First Meeting One Year Later

One year ago today I anxiously and nervously climbed the steps to look into the face of my precious baby boy for the very first time. I will never forget walking through the door and seeing him sitting in the walker. I'll never forget picking him up and holding him for the first time, cuddling with him as he fell asleep in my arms. On Tuesday we will celebrate one year as a family. Where has the year gone?

One Year Ago Today...

my dad and I boarded the first of three planes bound for Vietnam to bring home Levi. I can hardly believe that it has been a year already. By this point we were nearing the LA airport. That airport is the most confusing airport. I'm sure if my dad reads this he will be getting quite a chuckle because we had a difficult time finding the international terminal and ended up in a place we probably weren't supposed to be. Thankfully we did make all of our connecting flights!!

Wedding Day Pictures

Pastor Chris is prayed for us and Rachel (my maid of honor) and Scott (Bret's best man) laid hands on us. I know that this brought me to tears and many others.


My bridesmaids


Bret and I with the ladies


Cutting the cake at the reception


Feeding each other cake - we were nice to each other.

We had the most beautiful wedding thanks to all of our wonderful friends and family. I cannot thank them enough for all they did to make this day possible. We know we could not have done it without them.

Cheese!!

Sunday we were on the way to church and Rachel had the camera out to take a picture of herself. From the back seat I hear, "Cheese!" Levi saw her taking the picture and has heard people tell him to say "cheese" for pictures so he was doing what he had been told to. He kept saying it until Rachel finally took his picture (and then some). This is how he looked! He is such a goof!!

One Week

First of all, I have to apologize to all my faithful followers who haven't found much of anything on my blog recently. With all the craziness at school, sickness, and wedding plans, I have not had much time or energy for doing anything extra.

The wedding plans are coming along and next week Friday, whether they are all finished or not, I will be getting married! Woo hoo! I can't wait!! It has been a long time coming and I really was beginning to think I would never get married again. But God always knows what He is doing and just at the time I had given up hope and wasn't looking because I was taking care of my little man, God brought Bret into my life.

A wise man from our church, when I was struggling with the decision of being open to having a little boy or switching countries to get a little girl, told me that God would bring the little man and then the big man would follow. He was exactly right!! Tahnks Bill!

Bret and I have both traveled a broken road to get to this point in our lives. We don't take lightly the fact that God is giving us another chance at love. One of the songs we are having sung at the wedding is The Broken Road by Selah. It is a song that reminds me often of what God has been doing in my life throught this long road of brokenness I have had to travel.

On a side note, Levi has gotten another tooth in this week. I can't believe how many teeth he has already. It seems like he has a lot for his age but maybe it's because it has been so long since I have had one this little. He also now tries to mimic nearly every word we say and does so quite well most of the time. The funniest was the other day when I went into his room to get him up and he had a stinky diaper that made the whole room smell. I said, "Wow"! He said, "Wow"! He now loves to say this word. He also says Jesus, God, amen, grandma, grandpa, and the names of a number of our friends.

Birthdays and Balloons

On a Friday 17 years ago yesterday, my beautiful daughter was born. It was an inservice day at school and I was to have the first of my weekly doctor's visits. The alarm went off but I figured I could sleep a few extra minutes seeing that I wasn't going to have students. However, as is often the case when you're pregnant, I had to use the bathroom. That's when I discovered that my water had broke. However, it wasn't until 9:18 p.m. and a C-section later that Rachel entered the world, 2 weeks early. I remember so much of that day (thankfully not the pain). I have so many wonderful memories of her growing up. I remember how much she has always loved books and how her grandpa started reading the "dogs" book to her when she was only a couple weeks old. She still loves reading. I remember when she was 2-1/2 and started taking dance classes. She couldn't say her r's or l's so one day when the babysitter was getting her dressed for dance "cwass" she was squirming and told the babysitter her "weotard was aw scwewy." She has a talent for writing and one Christmas not too many years ago she wrote poems for all of her grandparents and me. She made all of us cry!

I will always be thankful to God for giving me such a sensitive, caring, compassionate, talented daughter. What an awesome responsibility- but one I would never trade.



Two of Rachel's friends filled her car with balloons while she was at school. They also put some on her antennae and wrote on her windows. Last night she brought all the balloons in and put them in the livingroom/diningroom. There were 109 balloons altogether. Levi has been having a great time playing with all these balloons.

Christmas #4

On December 26th we had our last Christmas celebration with the Seniors. It was nice to see Andrea, Joel, Ariana, Cory and Alec again. We don't get to see them very often, seeing that they are 6 hours away by car.


Grandma and Levi playing with one of the toys at grandma's house - a toy that I played with when I was a kid as well.


Rachel helping Levi open his Safari truck from uncle Joel, aunt Andrea, and Ariana


Grandma and the grandchildren looking at the recipe book Rachel made for Ariana.


Alec, Rachel, Levi and Ariana


Levi in his new pajamas from Grandpa and Grandma