Just to Make You Smile

I'm working on my next post about furlough but I'm also hard at work cleaning our apartment. Apparently I'd never really gotten it back in shape after I was on bedrest so it was pretty bad. But I'm gradually making progress!

In the meantime, you can enjoy this little clip of Jackson laughing. Katie, this one's for you!

Furlough 2008: Kansas City

When we said we were going to Kansas City, we were frequently asked, "Who do you know in Kansas City?" and "Oh, do you have a (supporting) church there?". The answer was a resounding NO. We had no family, friends or supporters there and that's exactly the way we wanted it. While we love spending time with all the people who love us, it was important for us to spend some family time together just relaxing. (We did discover a college buddy of ours lives in KC so we made an exception for him which paid off big time when he helped us find great BBQ!)

It's hard to say what I enjoyed most that week. I had a phenomenal pumpkin pie concrete. But as a family, we probably most enjoyed the College Basketball Experience and the zoo, even though Jackson slept through a good part of it! So here are a few of the highlights (minus the pumpkin pie concrete--I didn't take a picture of it!):

The College Basketball Experience


The Kansas City Zoo


(Can you tell I'm in love with my new collage tool?)

Furlough 2008: The Carolinas

Okay, back to furlough. We had a lovely couple of days in Raleigh with my Grandma Turner. Jackson absolutely loved her little dog, Buster. I believe that Buster counts as Jackson's great-uncle, as he is Grandma's baby, making him my uncle. But no one in the family seems to agree with me on that one (especially my dad, who doesn't seem to want to consider a dog his "brother"). Jackson and Buster were about the same size so they played well together.



That Friday we drove down to the Myrtle Beach area. We love getting to spend time with our friends at the Grand Strand church. On Saturday night we got to visit with one of the small groups and Russ preached Sunday morning. We enjoyed some AWESOME Mexican food with our hosts, Chuck and Barbara, and then headed back to Raleigh. The next day we spent a little more time with Grandma and then flew back to Kansas City.

When we set our furlough schedule, I tend to think in terms of what is possible and not what may or may not be a good idea. As it was, I felt like I edited the "possible" but I think that next time we'll do even less and try to spread it out more. This leg of the trip we covered around 3500 miles in about a week. That was way too much. Fortunately we had vacation coming up.

Bats in my Bedroom

Well, I guess we have been gone awhile when our teammates have to chase bats out of our house before we return! Our son now proudly displays two teeth (bottom front), and we both have the tired faces to prove it. We are still dealing with the heat and the time change, so please keep us in your thoughts...

Ketchup

Well, we're back in Brazil. As many people have kindly pointed out, I barely blogged while we were stateside. But now we're home and getting this blog up-to-date is on my to-do list. It may take some time, though, because Jackson is infinitely more mobile than when we left and we're frantically babyproofing of our apartment. To tide you over, I thought I'd share these pictures with you. We had them taken at Portrait Innovations our first week of furlough when Jackson was almost seven months old. (I highly recommend Portrait Innovations!) Now he's almost nine months and it's amazing how much he's changed in the past two months.