Welcome Home, Daddy!!!

Last year Dave joined the Global Missions team at church.  As he is a very generous man (for example, he gave away one of his most favorite things- his precious and not inexpensive ukulele that he played literally every day- to a little nine-year-old girl that he met at work who has been battling brain cancer) and has a servant's heart for the less fortunate, he felt called to be a part of the team.  And, as part of that team, he was able to go with the team and give in-person assistance in areas such as health screenings, HIV education (something like 90% of the children are afflicted with this), construction and sustainability planning to the Melanie Center, which is an orphanage in Mozambique that was started by an indigenous couple in partnership with our church, Life Covenant.  The boys and I were extremely proud of him, and somehow we managed to make it through the two weeks he was gone without completely falling apart without him!  Of course, Skype was our best friend during those two weeks and as we are used to him being gone for multiple days at a time, we were able to take it one day at a time by pretending that he was on a really really really long shift.  Still, we missed him like crazy (as we usually do when he's at work), and we were so so so happy when the day finally came to pick him up from the airport!

Dave left us a box that had one letter for each day that he was gone, so each morning we got to read a letter from daddy as we ate breakfast.  We followed that up with each boy getting to put a star on the calendar to mark off the days until daddy came home, which they loved.  They also loved finally getting to make our Welcome Home sign to hang on the door before we left for the airport!

 

When we got to the airport, we met up with the rest of the Team Moz support team and checked out how baggage claim worked...

 

... and then finally we saw him!!!

 

Together again!!!

 

Pre-K Graduation!

Needless to say, just the thought of my sweet baby boy graduating from Pre-K made me very emotional!  Especially since we started the day by skyping with Dave, who was in Mozambique and had to miss the graduation ceremony.

 

Since Dave had to miss the ceremony I recorded the entire thing (with the exception of the part where I had to go up there to get a certificate of appreciation for being the room-mom).  It was such a cute ceremony!  They sang some really cute songs, said some really cute rhymes, and were just generally too stinkin' cute for words!  

Jack's teachers, Ms. Tammy and Mr. David

Ms. Shelly, grandma's office partner, who we love to see!

Shelby, the class pet

 

Then Jack ate cake and showed Sam how to play at preschool

 

Then we got pictures of Jack with all the people who love him who were able to come to the ceremony

 

And then we went out to lunch to Jack's favorite place, California Pizza Kitchen, which he calls "The curly mac and cheese resternaut"

And of course I had to get a photo of him at the front door on the last day of school and put a side-by-side of him at the front door on the first day of school!  I can't believe how much he grew that year!!!

 

Playing Catch-Up... Aquarium And City Yard Open House

Well, once again I find myself needing to blog post after post in order to catch up with life!  It can get pretty busy over here, obviously.  Where we're at now... SUMMER!  Yes, I missed a whole year... I haven't even blogged last summer yet!  Of course, my OCD doesn't allow me to skip forward so I will just have to condense and compact... a lot happened since I've had the chance to sit and blog and I would love to be all caught up again so I can blog AS life happens instead of AFTER life happens!

So, when last we left you, it was the end of May, 2012... Jack was 5 and just finishing his first year of school (preschool), Sam was 2 and quite the little ham, and Dave was about to leave for two weeks on a mission trip to Mozambique...

... and the boys and I had the chance to go to the Aquarium with grandma and Luke!  We had a pretty great time, of course.  The boys love seeing the fish and we even talked them all into touching the jellyfish and the sting rays!  Their favorite part, though, was playing in the splash pad out by the shark tank!  Sam isn't a fan of getting his face splashed, but he was pretty brave.  Jack adores getting sopping wet, and Luke loves to run around, so they were pretty much in heaven :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

We also had the chance to go to the City Yard for their open house!  The boys LOVE this event, which happens once every two years.  They get the chance to play with big machinery and check out the buses, police cars, firetrucks, garbage trucks and other cool vehicles.