Please pray!

My Uncle Mike, who I saw just about 10 days ago, declined rapidly from his ALS that was just diagnosed 4 months ago. He has gone to be with his Savior tonight surrounded by SO many of his family. He took his last breath as his favorite Scriptures were finished being read aloud to him. Please pray for his wife of 30+ years (my Aunt Colleen), kids (my cousins Tina, Luke, Michael, Becky), and his 10 yr old granddaughter who lived with him (Hayley). Since the four of us just got back from a trip to Hershey, I'll be flying on my own up there in a couple days.

Hershey Park

Tess has access to free Park tickets, so we got to go one evening. I haven't been to an amusement park in ages cause I'm either pregnant or with newborn, so I had a blast taking Izzy on rides (while the other adults went on the exciting coasters). Clara liked the horse below until it started going up and down, haha:


Justin took Izzy on the Scrambler, which I thought was crazy, but Izzy was able to give me a thumb's up as she came by me:

So proud of her! <3

Visit with the Fugates!

Christie, a friend from Messiah, and her family invited us over for Sunday lunch, since they live in Hershey now. Clara was so amazing with little Elle. I couldn't believe how gentle and loving she was.

Me pretending to have 3 girls:

Christie and me:

Thanks so much for lunch, Christie! I had a great time catching up!!!

Quality time

Izzy has come to expect that Aunt Maggie=nail painting. :) So special.
Aunt Tess spoiled Izzy by letting her be the pedicurist. It was pretty crazy!

Homecoming!

I returned to Messiah College for my 5 year reunion! It was kinda surreal to see EVERYONE I went to school with strolling around with toddlers and babies. The weather was perfect, the picnic was tasty, and the memories were sweet. Nobody at the reunion had more than two kids, but I do! The third is agrowin'...

Time with Nanna and Aunt Maggie

On Saturday morning, we picked Aunt Maggie up from the train station. She's a workin' girl now, so she treated us to Starbucks.
Izzy's first Starbuck's drink:

Taking a ride in a dump truck that delivered some free topsoil to my parents' place:

Why do we have to be so far from you all?!?!?!

Hospital visit

Our first stop in Hershey was at the hospital for two visits.
Nanna was working till 7:30pm, so Izzy got to see her at work:


We also had a very sweet and sobering visit with my Uncle Mike. He was in the hospital for some breathing help that he needed from complications of his ALS that was diagnosed just this summer. I enjoyed seeing my Uncle Matt, (pregnant) Aunt Wendy, Aunt Colleen, and cousins Hayley and Samuel. We all had a prayer time, shared some tears, and spent some quality time as family. My Aunt Colleen, a commited and loving wife, prayed for me for many years to find a godly husband, so I feel indebted to pray for her!

Roanoke stop

I almost forgot to post about our trip up North! We first stopped for one night in Roanoke to visit with Justin's Grandma and Granddaddy. Izzy loved their cats Max and Maggie:

Izzy looking at Grandma's photo albums of Grammy (Trish) as a little girl:

Family visit!

My Uncle Dick raised grass-fed beef, and Justin helped sell several quarters of the beef to families here in Charlotte. They brought it in that big red cooler on my dad's truck. Izzy loved running up and down the sidewalks with Grandpa, but she wore him out! ;) My dad "helped" me spread grass seed, as we all watched him walk around with the spreader.

We all wish the visit had been longer, but any time is better than no time, since we're so farrrrrr away from each other.

BBQ Day

Our church had a BBQ/Festival to meet the community and raise money for a local home for women with unplanned pregnancies. After only sleeping a few hours Friday night and having worked a full day previously on only 3 hours of sleep, Steve and Justin didn't get home from serving BBQ and cleaning up until 5pm! I don't know how they did it! I was proud of them and how hard they worked.
Izzy loved running around with her BFF:

Her first face painting experience:

Smokin' Shoulders

On Friday, Justin worked a full, busy day, and then went straight to our church to start the pork shoulders on the grill as soon as he was finished with work. Justin and Steve organized the BBQ, and a bunch of guys helped throughout the night w/o much sleep. Justin got 3.5 hours of sleep in a sleeping bag Friday night... for a total of less than 7 hours of sleep in two nights.

250 lbs of pork shoulders:

Steve and Jon making homemade slaw for the BBQ:

The start of a crazy week/weekend...

Last Thursday, we spent the evening with Justin's sister, Jennifer, her hubby, Calvin, and their son, Joel, to celebrate Calvin's 25th birthday. We had a feast with steaks, sweet potatoes, creamed spinach, loaded baked potatoes, beans, and bread. Right before we were going to sing the Birthday Song, Justin's phone started going off with tons of alarms. One of his big buildings had a huge disaster happen (thankfully not his company's fault), and he ended up rushing us out of their house so that he could hurry downtown. He and his guys were downtown till 3am, but they succeeded in getting all things operational. Justin got three hours of sleep Thursday night. Stay tuned...
A very rushed "Happy Birthday to you!"

She loves her Aunt "Jean":