Old Friends and a Retreat

Tomorrow morning, Elizabeth and I are heading to DC for the weekend.  We're both eagerly looking forward to our reunion with our girlfriends!

Last 4th of July, when they were *only* 6!

Saturday, Carol and I will be off to the retreat to spend the day with a group of ladies, to study the Word, eat together, chat together, and be encouraged.  If you missed it in an earlier post, I have the joy of presenting the talks from the retreat in the spring again at this gathering.  Please pray that God would meet each of us where we are as we consider Jesus, the Servant master, and how we are called to serve Him and our neighbor.

Wherever you will be, I wish you a lovely weekend!

Here I Go Again!

This evening my mother and I are "leaving on a jet plane" for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  This is a really special trip. We'll be attending Cris'* wedding; Cris lived with us when she was here in the US on exchange during our senior year of high school.  She is one special gal!  When my mom floated the idea of going to me I was definitely enthusiastic.  Cris was back here for our wedding, but I've never had the privilege of visiting her in her país natal.  (I did spend one night of my life in Porto Alegre, when I was coming home from my year in Argentina as an exchange student and due to flight complications they had to land and put us all up in a hotel for the night.  That was all very interesting, to say the least!)

Before leaving, I'd like to issue a special thanks to the trip's sponsors:

• Mom and Papa for funding the trip and for letting us host Cris in the first place.  The back story: One day in the school cafeteria she was sharing with me the horrible situation she was in with her original host family.  I had space and a bed in my room, opened up my big mouth and said, "Hey, maybe you can come live with us!"  The rest is history.
• Mom-in-law and Dad-in-law for babysitting the end of this week so I can gallivant around the globe and Colin can go to work.
• Papa and my sister for taking the kids early next week for the same reasons given above.
• The Husband for freeing me to fly off for a week, leaving him to fend for himself and spend his evenings alone.  Poor soul.  What a good man!  (Actually, he told me he's looking forward to the peace and quiet, which I'm sure means from the kids' noise ... right? ... I don't talk that much, do I?!)
• The kids who really are troopers and very adaptable to being passed around for a week.

Have a wonderful and safe Labor Day weekend!

*I wish I had a photo of us to post, but they're all prints and at my parent's house anyway.  If you're on facebook, you can see a couple of photos of us from 9 years ago here and here.

Her 7th Birthday Party

The last of the birthday posts!

We prepared the house just an hour before the party, because I lost track of time.

Fortunately decorations were up from the day before.  Phew!

We got the tables ready and blew up balloons.

Guests came and we did a pin-the-tail type game (of which I took no photos), then got into the sugar cube building competition.  At the end the kids and adults voted for their favorites and we gave 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place ribbons.  I should have gotten pictures of their creations.  Oops!

We ate cake.

And finally the gifts.  I love how excited kids get about giving gifts!

This year Elizabeth was old enough to help with MUCH of the party preparations: reading the directions and preparing the cake, writing on the cake to decorate it, blowing up balloons, arranging tables, chairs, etc.  This growing-up thing is really fun, watching your children mature and change.  Yep, I like it.  Sure, I miss bitty-baby Elizabeth, but as my wise friend once said, "I love every stage!"  Elizabeth was tiny at the time and I didn't believe her.  Um, yes, now I humbly admit that she is SO right.

Feeling Down? Phone (or Email) a Friend

This past week has been rough, as I mentioned in the previous post.  "Ironically" our pastor preached on how hard it is to believe the gospel and have hope when we're feeling down, discouraged, or depressed.  And yet it's the time we most need to remember ...  or need friends to remind us.

So I emailed I friend yesterday and told her to lay some gospel truth on me.  Here it is, (without any permission from her to copy and paste.)

YOU are despicable  :), depraved and dead..... muahahaha..... and then He died on the cross for all that YUCK.  He took it upon Himself.... upon that cross and then BANISHED it!  It's gone, dude.  Totally gone.

Do you have friends like this?  Reach out to one you trust when you're down and you might just get an email like this.

My heart sank at despicable but soared at It's gone, dude.

I emailed another friend in my out-cry for prayer, and she shot me this lyric:

The love of Christ is rich and free, fixed on his own, eternally.

We all need friends like this.

I wonder if I'm bold enough to be a friend like this.  How we need gospel truth when all we can see is our failure and our sin!

God is at work.

I'm not what I should be, but also not what I used to be either.

Same goes for you, reader!

Let us worship the Lord with gladness, even in our struggles to repent and believe THE GOOD NEWS.  In fact, maybe even more so in those difficult times....

Good Friend, Good Ideas!

This is my lovely friend Carol:

She has great ideas.

I'd like to share two of them.

 1. Getting a bag of beans, pouring them into a pan, and letting your kids play in them with their small diggers and dump trucks.  It's like a mini-sandbox!  And if when beans end up on the floor, sweep them up, rinse them in a colander, dry, and resuse!

2. In a recent letter (Yes, a real letter; Carol and I are old fashioned, letter writing friends!) Carol suggested that we intentionally pray for one another each week.  Now on Tuesday at 9pm you'll find me in Pittsburgh and Carol in DC, somewhere in our homes, praying for one another.  We started last week, and I was overwhelmed by the blessing of knowing that AT THAT MOMENT my family and I were being lifted up in prayer.  So cool that I couldn't resist passing it along, especially if you have dear friends who live far away from you.

Thanks, Carol, for being you!

Visiting Boston & Cambridge

Colin and I had the great treat of a couple of days away from kids AND a visit to friends in Boston and Cambridge.  Colin spent most of his time at a conference, but his talk was successful and he did get to enjoy some catching up with old friends.  There were so many to see in so few hours, but I think I managed to see a good chunk.  Sorry to those that I missed; I hope it's not too long before another visit.  Jenny, you up for it?!

We stayed with my dear friend Jenny who's one of the most hospitable people I know; I'm blessed to call her a friend!  Her daughter helped me to choose the winners of my first ever blog giveaway.

Later Tuesday morning we visited the Windsor House, a senior day-program with which our Tuesday morning Bible study has a now 5+ year relationship.  It was a treat to see those sweet people again - though I think I confused some of them by being there after so long and without my children!  We church ladies and children (those who were free) had lunch at the fine Wendy's in Central Square.

After a brief visit at Liz's house (she's above on the left) I shot over to Westgate for the afternoon.  Westgate is the married and family student housing complex on the west side of  MIT's campus, where we lived for 5 years.

Eun Kyung's baby girl, Megan, who was born just before we moved and I met her for the first time!

It felt just like old times!

Elizabeth's friends, who were sad she wasn't there.

Can you find pictures of Elizabeth in this poster?

Tuesday night we had dinner at John Harvards, arguably our favorite restaurant in Boston.  Their Colonial Gold is one of the best beers ever (for my taste buds) and they had it on tap!  The Downs' joined us and we enjoyed wonderful food and conversation.  I'd only emailed them the day before and they were free to join us!  I forgot to take a photo.

Wednesday was much less full.  Colin went conferencing and I enjoyed a leisurely morning with Jenny and her kids.  They live in this lovely neighborhood so after some time indoors we took a brief stroll before Colin called to say he was through for the day.  Parting is such sweet sorrow.  I'm so thankful we had those couple of days to catch up in person!

Dexter and Frances (Frankie), the little hosts of our stay.

We had to squeeze in one photo just before I left.

We still had some bank accounts that we needed to officially close.  So Colin and I took care of that, and then had lunch at Royal East, a cheap and quick (but not nasty) Chinese restaurant we used to go to a lot after my prenatal appointments when Elizabeth was on the way.  This yumminess was followed by coffee and dessert at Luna Cafe - some of the tastiest coffee in Cambridge.

our fortunes, Colin's then mine

Our final stop was with our friends who just became US citizens a couple of weeks ago!  We met them at Westgate several years back and attended church together.  At their house I tried Pomegranate for the first time; cool fruit!  We enjoyed conversation and laughs just as if we'd never left town.  (Though it was quieter without our two kids there to wind up theirs!)

We came home to this!

None of these cars are ours.
I'm too cool for a sedan; I'm a minivan driver!

 I'm now REALLY in the Christmas spirit with Advent, snow on the ground, crisp winds biting my cheeks outside.  Yes, it's December.

Many, many, many thanks to our parents who cared so well for our kids while we were away.  It was good to see those little kiddos this morning and hear about their adventures while we were away.

Thanksgiving 2010

We began the day with 

egg casserole

 and

baked french toast

Brian really likes this meal!

The tv was on all morning with the parade and the dog show that followed.  We got the table and food ready throughout those hours as well.  Then, Elizabeth and I went to pick up our international guests at 2.

The bird cooked nicely but was about 3x the amount of meat that we needed!

Here's the group just before we all parted for the evening. 

It was a happy Thanksgiving!

Answered Prayer

We pray.

Sometimes we wait

for an answer

forever.

Other times, we see God work quickly.

Yesterday was one of the latter here.

Two days ago, Elizabeth told me she wanted to "pack her bags and go back to Boston." I prayed for her little heart, that she would be encouraged. We already had a playdate scheduled with for the next morning. And God in his goodness put on her new friend's heart to invite Elizabeth to her birthday party.

In October!

Thank you, Lord.

Jesus loves the little children, doesn't He?

Elizabeth and Susanna

We spent the weekend in Washington, DC with friends we met in Cambridge, MA several years ago. These are family friends, meaning that there are mutual friendships between the wives, husbands, and our children. We were glad to be with them!

Elizabeth and Susanna struck up their friendship at age one:

And have continued through ages two through six:

(Sadly, no photo for age 5)

The friendship circle has expanded with our little ones. Brian and Daniel get on just great at two and three-and-a-half.

And it won't be long before Thomas, almost one, joins in the boys' fun!

Here's one last photo with the whole crew!

A Blessed Sunday

As mentioned in the previous post, this morning we attended church for the last time at CTK Cambridge. We got a photo of Elizabeth with her Sunday School class.

We ate lunch with the McFaddens at Wendy's. We lunched with them at this fine Central Square establishment on their first visit to CTK - seven years ago. (And I tear up.)

In the afternoon, Elizabeth's dear, sweet Sunday School teacher, Laken, came to spend time with her while we packed and Brian slept. E had an amazing time! They made it back right before an impressive thunderstorm. Thank you, Laken!! Sadly I have no pictures of the two of them. We may have to find her on campus for a photo before we leave.

We ended the day at the Mamedov's for dinner. These dear friends lived in Westgate for two years, have stayed in the area, and just joined CTK last week. We left their place well after Brian's bedtime. It just didn't seem right to leave!

It was a good way to spend our final Sunday here. Now I look ahead to the things that need to be done before we go and some final celebrations with friends. These next 4.5 days will indeed fly by.

Memorial Day

This post is going to have too many pictures! Our Memorial Day began with a trip to Target to replenish our packing tape and bubble wrap supplies, among other things. Then the kids and I went to the Cambridge parade with our friends Azilah, Leilani, and Alana, while Colin stayed home and worked on packing up the Command Center. After naptime, we went over to Chris and Jenny's for some burgers and fun. It was hard to leave; everyone went to bed late. It was a delightful day!

Playing at the park before the parade began.

It's coming!

Dylan and Becky were in the parade!

Anticipating the firetrucks at the end of the parade.

The city was shrouded in smoke

that the winds brought in from some fires in Canada!

the adults

Jenny is a funny girl!

the swing

the kids

the menfolk

the princess

the most patient dog in the world