STOP TWO: Aurora, Nebraska

We flew from London to Omaha Nebraska, with a 5 hour lay over in Chicago. One of the things you talk about a lot when you live overseas is the food that you miss. The top five things on my list.... chips & salsa, cheese burgers, pizza, steak, & ice cream. So while we were wainting in Chicago we had to go get some real "American" food! Want to know what the first American food we had?! Jesse & I had Uno's pizza & the kids had McDonald's. Man it was so good!

We spent the next six days in Nebraska with Jesse’s family. Jesse’s step dad picked us up from the airport and started driving to the hotel, and Jesse yells at him for being on the wrong side of the street. (he was driving on the right side). Just one of the things you have to get used to again! That & cars actually obeying traffic signals, lines on the road, and giving you more than 2 inches of space. Crazy stuff I know! :)

It was so fun being w/ everyone. We ate a lot of good home cooked meals. And the kids had a blast playing with all their cousins.

Watching the Easter Egg Hunt

As you can tell Isaac has one too many older girl cousins : )

that and he's a little wired from all the sugar he ate in the previous 24 hours.

Where Have I Been?!

Great question, a better one might be where haven’t I been? In the last 2 months I’ve been in 4 countries, 5 states, and numerous friends & family houses. It’s been great.

In April we were scheduled to be back in Washington D.C. for IJM’s yearly Global Prayer Gathering (GPG). Every year IJM will fly Jesse & myself back to attend this great event. Since we’ve now been in Uganda for a year... yep, let me say that again....ONE FULL YEAR! We thought we would go ahead and extend our trip by two weeks, and bring the kiddos with us as well. So I’ll post a little bit each day on each of our stops...

STOP ONE: Wales via London, England
We arrived in London to visit my parents for 5 days. They actually live in Carlisle which is in the northern most part of England. (right on the border of Scotland). They decided that instead of driving 6 hours up to Carlise, they would drive 5 hours to a rented place in Wales, and we would spend our time there. Jesse has said that my parents should publish a coffee table book titled, “Very Cool Guest Houses In the Middle of Nowhere”. That really just sums it up.

Our view from our cottage

Our cute little cottage

It was a great time to decompress. The kids were a little sick, so that was no fun, but it was nice to just sit and relax.


When we first got there, Rachel got so excited that she could drink water from the tap and that milk came from a carton, “just like in America, mom!”. Awwww the joys of children. :) Okay I was pretty excited about it myself.

We had a wonderful time catching up with my parents. & letting them get up at 6am with the kids. We also went to a castle, ate fish & chips, and saw lots of sheep. Yep a typical day in the U.K.

The Wedding

I'm one of those people that once I stop doing something regularly it's hard for me to get back into it.... exercising for example, i do great until something happens where i can't excerise for a day or two, and then it takes me about a month to start up again...reading the Bible, emailing, cleaning...same thing. I can now add to the list...blogging. :) So sorry about my shortcomings...but I don't see things getting any better any time soon. But hey I can't be great at everything right!?

So I'm back tracking a bit and filling you in on the last two weeks. Erik & Lauren's wedding was great. We stayed at Hidden Hollow, a retreat/campground. I was actually not really looking forward to staying in cabins & trying to get ready for a wedding with three bathrooms and 14 people...but it actually was great. It was so much fun hanging out with everyone, and really having time to talk with people we otherwise wouldn't have time to talk with.

Here's a picture of our Cabin. There were 3 rooms, 3 bathrooms, 4 beds, 2 fold out couches, 1 air mattress, 14 people....Good Times!


Rachel & her friend Lulu swimming in the lake.


Lauren getting ready to marry my little brother.


Yes that's my dad in the kilt. You can kind of see Tamara (my sis) & I in the back.


Rachel was a great flower girl. She was acting a little off that day, and was definitely tired of pictures & other boring stuff, so we weren't sure how she'd do. But I do have to say she did great! She definitely thought she was hot stuff. I'm telling you if any of you ever need a flower girl...Rachel's your girl! :) (okay I know I'm her mom, but I still think she did good!)


My Brother & my new Sister-in-law! Yea!


& on a side note, we got to eat at Krystal Burger....Jesse loved it. Okay just kidding, it was awful. If you haven't ever tried it, DON'T! well actually you should, just so you can see how bad it is.



okay, so i've caught you all up with at least something...hopefully more to come soon :)

Tennessee, Here We Come!

We are off early in the morning to head down to Chattanooga, TN! My little brother is actually getting married! I can't believe it. We are so excited for him, & for us b/c we love the girl who said yes! So I won't be blogging, but once I get back I'm sure I'll have lots of interesting stories for you all! :)

Trip to Nebraska - Part 2

I'm finally getting back to blogging. Last week I was at youth camp (more on that later), and now this week I am sick. :( My throat hurts terrible & I've completely lost my voice. I went to the doctor today, he said it's not strep, but probably just some sort of virus. So hopefully I'll be better soon. My house is a mess but I'm just not up for cleaning yet...so I'll blog instead :)

I never got around to putting all our other Nebraska pics up so here you go: The rest of the week we went to Jesse's mom's place. They have recently built a house on a lake. It's a small lake, but they are the only ones on it, so it's perfect! We had a lot of fun just hanging out in the water. & of course Jesse & my brother-in-law, Matt had great fun trying to kill each other on the tubes.

Here's Grandma & the granddaughters:


Here's Rachel/Daddy, & Shane/Zari Tubing:


Bumper Boats!


Keri in the bumper boats!?!


Rachel & Daddy jet skiing



Melanie (Jesse's sister) was so kind to throw Rachel a birthday party as well while we were out there. It was so fun, because we are never out that way during her birthday so it was nice to be able to have family be apart of her special day!


I'm ready to go back! :)

Trip to Nebraska- part 1

Our trip was a lot of fun! The first couple of days we were out at Jesse's dads. We went to Grand Island for fireworks. Jesse and I were amazed at how many people buy their own fireworks. We actually thought at one point we were missing the main show, but when we pulled up to the park, we realized that it was just another family putting off their own. Here in Virginia not many people do their own fireworks...and definitely not to the scale that they do in Nebraska. Here's Rachel with her cousin Kohl.


Rachel got to go fishing for the first time as well. & she actually caught something! She really enjoyed fishing with Grandpa & daddy. She even avoided getting chiggers (daddy & grandpa weren't so lucky).


& I did something for the first time too. I shot a gun. I know, I know, this is not like me, but I promise I wasn't shooting at anything alive...although Trapper (their dog) almost got shot a couple of times. It was actually pretty fun trying to get the cans. Here you can see the damage I did on one can.



& here's a picture just for you Julie :)

We're Back....& I'm exhausted!

After leaving Jesse's parents house at 2:30pm, we finally got home this morning at 9:30am! What a day :) Our flight was supposed to leave Nebraska at 6:30 Monday evening, but there was a storm hitting Chicago, where we had a lay over, and so we didn't leave till about 10:00pm. We arrived in Chicago around 11:30pm, and obviously missed our connection flight home. Since it's weather related the airlines don't put you up in a hotel, but they gave us a number to call to see if there were any hotel rooms available. There were not. So we tried to get comfy on the floor of the terminal and tried to get at least 5 hours of sleep before our morning flight. Thankfully Rachel was able to sleep. I don't know how...it was freezing, and we had no blankets. Jesse slept about 3 hours, I think I got about 1 1/2. (since having Rachel I've become the lightest sleeper!)


We were able to get on the first flight out to come home. Jesse had a busy day today. He ran home to take a shower and had to run to work. He has to be dying by now. Hopefully he will be able to come home early and get a good night sleep.

But besides the plane trip home we had a great time! I'll write more later, and I have lots of pictures! :)

And We're Off

We leave early in the morning for Nebraska...thankfully we are flying so will definitely be there in time for fireworks!

Hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July!

...and you thought Nebraska wasn't beautiful. : )

(I don't think I'll have Internet there, so probably no blogging until I get back next Tuesday)

Our 7th Anniversary

Jesse & I celebrated our 7th anniversary on Saturday. I can't tell you enough of how lucky I am to be married to such a great man. Here are 7 things that I love about him.... (in no particular order)

1. He's the most honest man I've ever met
2. He gives the world's best back massages!
3. He loves God
4. He's a great dad! (Just ask Rachel!)
5. He's Thoughtful...for example he always puts the toilet seat down! (since we have been married he has not once left it up!)
6. He's a hard worker (at whatever he is doing)
7. He is always thinking of how he can show others God's love

I could go on and on, but most of you know how great Jesse is anyway! (told you I was lucky)

Last night he surprised me by taking me away for the night. He had his brother, Matt (who by the way is living with us for the summer) watch Rachel, and then we went to downtown D.C.


He had booked a room at the Grand Hyatt...really nice! He had planned to go to dinner at a restaurant along the Potomac River, but right around 7pm it started to pour, so we decided to go to an indoor restaurant instead. : ) We went to a great Irish Pub, The Dubliner. It was so nice to be able to have a nice, LONG dinner! We sat there just talking for at least 2 hours. (the little things you enjoy after having kids)


Then we headed down to the Mall to look at some of the monuments at night. They are beautiful!





Needless to say we had a wonderful time. Thank you God for giving me such a perfect other half! : )

Pictures From Our Trip

We are back. Our trip went fairly good, but of course after any trip, I'm exhausted. : ) Here are some pics for your enjoyment.

Rachel & I in Minnesota:



Uncle Bob & Aunt Liz with Rachel at the sculpture garden:



Rachel's favorite sculpture:



Rachel with her 2nd cousins, Megan & Micheal:



Grandma Frey and Rachel riding the carousel...pure joy!

We Are Off....

Rachel & I are leaving tomorrow for a week long trip to visit my grandmothers. First we fly to St. Paul, Minnesota. We'll be staying with my Aunt & Uncle, and be visiting with my Grandma Zilen. Then I head down to Iowa to meet up with my Grandma Frey. We then head straight to Missouri. My cousin's wife is graduating from college, so we are going down for that. We'll be there for a couple of days and then drive back up to Iowa where I'll spend a couple of days before my flight leaves on Wednesday. I am looking forward to spending some time with my grandma's. They both are getting older, and I treasure all the time I can get with them!

***Adoption update: I talked with our social worker today, and she said she was writing our homestudy now, and should have it done by the end of the week! We are getting anxious!