Dinner Party

Baby E giving himself kisses

2 great girlfriends!

Happy boys, L. and E. playing football

Tons of new babies!

The AK gang hanging out in our front yard

More friends!

We had a great time hosting a dinner party at our house to celebrate the Solstice and my birthday. It is always fun for the group to get together. There are tons of kiddos!

Our Sunday afternoon. We had a busy Saturday, we threw a Solstice/Birthday party with a bunch of friends so our Sunday has been low key. We had a nice morning at church and all took naps in the afternoon. Now we are enjoying the rainy day with cartoons, tea and each other. We talked about creation at church this morning, so even though it's cold and rainy, we are thankful for God's creation and feel so blessed to see so much of its beauty here in Alaska!

Roses

Robert brought home roses and I love them in my windowsill. Happy Friday!

11 pm Alaska Time

These are just a few of our attempts to take a picture of ourselves last night at 11pm. Of course it took awhile to get a decent picture, but you get the idea. The sun is still out at 11pm!!

Thankful

Me and the boys last September

While online a few days ago, I ran across this blog, The Nie Nie Dialogues. Maybe some of you have seen this, but I was struck by this woman's story. She and her husband survived a plane crash a year and a half ago but with serious burns. Her blog went from being about the joys of motherhood to recovering from the crash and her feelings on how she looks, how her children respond to her, the strength of her marriage and her numerous surgeries and hardships with her healing. It made me thankful I have a healthy and happy husband and son and that I am healthy and happy enough to enjoy them. Her positivity in these trials has forced me think about how we can get so bogged down with silly things each day and not focus on more important things... things that matter - God, Family, Love. Take some time to ENJOY the ones you LOVE today, because we never know when that could change.

THANKFUL for my BOYS today,

M.

Eli at the Park

He climbed up there all by himself!

This past Memorial Day, we met up with some friends at Jewel Lake Park. They have a fun playground and lots of picnic tables to sit. A friend brought his grill, so we all brought food and drinks and had a nice time enjoying a beautiful Alaska day! We also headed over to the new memorial on post that honors the fallen Spartans from this past tour in Afghanistan. It was good to do something as a family that remembered what Memorial Day is really about besides a 3 day weekend and BBQ's, although we enjoyed those things as well.

Eli has been getting really good at climbing at the park. He gets more and more coordinated everyday! It has been so great to watch him grow and learn and to do things as a family of 3!

Eli at Sushi

We went to our favorite sushi place and our waitress prepped a rice soup for Eli to eat and he loved it! He also had fun drinking Daddy's ice water.

Returning to the Blogging World

Hey Everyone! I am returning to the blogging world. I won't be posting as often as when Robert was deployed, but as often as I can!