35 Years...

David and Nancy (Nathaniel's parents) celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary with the family in June. Here are some photos of the family. We went to Bennihanas to celebrate. There we saw quite a show with knives and spatulas as they cooked our meal on a hot flat surface in front of us. The kids were enthralled with it all, and Eliana learned to use chopsticks. Following the dinner, we went back to Auntie Lauren's to have cake and open presents with the rest of the family. The cake was in the color of the original bridemaids dresses! What a neat touch!

They were surprised with a trip from the kids and it was packaged in ones in a jar that they had to count up!

David and Nancy have raised a wonderful family and are great examples of what a Christ-centered marriage looks like. Thanks for being such a blessing!

Happy 35th!

First Camping Trip

Our very first camping trip was to the bluff area of Minnesota. We stayed at Frontenac State Park mid June. The first night we ate in Lake City, Minnesota at a little family resturant where they were having all you can eat fish. This was recorded as Joshua's all time favorite part of going camping! In addition, Joshua loved seeing record numbers of deer. In his deer tally account he has now counted ten in his life that he has seen thus far.The kids had fun and a kind gentleman offered to take our family's picture then. The boys were goof balls and had a blast walking back to the car goofing around together as only brothers can! The weather was magnificent and the kids loved sleeping in a tent. Eliana especially loved sleeping in the tent and even taking a nap in the tent. Gabriel wrote about his favorite part of camping and it was the fire! The kids loved watching, helping and best of all making smores with the fire. For those friends in Brazil that have no idea what smores are. They are basically a squishy sticky glob of sugar (marshmellow) that you melt over a campfire on a stick or metal prong. Then when they either light on fire (as most do) or are a scrumptious golden brown hue you take two pieces of graham crackers (much like a cookie) with some chocolate and slide it off between the layers of cookie and chocolate. You then have a smore sandwich and the name S'more comes from wanting "some" s' "more" more....smore.

The first night in the camp ground there seemed to be some animal trying to get into the trash recepticals and put up a mighty racket all evening long. I hardly slept, but our dear ones and Nathaniel all got a lovely night of sleep. The next morning the kids arose at 5am to the sounds of the birdies in the trees! Our solar powered children were up and at em! We decided to leave the campsite and go out onto the bluff to enjoy breakfast and not disturb fellow campers with our children's voices of exuberant joy. We discovered at that time that our milk we had frozen the day before had still not thawed and so cereal with milk was not an option. We visited Wabasha then and over the course of the morning travelled to Wisconsin to taste the cheese and visited another bluff where there is a great view of the Mississippi river valley. Overall it was a successful camping experience and the kids woud love if we could do it again.

Summer Vacation!

It has been so long since I updated the blog! We have recently gotten internet in our home, and so this process of getting photos and info onto our family's blog should come more often.

School was out June 2nd for the children and June 3rd for me. The children are happily on summer vacation. The transition to being off a schedule though does come with an adjustment period!

Here are some of the events since we last updated the blog:

Easter

We colored eggs over our week break from school. We also attended the Riley Easter gathering at Nathaniel's parent's house. There they had an Easter egg hunt. May 2009

Joshua's 8th birthday was May 14th. We celebrated with small events and then took a family break to Duluth, Minnesota. We had a blast although it was mighty cold up there! The car ride to Duluth takes about 3 hours. During that time the children had a lot of extra time in the car. Creative Gabe created some new eye glasses!At the end of May Gabriel graduated from kindergarten. We also picked out our family's dog, Lacy. She's a little toy poodle. Very precious and a great addition to our family!

And Recently...

We have been traversing local parks and getting to know our area. We are close by a huge indoor park that we discovered on a rainy day. The kids went in and I wished I had brought a book as once they were in the climbing (four story) tree, I didn't see them for a LONG time!

Spring is on its way?!

Well, we have now been home for an official 9 months of the year. The perpetual snow (so it seems) is beginning to wear on us and the hope for spring is strong in the air. There is a saying that March comes in like a Lion and out like a Lamb. I think this is especially true in the northern United States. We witnessed a huge snow storm ending February. In this storm, we left school early while the snow came down up to 2 inches or so an hour. By the mid afternoon it was looking awful in the city. Lanes piled high with snow so that passing was near impossible. The children and I made it home early from school after an early release day was called. Nathaniel was not so fortunate and discovered the bus he normally takes after work was rerouted onto the snow routes. Routes that would not take him home. We began our rescue mission. (It sounds so much more fancy than it really was.) As long as we were on side roads we were fine. We made it successfully halfway to meet him. He hiked 8 miles in 2 hours and we ended up meeting at Baker's Square Resturant to have a meal together and then head home on side streets. The children and I got stuck in the parking lot of Baker's Square and a kind gentleman towed our car into a parking lot with his truck. I was thankful for God's protection in that storm and we had many laughs following that.

The kids are adjusting well and part of our plan to ease adjustment was to add two new additions to our family. "Lucy and Alice" (named especially by Joshua). They are Guinea pigs. The kids have enjoyed having them and they are the most docile animals you could imagine. Everytime I shake a plastic bag they whistle for food. They love the hand that feeds them and food is the way in for these creatures! I think they could eat and eat if we kept feeding them. They are also just so cuddly to hold and so adorable. So we have enjoyed having these pets in our family.

Here's a picture of Alice:

Here's a picture of Lucy: We have been so blessed in God's awesome provision in both our work situations and provision in our home, neighborhood, school...and the list goes on! Just last weekend I was thinking about how the Lord has just blessed so many things as I was driving around the circle roads in Richfield and remembering Brazil. Even down to the smallest little things the Lord just orchestrated it all and I am so thankful! We have happily settled and are so thankful for our family, church family, friends, home, and the littlest things that seem to be just perfect in this all! Thank you to all who have continued to pray for us as you think of us.

The boys are standing on the snow fort they built with Nathaniel:

Eliana being silly:

Christmas Tidings!

Merry Christmas!

It has been longer than normal for me to be updating our blog. I have to apologize as life has been extremely busy with all of the events in our lives. In August, I was hired as a new teacher for Chapel Hill Academy. It's a Christian private school in Chanhassen. Following this, we got the boys enrolled for school in the fall. All the while, Nathaniel was looking for work and not having much success. After a month of waiting, the staffing agency called on his references and contacted a previous employer from before we left for Brazil. His previous boss found out that he was in town needing work and specifically requested him.

With the economy the way it has been, finding work and such a good job is a huge answer to prayer. Nathaniel later found out after the official hire (he started as a temp) that they would honor his years of service in the company before and he has a great vacation benefit for the 2009 year. We were so amazed at God's provision and his ordering the events of our transition.

We were looking at homes as the housing market was an opitmal time to purchase with the prices being so low. We looked and looked in the range that we were willing to pay and homes were just not very good. Finally we found a home, and on October 30th we closed on our new home! We moved into the home November 1st. Below are some pictures of our new home.

Part of my favorite part of our new home is the large kitchen! It's so big that we hosted my whole family in the kitchen over Thanksgiving and it was quite comfortable!

The greatest joy this season has been seeing the kids realize that we are home to stay and the way they are bonding with the family. In addition, it has been fun to see each time it snows their reaction to the snow. Eliana literally giggles with joy and cries out "SNOW!"

Recently we had our Christmas program at the school. I hope to post some updates here of the video feeds of both the kindergarten and second grade classes so you all can enjoy hearing the boys sing! It was a fun event that I hope you may be able to attend next year! Blessings to all and hope you have a Merry Christmas!

Here are some photos of the boys in the Christmas concert:

Family Photos

Over the summer months we took some shots as a gift from Nathaniel's sister. Here are a couple of the photos that we had taken.

The Amazing Tree House

Grandpa came up with a brilliant idea of creating a tree house in a tree down in Howabunga land. You may be thinking, Howa who land? Howabunga land is also known as the land directly behind Grandpa David's house. The name came from when Grandpa David was little and his mom thought when they were watching Peter Pan the saying "Cowabunga" was actually "Howabunga." The kids love playing down there for obvious reasons!

Here is the tree house from another angle. As you can see it is currently under-construction. Completion time is yet undetermined.

I have also taken a couple of photos of the kids that several of you might enjoy seeing. Here are the three kiddos.

Homes and Dream Homes

Several people have been requesting to see photos of where we are living. So here is a smattering of photos. We are living with Nathaniel's grandma at the moment in a beautiful downstairs apartment space. Here are a couple pictures of the main living room, dining room, and kitchen. The home is a beautiful rambler that is nestled in a forest. Shown below is the front of the home. Behind the home is a winding path that goes down the a private lake. Nearby there are several parks besides the lovely yard for the kids to play in.

We are very thankful and blessed to call this home for the interim. We are still dreaming of our own home. Although this is a lovely place to live, it is only a temporary place until we can find a place of our own. The home posted below is one dream home we saw that we have no clue whether we could afford or not until we all get jobs.

Last, we went in to complete the boys' entrance evaluations. I was able to get them to pose in front of the school sign.

Please continue to pray for Nathaniel. We are waiting to hear about a music leader position, and he has placed his resume out to several companies. Now we are just waiting for a company to contact him for interviews, and looking for more leads.