Vacation recap

Well, we're home from vacation and settling back into routine.

Here's a recap of our vacation:

On Monday morning Mark and I headed out of town to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.

We stayed at a B&B near the beach. This photo turned out dark so I'm not sure if you can see it, but the weather was clear and beautiful, and we had a great view of the water from our room.

We spent a large part of our time walking along the beach, talking. We asked each other all sorts of questions, ranging from: How would you like to grow in your relationship with God this next year? How about in your relationship with me? The kids? to If you had $1000 cash and you had to spend it on a gift for someone TODAY, who would you spend it on, what would you buy, and why? We ate yummy food, played cards, and even went to a movie together one night, just because we could!


On Wednesday afternoon we came home to some happy-to-see-us children (I just love it when they miss me!), although they had a blast with Mark's parents, who had come to stay with them at our house. We had my parents up for dinner Wednesday night, and then Thursday began painting an upstairs bedroom. (Isaias recently moved down to share a room with Ella and Isaac, but eventually we plan to have the girls (Ella and our hopefully-coming-soon-adopted daughter) upstairs). Since the room is now standing empty, we decided to paint. We bought a gallon of pink paint (think Pepto Bismol), and a gallon of green (think celery), and my idea was to have one wall in vertical stripes- wider pink, smaller green, and the other walls white, with green stripes randomly coming up from the bottom of the walls to meet a pink flower at the top. Ella is in charge of painting the flowers. We're still in process, but here are some pictures of our little painters:



Friday morning we packed up the van and headed over the mountains to celebrate my grandparents' 65th wedding anniversary with the entire family. We stayed at a lodge, which was the a first for the kids and they were duly thrilled. Ella ran around the room marveling at everything, "Look! Two beds! We get to sleep in a bed right next to daddy and mommy! And the beds are the same! Look, mommy! There's a hook on the wall! And there's a toilet over here! And, and..." And Mark and I marveled at how easy our kids are to please. :)
We swam in the pool,



had a "slumber party", which is what we kept referring to the fact that our whole family got to sleep together in one room,

and I was able to see cousins and aunts and uncles I hadn't seen for several years as we shared memories and gratitude for grandpa and grandma.
Here's a picture of the whole gang. (My grandparents had four children.)

And here we are, (my sister's family and my own, as well as my biological dad and my grandparents)

I am so thankful for the faithfulness of my grandparents over the years. Not just to one another, but to Jesus Christ, as well.

We made it home Saturday night, and had a wonderful Sabbath together before heading into our week.

Glad to be back!