Celebrating a FIRST Birthday!l!!

Tuesday was Sadie Mac's first birthday and we had a ball. She was great and we can't believe how quickly the time has passed since last year and we were in Egypt. We had several friends over and had a cookout and enjoyed cupcakes and ice cream with the little princess! We feel so blessed and thankful for the gift she is to us. Wish you all could have joined us!

Clown Cupcakes I made!

It's Cake Time!

Hmmm... interesting. What do I do?

Cake was everywhere!

On the menu: hotdogs, hamburgers, cole slaw, potato salad, veggies and of course cake and ice cream!

Glass bottles of Coke & Sprite!

Presents... woohoo!

The birthday girl in her birthday dress!

Tarzana!!

I thought my parental nerves weren't supose to be shot until the teen years! I have a wild child little girl on my hands. (Even as I write this from our laptop, I'm going from room to room following her!) She has barely started walking and is a little too brave for me! She is an excellent climber and loves to throw one leg up on anything to get up, in something, or out of it. She is always doing it when she is in the bathroom wanting to get into the tub... and when she's in it, she throws her leg up to get out of it. This is where her little shinner came from, the bath tub and being a little too adventurous! I feel like I am waiting for her to start swinging from the ceiling fans or something and we can call her Tarazana! Earlier this week we noticed she has learned to use the foot stools we have to get up on the chairs on our porch. Today, I put her down and walked inside to get my water and when I came back, she was standing up in the chair!! Talk about scary!!! We can't let her out of our sights!!

Italy Finale... Rome, Pisa, and Geneva

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The last part of our trip we were in Rome for 3 days and enjoyed as much as we could of Rome in such a short time. While we were there we talked with several people who were seeing Rome in 2 weeks or so, so needless to say we feel like one day we could go back and experience much more. We went to all the big tourist places like the Colosseum and the Vatican. We were thankful we didn't have to stand in too many lines. Stephen's favorite part was the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel and for me it was St. Peter's Basilica or the Colosseum. We did a walking tour from a map that our hotel gave us the last day we were there. It was great because we were able to see several different sites like the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, and Piazza Navona.

One artist from the street in front of Piazza Navona and his art work.

Climbing the Spanish Steps

The Trevi Fountain

View of the Ancient City of Rome from the Forum

The front of the Vatican Museum where we also went in the Sistine Chapel

View from St. Peter's Basilica

Our last night in Rome enjoying real Italian food!


From Rome, we drove up the western coast of Italy (all day!!) but took our lunch break in Pisa so we could see the leaning tower. It was really cool and most definitely leaned!


When we finally arrived in Geneva (after 12 hours of driving!) we had to enjoy being outside! Geneva is a beautiful city and one I know I could enjoy for more than a night. The water was beautiful and has a huge fountain in the middle of the lake with an amazing breeze coming off of the water. We had hotdogs at a little vender by the lake and soaked in the cool weather before we came back to the sandbox! We crawled in the grass and played before it got dark. It was an amazing trip and we are so thankful for every part of it! We can't believe Sadie Mac has now been to 9 countries and she is not even one! She did a great job and was a great traveler! We had an amazing family vacation... thanks for enjoying the pics with us.

I'm now waiting for Sadie's picture to appear on a Foreign Billboard

Family pic in front of the Geneva Fountain

Italy... Milan & Venice

After leaving Switzerland, we drove to through the Alps and our first stop in Italy was Milan. We arrived and were tired, but before we turned in, we went to see the Duomo which is a massive cathedral. It was beautiful. Lots of people and our first tastes of real Italian food... yummy!

Riding on daddy's shoulders through the streets of Italy!


From there we made the trek to Venice or "Venezia"!! Since I was a little girl I have wanted to see the city with the streets of water! And it truly was amazing. We did a lot of walking and had Sadie Mac's stroller, but if you plan on visiting.. it's not exactly what I'd call stroller friendly! Because the streets are made of water, there are plenty of bridges with stairs! But, no complaining here... we were in Venice! We enjoyed a family gondola ride (a smidge less romatic with a one year old trying to climb out of the boat!!) but none the less... it was a great experience! Our gondola driver told us where Mozart stayed and the theatre house that Shakespeare wrote for. The food was delicious and our hotel was great! We were right off of the main canal and loved every part of it. This was for sure our favorite city in Italy.


Every time we went into a church to look at the art Sadie Mac would notice her echo and want to be all the more chatty... so we would have to plug it with her passie! :-)



The view from our gondola

View from the Accademia Bridge on the Grand Canal

Public transport known as the water bus

Switzerland!

When you hear someone say that all of Switzerland is a postcard... it's true. We were overwhelmed with the beauty of God's creation and so blessed to be able to do all we did in the past two weeks. Our first week, we spent in Wilderwil, Switzerland which is near Interlaken. We were there with several friends we work with and enjoyed fellowship with friends from the States. While we were there, we did lots of different things including a boat cruise and picnic, hiking, getting to see Jung Frau: the "Top of Europe", and of course, lots of looking and "wow-ing". It was a true blessing and we are so thankful for the blessing it was! We have tons of pictures, but here are a few of our favorites...


We went on a boat cruise and were amazed again at the beauty of Switzerland.

This is the area where the boat cruise stopped and we had our picnic. Also the place I plan to retire!!

We were able to experience a Swiss Cultural night with "Ricola" pipes and everything! It was so cool.

An early morning hike the three of us enjoyed.

There are no words.

I promise, we were not photo-shopped into this picture!

One of the "post card" moments as we came down from the mountain. Do you call the Alps a mere "mountain"?



.... More to come!!!!

Celebrating 3 Years!

Today we are celebrating 3 wonderful years of marriage and thank the Lord that He walked with us every step of this journey. We are so blessed to live this life of adventure together and are so thankful He has given us Sadie Mac to come along for the ride. Thanks to all of your for your love, support and prayers over the past several years... but mostly unto Him who is able to do immeasurabley more than all we could ask or imagine according to His power that is at work within us... Eph. 3:20.

It's Father's Day!!

Today was Stephen's very first Father's Day!! Woohoo! Sadie Mac made him a Father's Day card, (that was more like a book) with pictures of them together! We went to "the club" to go swimming and enjoy the day with friends. We are so thankful for him... the best dad in the world!! Here is a picture of them playing in her tent together.

Healthy Living...

We think it is a good idea to start in these early days of teaching Sadie Mac about living a healthy lifestyle. We've caught her in the act of a few things:

Bathing is always good after playing in the dust and dirt...


She now has 6 teeth, so she needs to brush them, even though she can't reach the sink...


And my personal favorite, she thinks cucumbers are the same as candy bars!

Sinking Sand...

The past few weeks we have been planning a trip to the Nile with some friends of ours that have a little girl about one month younger than Sadie Mac. Yesterday morning we left with sunscreen, water toys, a grill, and excitement attempting to find the place we were last time. Cultural Note 1: You have to understand that there are no signs that say “Nile Beach 12 mi.” like we are accustomed to seeing at Myrtle Beach. Also, we liked the spot we went to last time because there were no people around staring at us as we enjoyed our day, so we were wanting to see if we could find the same place we did last time from our markings on the GPS. (thanks Stephen and Janelle!)
We did find the general area and just wanted to find a spot close to the Nile with a smidge of shade so the girls could play on the mat we brought. Stephen and our friend’s husband went down to see if the spot would be suitable and it seemed to be, so we headed down to the beach in our cars. Bad idea. We were driving along leading the way and all of a sudden, our car sank! The top of the ground was hard and solid, but that was deceiving. Cultural Note 2: We live in the Sahara Desert and AAA is no where to be found. So, what was to be found? Shepherd boys and herdsmen!

A group of about 10 boys and men came out of nowhere, all with ideas and input and they were eager to help! They tried breaking branches and putting them down behind the tires hoping they would grab traction… but the mud/sandy-clay was too much for our heavy car. After about 2 hours of trying and sinking, our friend went to a village semi-nearby to try and find a tractor. Cultural Note 3: You have to have tea whenever you are on a visit. Our friend found a man with a tractor and was asking and negotiating a price (also something you have to do beforehand) and when this was done he said, ok… let’s go. But they were insistent he have tea. He said his wife, daughter, and friends were all down waiting… but NO(!)… he had to stay and have tea. So, he graciously did have tea and then returned with the tractor! All that time, Stephen continued to dig and try to work the car out of the clay. After a short while, thanks to the tractor (and Stephen's digging :-)!!) the car was out and we were so thankful! We know the Father was with us!!!
It was still early enough in the day for us to grill-out, swim for a few minutes in the Nile and enjoy time with our friends. We were so thankful they were with us. Stephen jokingly told us all to enjoy it because we were never coming back here again!
The girls enjoying the water

Sadie Mac... splish splashing

This is what the ladies did... sat in the shade and waited

First Pet

This is Sadie Mac's first pet... who is an uninvited guest, but none the less, we let him stay. We "let him stay" or have no idea how to keep him out!! We are still thinking of names, if you have any suggestions, feel free to add input. This is him, hanging upside down on our bedroom ceiling. I guess this is the African life. :-)