Chandler's First Chapel

Here is Chandler at his first chapel ever. He attends a private Christian preschool and they have them dress up for chapel. I was searching around the house for dress up style clothing because we have never dressed Chandler up for church or anything before! Here he is with his favorite preschool friend George who is wearing a tie as they are encouraged to do...however, we don't even own such a thing!

One Good Walk!

Today I went for the best walk I have ever had during our time here spent on the East Coast. When I have gone for walks and runs before, they are through neighborhoods and busy streets and I never had the peace and joy that I felt when I used to go for walks back in my home in Seattle. I loved walking around my home in Seattle because the air felt so fresh, there were trees everywhere, and there were hills...theres something about me that I just really love walking or running hills. I know it is funny to blog about this but I am really grateful for it! We have been blessed with nice sidewalks and flat roads in the different places we have lived but that is just not my thing! I remember running the sidewalk with a friend along the coast of San Diego and even though it was beautiful it didn't have the same joy as running up and down hills in the mountains. So that is what I am grateful for this Thanksgiving! Seriously. Kevin has been consumed the past 4 months with working on a time sensitive and intensive project that the major push of came to a close this past week. That has freed us up to begin to have more of a regular schedule where I can begin to get some exercise again. I hope I can keep with it through the winter here...it would really help to keep the weight off which I really need to do after having Cole, not losing any baby weight and then getting pregnant 7 weeks later! The reason I finally went for a walk like this..the country road is right around the corner from our apartments...something about walking around our apartments just doesn't do it for me. Just to let you know, I made sure to take my cell phone with my and call Kevin and let him know where I am. I plan to time it all out so he knows where I am at different points in my walk and give him a call at the halfway point just to be extra safe...but our community is known to be one of the safest in the nation so it should be good. Happy Thanksgiving!

Chase, Chandler & Cole and thoughts on Change

My boys loving hanging out in their pajamas! Actually now that Chandler has started preschool which is everyday from 8am-Noon he doesn't get to hang out in the pj's as much. It is a laid back lifestye that we somewhat enjoy but is brought on by my being pregnant. If you want to think about it, I have been pregnant 6 out of the 6 years Kevin and I have been married so there are alot of mornings where I am sick or slow or sour (!) Is that okay to say??? I am finally potty-training Chase and he is doing great although we have had our fair-share of accidents. Alot is happening in our lives behind the scenes right now that I am not at liberty to completly share as of yet. It seems our life changes ALL of the time. We have major life events that seem to happen bi-annually.

I don't know what you grew up having your life like but I grew up with alot of stability although I didn't recognize it at the time. For the first 25 years of my life we lived in the same house, went to the same private school k-12, parents were happily married, went to the same church 4th-college. The only stresses we really ever had were the financial challenges of my father being a self-employed contractor/engineer who at times was out of work but that was it although it felt stressful at the time. After Kevin and I were married, we moved to Boston and lived in hotels, I became pregnant one month later, we moved back to Washington as his Dad passed away, we then moved back to Boston to an apartment, I took a job, had the baby and one week later began commuting 3 1/2 hours every weekend to do youth ministry in Albany. We then moved to Albany, 6 months later I became pregnant with Chase. We had Chase, then 10 months later miscarried on Christmas Day, was in the hospital, 7 days later we had my parents out and moved from our apartment into our new house that we had just built. We took a month off work, went to Hawaii, organized our house and Kevin went to work full-time for Cornerstone as the Youth Pastor. A year later, the children's pastor resigned suddenly and Kevin took over being Children's Pastor in addition to his responsibliities with the youth. Our church planted two churches and Kevin then took over the responsibilities of the website as well as refinancing the church's debt. Our church then experienced a crisis as our Senior Pastor took a time off for personal issues and then resigned and during this time Kevin spent much time "firefighting", assumed eldership responsibilities and took the role of Lead Pastor after the resignation of our pastor and continued leading the youth while I oversaw the childrens ministry. Oh, and I forgot to mention but a year after our miscarriage, we delivered a stillborn baby girl at 37 1/2 weeks. Oh and I forgot...6 months we sold our house and are living in a tri-level apartment for now.

I am the type of person who likes to have everything together...I like my house perfectly organzied with everything in its placed (in its labeled place!) I like to be on top of birthdays and presents and all my e-mails and do a great job with ministry at the church. I want to be fit and in shape and cook healthy meals and live off a structured budget. It seems I have failed on every one of these things that I have valued...sometimes failing them all at the same time, sometimes failing at most of them and sometimes failing in just one area (although that is the exception).

I don't know when or if I will ever have all of those things together...it seems I keep holding my breath for some stability in our lives to settle down and really get all these things in sync. It's not that we don't do any of the things we value, it is just such an erractic lifestyle without much consistancy. Our one constant is family time. We really prioritize spending time together and communicating. I know through all this change, our family has remained a tight unit and our boys have not suffered for attention and love.

We are joyful, excited and relieved (I am relieved) that we are having a baby girl in February! We have always wanted a girl but totally love our three boys! This pregnancy has been the roughest of all and will most likely be my final one so it is good news that we are having a girl! This is Kevin's girl that he has been hoping for...the one he hopes to walk down the aisle some day!

Through all these changes, we regret not having been a more consistant part of each of your lives because we value each of you, especially across the miles. You are in our hearts!