Goin' on a Road Trip!

Well, we have quite the adventure planned. It's the craziest thing I've done in a long time. My brother and his family are driving out here in their RV to come to family camp with us next week up at Lakeside Bible Camp on Whidbey Island. Then, their flying back and leaving their RV for us to take all the way to Northern Kentucky (Cincinnati) area. We're planning on stopping at Yellowstone, Denver (where some friends of ours live), a water park and whatever else suits our fancy. I've never ridden in an RV before so this should be fun. The kids are pretty excited about it. Once we get to Kentucky we will stay their for about 2 months. Yeah, I know, that's a long time. My brother has a body church that he's apart of and their doing a 9 week Discipleship training class that Ben and I are pretty stoked about. Plus, my whole family is there now and we have a lot of friends out there now because of my brother helping recruit a lot of people from out there onto our blackjack team. I'm really excited to be apart of this community that I've witnessed (a little) and heard so much about. These people are living and growing in Christ together on a daily basis and its very compelling to want to be around. And all of our other trips out there have only been a couple weeks long so its nice to have such a long chunk of time there. We also have 2 weddings to go to in October. The first one is in Kentucky and the second one is in Northern Italy. Yes, that's right, Eruope. So Ben and I are leaving our 4 kids with my parents and going to Italy/Scotland for 10 days with our good friends Colin & Grace. Soooo looking forward to that. Needless to say we have a busy/fun time coming our way. I'll definitely be missing home after a couple months. I will try to take pictures and post some up periodically of our trip.

the beauty of birth

I just recently had the privilege of attending/helping out with the birth of Colin & Grace's son. What an amazing experience! Now I know I have had 4 births of my own, but there is something remarkably different and just as rewarding about being an observer/helper instead of the one actually giving birth. I was able to enjoy things that I wasn't able to with my own births because I was so involved in the experience. (go figure!) It's so neat to have been able to be on both sides. I have only made it to one other birth before this and it was only after Dove (my first) was born so since then I have had 3 more babies and I feel like I was able to enjoy this experience all the more. It's crazy how emotionally connected I felt to Grace and what she was going through but at the same time not being physically connected. It was kinda nice for once. :) Just to be able to see the miracle and the joy that giving birth brings brought it all back to me. Thank you Colin & Grace for letting me be apart of something so precious to you.