Pictures worth a thousand words

Here are some pictures of our crazy, traveling there and back summer!  I've been slacking and have not posted so I thought I would capture our summer's events through these pictures.  The saying goes that pictures are worth a thousand words!    

Jared's 9th Birthday/Memorial Day!

Memorial weekend marks Jared's 9th Birthday! We took pictures by his grave right before we left town and family and friends have sent us pictures of his grave after the holiday weekend. How hard it is to put in words all the different emotions, but thank you to all for remembering Jared. Thank you for decorating for us. We still are grieving and missing him so much but rejoice in eternal families. We know it's real! And look forward to that day of reuniting.

On his birthday we celebrated as best we could. We made this JV Treat. It turned out pretty cute. Go JV Team!!

And we're leaving ...

Crazy events here in our lives is all I can say. We sold our house, moved across country for a job we thought was a great thing. After being here just weeks Andrew is now employed with his previous employer and the job we thought was a great thing turned out to be not such a great thing. Now, we are trying to sell another house :) and move back across country. How did this happen? Why? We are still trying to come to some sort of answers. We never got the feeling of "no this is not right" - we went for it and now we are wishing we could turn back the clocks, do things a little different. I sure hope we can find ourselves back in our neighborhood that we were before, that is what we want most.

Andrew feels very humbled by all of this, we both do. We feel embarrassed it happened, excited to come back, nervous for how it's all going to pan out, and sad for all the regrets. We've met some wonderful people out here in DC! I played basketball with some of the best girls I've ever played with and had some of the most deep chats with people I haven't known for a long time. How the church is organized is such a testimony to me of its truthfulness.

We're confused why it happened like this, but we are looking forward with optimism, excitement, faith and a desire to be better! As with all trials in life, they push you and pull you and stretch you. I just want to learn from this what I need to.

So .... everyone out West - will you take us back? Ready or not here we come!

Happy 1st Birthday Beck!

Beck is One! I finally made him his birthday cake (three weeks after his real day)! I feel horrible but the craziness in our lives has been big. Anyway, we made a bathtub cake for Beck because Beck LOVES to take baths! He loved it!