham and cheese and tomatoes and macaroni and your favorite, key lime, on it. Please.
M: Wow, that sounds delicious.
L: Yes. Oh and cooker? I need some grass for my dog. His name is Spike the Bulldog (FYI, that's Samford's mascot), and he needs to eat too. Please bring him some grass.
M: Will do. It will take just a minute to get it cooked and all together. (Pause while I fold socks for a minute; Lily patiently waits). Okay, here you go. One plate of grass for Spike and one hamburger with pie and ham and cheese and tomatoes and key lime on it.
L: You forgot the macaroni!
M: Oh, I am so sorry. I just forgot to say it, but I made sure to put the macaroni on it.
L: That's silly! It wouldn't be good without the macaroni on it!

A few minutes later, she convinced Ryan to come in with her and also be a customer. They sat down, perused the menu for a moment and then we had this conversation:
M: What can I get for you customers?
R: I would like spaghetti and garlic bread.
L: I would like spaghetti with pasta and ravioli.
M: You got it. It'll be up in just a moment. (Pause and then hand them the food. Ryan begins to pretend to eat with his fingers).
L: Cooker, you forgot the forks!
M: Oh you're right! Here you go.
L: Thank you. (They both eat with their pretend forks). Can I have deserk now (deserk is Lily's way of saying dessert)?
M: Sure you can.
L: Okay. Can I have those cookies (points to the cookies on the pantry shelf! She totally got me! Everything else up to this point had been pretend...did she plan that from the beginning?!)?
M: Let me see if we have any already open. (I go to the kitchen and grab the box of fruit snacks). Unfortunately, we do not have any cookies open and we are going to take that box to the beach with us. However, I brought you a selection of fruit snacks.
L: Yea! Let me pick which one I want. I want Tropical (dried pineapple, mango and papaya). Yea, I got Tropical!

She cracks me up!

Mia's Love of Socks

Mia always loves to put on shoes and socks. She will squirm every which way when you are getting her dressed, but as soon as you say it's time to put on shoes and socks, she sits still and holds her feet up for you. She loves to put on the shoes and then walk to someone else, show them off and say "oe!" She's still working on the "sh" sound, but she gets her point across. If you leave your shoes sitting out anywhere within her reach, she will put them on and experiment walking around in them. Mia absolutely cracks us up tonight though when she wanted to put Ryan's socks on. See picture below. It made us laugh because she was only in a diaper because her clothes had been covered in ketchup at dinner, and these socks covered up almost her entire leg. It was so funny to see, but look how happy wearing them made her!

Turner Field Visit

Ryan and his friend, Brian, had a great opportunity last week to take a "behind the scenes" tour at Turner Field. They offer these tours a lot when the Braves are away. Ryan and Brian love going to a Braves' game, so this just seemed like something fun to do one afternoon. It was a beautiful day which made everything even better. Here are a few of the pictures Ryan snapped:

Looking out onto the field from the Press Box.

Getting a look at the Braves' locker room.
Looking up at the Press Box from the Suntrust seats right behind home plate. We would love to have these seats one night for a game!

The big Coke bottle in the outfield. Fireworks shoot out from here whenever the Braves hit a home run or win a game...we see the fireworks a lot!

Ryan standing at the entrance to the field from the dugout. Pretty cool view, huh?

I think Ryan and Brian really enjoyed this tour!

Face Painting

We went to Atlanta Bread Company for dinner last night. While we were waiting on our food, a gentleman walked over to sit at the table next to us. He smiled at Mia who started saying hi and waving; Lily then said hi to him as well. He seemed very nice, and said we should come tomorrow night because Tuesday is Kids Eat Free. He said his kids loved it, and they had a great face painting artist there. Lily looked at me and said "Mommy, I don't want to paint my face. I like the color it is." We tried explaining what face painting actually is, and the man even showed us pictures on his cell of his kids with their faces painted up (they looked really good too), but Lily just couldn't get on board. She even told me again tonight that "I like the color of my face. I don't want to have it painted." She makes me laugh!

Hi and Bye

This morning, Mia and I were reading books together. She picked out "My Big Animal Book" which is filled with pictures of different type animals. As we turned a new page, she would wave really big and say "Hi!" very enthusiastically. We would point out the different animals and some of the noises they make. It makes me laugh that when you ask Mia was a lion says, she very quietly says "rar!" whereas other noises she will say very loudly. As we would finish a page, Mia would wave again and say "Bye!" We repeated this process on every page. Oh, this little one is so precious!

Fun Weekend

This weekend was a lot of fun for us. On Saturday morning, my dad came and picked up Lily. He wants to start spending more one-on-one time with each of his grandkids which we think is great. He took her J Christopher's for breakfast where Lily enjoyed part of a waffle, breakfast potatoes, bacon and orange juice. They also picked up Meme and visited with her some. Lily told us what a great time she had, and we look forward to them spending more time together. While they were out, Ryan took Mia to breakfast and then to run errands. Almost jokingly, Ryan asked Mia where she wanted to go eat; she responded "Chicka." Alright then, off to Chick-fil-a! While the house was nice and quiet, I was able to put together a hash brown casserole and get myself ready in peace. My friend Lisa picked me up and we went to a Sip and See for three friends from Sunday School. We have pretty much stopped having showers for all the babies being born into our class because there are so many! Instead, we have a Sip and See for three or four new babies at a time when they are a few months old. We all get to oooh and aaah over the sweet little ones while stocking up the mom with diapers and wipes and catching up with friends over yummy food. It's a great time! When we left the Sip and See, Lisa and I ran by Omaha Steaks because they were having a HUGE sale. Good meat for cheap prices...awesome!

Soon after I got home, Lily and I left to go to Anna Claire's birthday pool party. She actually turned three on Christmas Day last year, but her mom had the great idea to celebrate her half-birthday. We had a great time. Lily was very hesitant about getting into the pool, so she hung out on the side of the pool and on the stairs. They had lots of big floats, and she would pull one out, rock it back and forth and call it her car. She had a great time "driving and parking" her cars! We both loved AC's princess castle cake that our friend Jill made, and Lily was thrilled when she saw one of the snacks being offered was Princess Gummies. After having a lot of fun for a couple of hours though, we needed to get going. Lily was very excited to look into her goody bag and see a "princess wand" lollipop. I tell you what, it's great that the little things make her so happy!

We tried making sliders for dinner Saturday night on the new griddle that we have (since our big grill is not in use due to deck construction). They turned out really tasty. We also had corn on the cob which I love because it cracks me up to see how excited Mia gets about it. She hadn't been feeling very well but this perked her up. After dinner it was bath time. Lily was very excited about this because I bought some "tub tints" that change the color of the water, but do not stain the kids. We filled the big tub up with blue water for Lily and then put Mia's smaller tub inside of that; we then filled Mia's tub up with red water. They had a great time playing in there together. Lily thinks making the bath water change colors is the coolest trick!

On Sunday morning, we went to church and then to Doc Green's for lunch which was very enjoyable. Both girls seemed just a little off; we think they were pretty tired because they were just whiny and fussy. Both went down for naps before 1:00 instead of waiting until 2:00. Mia woke up about an hour later because she was hungry; she had a little snack and then went back down for about 30 more minutes. When she woke up, we decided to go over to my parents to swim. We had a great time! The pool felt great, and the girls had so much fun. My dad swam with us which they loved too. Mia did great floating around for awhile, but then she had a blast when we let her play on the steps. Lily had fun as we helped hold her up so she could kick and "swim." She loved watching me do somersaults under the water; Mia seemed to be very nervous whenever anyone went underwater. She would point and say "Uh oh!" until they came back up; then she would smile really big. This was a really wonderful way to spend the afternoon, and it made me look forward to our trip to Florida in a few weeks! Around 6, we decided we needed to go because we could hear tummies growling. We drove through Jim and Nicks and enjoyed good BBQ at home. We helped the girls with showers and then put them to bed. Liz came in right as Lily was going to bed, so we enjoyed a relaxing evening watching a show about Disney resorts with her. What a great way to end the weekend!

Love this Video!

Here is a YouTube link to the most precious video of our girls. On Friday morning, on our way down to the Childrens Museum, we were playing a CD and "Jesus Loves Me" came on. Lily started singing along. Luckily, Ryan was able to pull our new video camera out of his pocket, so we could record this. The first few seconds are of him pulling out the camera, but the other two minutes are of the girls. Lily is singing a little quietly at first, but then picks up once she realizes I am videoing her. You can also occasionally hear Mia in the background saying "Jez." How absolutely precious are they?!

To Tell the Truth

Lily and I had a conversation last week about lying and how it is wrong to lie. So for a few days now, it makes me laugh (to myself) when I hear something like "Mommy, when I slipped and fell, it hurt my knee...and that's the TRUTH."

Childrens Museum

Friday morning, the four of us met our friends, the Michie's, at the Childrens Museum. Ryan and Chris have been friends for several years when the worked at Opteum together, and his wife, Hannah, and I became friends through them. Lily and Peyton are only a month apart in age, and they always have such a great time playing together. Last Fall, Chris enlisted in the Reserves and has been at boot camp and training for several months. He came home last week, and we couldn't wait to see them all again. Here are a few pictures from our time down there.

All the girls had fun fishing.

Mia had a great time "driving" the tractor.
One of Lily's favorite activities is always "shopping" in the farmers market.

Mia found the banana slide!

The family having fun!

Father's Day 2010

Today is Father's Day! I reminded Lily a few days ago that today was coming up, and she said "Daddy, Sunday is your Mommy's Day!" Well, not exactly...

We got up this morning and as we were getting ready for church, Lily simply couldn't wait any longer; she wanted to give Ryan the card she had colored for him. She didn't even realize there were presents for him, but once she knew that, we couldn't put it off any longer. Ryan was very pleased to receive a new 16 GB iPod which will hold lots more music than his 4 GB one. He loves music and has such varied tastes, so it's hard for him to narrow down his play lists on the 4 GB one; the new one will make that a lot easier. He also received a protective case for it; we have too many little hands in the house to not have a cover!

We went to church and then to Moes for lunch. After lunch we came home to play for a bit, and then we all four took good naps. We always love a good Sunday afternoon nap. After nap time, we played for a little bit more and then headed to Taco Mac for dinner...yum. When we came home, we let Lily play on the computer for a few minutes before we put Mia to bed; she and I were going to run to Publix after putting Mia down. A few minutes later, Bama came home and the girls were very excited to see her. We had lots of fun playing together. You can see in the pictures below one of their favorite things to do with Ryan...

About 7:30, we got Mia changed and into bed. Then Lily and I ran up to Publix which was actually pretty fun. She talked nonstop! When we came home, we played downstairs in Bama's room for a little bit (playing princess and reading a book) before getting ready for bed.

This was a very good day, and I'm so glad we were able to celebrate Ryan for the fantastic dad that he is. My girls are so fortunate to have such a wonderful dad. He loves them so much, and he is great at showing them that love. We love you!