Welcome home!

Our friends Kadie & Hahn gave us an awesome homecoming after our trip to Niagara Falls & workcamp. We found a welcome home sign, pink & blue balloons, and little signs of "advice" all over our house. These are hilarious, outrageous "Do's & Don'ts" with a baby. But the best part was, they customized some signs for us (the rockets, the sloth, the Wii Fit board for exercising).

Smoochy's adventures

Smoochy didn't get much time in the spotlight on this trip but here he is visiting Ikea (in Toronto) for the first time! And then, in the traffic on the way back to Niagara Falls.

Workcamp 2008-Rochester, NY

We volunteered at workcamp this week in Rochester. Our staff this year was great! It is such a blessing to witness the work that the youth do for people in need. They are so grateful and appreciative. It is an awesome way to show Christ's love and we love being apart of it! Such a week of change for everyone involved.

Here's a photo of Jeff (Site Coach), Justin (Materials Manager), Edward (Site Coach) and Mark (Site Coach). They are waiting for the youth to "check-in" at the end of their workday.

Edward got this photo of me getting our desert in the cafeteria. After one week of cafeteria food, we went to Egg And I for breakfast this morning and I don't think it's ever been that good!

Here's more site coaches: Charlie, Jay, Zach, and Edward. Zach is married to Marcie, whom I work with at Group. It was great to get to know him and Marcie more while we were there.

And, more staff, Mark, Megan, Justin, Edward, and Barry, our MC, in the back.

This is Jeff and Pam. It was great to get to know them while we were there. Pam has such a gentle, caring spirit and it was great to hear about her family and to witness her with her youth group that was there from her church. This was her first year as a "red shirt" staff member!

Trip to Niagara Falls!

We were able to visit Niagara Falls before going to workcamp this year. We enjoyed the state park side of Niagara Falls in New York to view the falls, however, we thought the Canada side of the falls was much more "tourist" based with it's Clifton Hill Tourist district of shops, restaurants, a casino, and the Hershey's store. We also got to watch the fireworks on Friday night above the falls. We had a great time!

This was our first experience when we got there...the hotel we had booked and paid for was closed! We spent a couple hours driving around and on the phone with Kadie to book a new hotel and get a refund.

Here's the Horseshoe part of the falls. You can see the "Maid of the Mist" down below. We took the trip on the boat. It was fun getting closer to the falls (and wet!)

We also did the "Cave of the Winds" tour which takes you to the base of the falls to get a taste of how powerful they are. They give you sandals and ponchos to wear.

This is Edward standing as close as you could-it felt somewhat like a hurricane with the wind and water. Very refreshing on a hot day!

This is a view from above where you walk close to the falls then up next to them.

Fun Wedding Moment

I thought this photo from our last wedding was so fun. Hopefully you can tell what's going on...the flower girl decided to hand a flower petal to the bride during the prayer in the ceremony. You can see mom (the bridesmaid on the left) reaching for her and the bridesmaid on the right is smiling). It was a lucky moment to catch!

Our house...now!

This was our backyard 3 years ago!

And now!

Here's photos of our backyard in progress (3 years ago and today!)

Our house...3 years ago! Part 1

The house 3 years ago

The house today!

The side of the house 3 years ago

I found some photos from when we were doing the home inspection at our house 3 years ago. It was really fun to see how much has changed...the bushes have grown in, the trees are bigger, we have a shed, a deck, and pickets on our fence. Not to mention our GRASS in the backyard! (Here's the photos of the front of the house...back of the house to come)