Friends And Bargains.

Two of my friends are expecting so it's been fun to go through pregnancy together:). We were talking two weeks ago about taking a picture and we finally got around to doing it last week!

(Paula ~ November, Saritha ~ October, Anne ~ August)

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In addition to being due within a few months of each other, Paula and I also share a love for yard sales. This morning there was a huge one in a local development nearby, so Nat and I got up early to see what we could find. As a side note, I'm quite impressed with myself for willingly waking up before 7 AM three Saturdays in a row! Each week has been profitable and made it worth getting up early on the only day of the week to sleep in. :-)

Last evening Nat and I were praying for some specific items to find at a yard sale today and the Lord answered that prayer. It always amazes me how much the Lord is in the little details of life. In fact, He delights in doing so!

Paula snagged a dollar deal for me on a booster/high chair seat for Peanut. Since we'll be doing a lot of traveling, I've been keeping my eye out for things that will travel well and I'm grateful she found the seat... that's going to be a life saver on the road!

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We are now two weeks out from Peanut's due date, although I'm thinking I will go late. In fact, I'm planning on going late. :0) If Peanut arrives early, I will be very surprised!!!

Thailand And Tigers.

So I didn't mention this before (since this is the world wide web), but Nat was in Thailand for the past two weeks for what was supposed to be for one reason (long story), but it ended up being a ministry trip that the Lord really worked out!

The trip was really profitable and I'm grateful for the Lord putting together some specific details. Since we are planning on moving over there next summer/early fall, Nat was able to get a realistic handle on living in Thailand as well as take a quick trip inside of a neighboring country.

I was totally jealous that he got to go and I didn't. :-) One of the older members at our church asked me today if I went to Thailand with Nat... I just smiled and pointed to my 36.5 week baby bump!

The first Saturday he was there, Nat and some other people went to the Tiger Kingdom in Chiang Mai:

I'm not quite sure that I would be brave enough to do this, mainly because the handlers at the Tiger Kingdom say you need to confidently lean/lay against the tiger or else they will swat you thinking you're an insect or something.

Umm, yeah. Not quite sure about that!

In other fun news, we are not traveling for the next month and a half! It's been so nice to take a break from constant traveling and just be in one place. I have a couple of things I want to do with Nat before the baby comes, but it doesn't require staying overnight anywhere. :-)

Of course Peanut has been given the green light to arrive since Daddy's trip is over. I'm actually quite content for Peanut to come on the due date or after and I'm mentally preparing myself for that ~ that way I'm not disappointed if I don't go early! Our pack-n-play is set up, I've washed the baby clothes that I have, and the car seat is sitting in the living room waiting to be installed. So from that perspective we're "ready" for Peanut, although I don't think we really know what we're getting into! One of my friends told me yesterday that I will never sleep the same way again once I become a Mommy... I figure I'll take it from someone who knows what she's talking about!

Maternity Pics.

Last Friday night, Nat, my niece and I traipsed to Chick-Fil-A for our free meal. This was our first time ever doing this, but it was a lot of fun! The lady behind the counter kept asking me what else I wanted to get, but I definitely couldn't eat that much, even if she was offering more free food!

After our delicious meal (I absolutely love their chick-n-strips salad!), we went to get some maternity pictures taken. We did decide to change our outfits since we were too chicken (haha... ha) to stay in our cow outfits.

The lighting wasn't the best and it was threatening rain all evening, but it was the only time that would work out for all of our schedules. So off we went to a nearby park (anyone recognize it?!?) and had some fun. :)

The last picture always makes me laugh, because Nat is contemplating a rather disturbing idea: will our little Peanut like chocolate???

Photo credit to my niece Tiana!

VBS!

This week at Lehigh Valley Baptist Church is Vacation Bible School and I've been thoroughly it! It's been four years since I last participated in VBS, mainly because I was living in Thailand or getting married. :-)

This year I have one student in the K-1st grade boys category...

....and it's been so much fun! Of course there are over a dozen girls in K-1st grade and tons of boys and girls in 2nd-3rd grades, but just one boy for my class! He's been so much fun and was also in my Sunday School class until I stopped teaching, so I'm glad to get to interact with him again this week. :-)

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As I walked home from VBS this evening, I heard the sweet giggles and shouts of some kids as they played a quick game of tag. I smiled to myself because some of my favorite childhood memories are of playing tag in the backyard with my brothers and sisters. Ah, the simple pleasures in life!

Latest Travels.

So according to my last post (two months ago), we were in Texas and in the midst of deputation travels.

Um, yeah, we actually returned to PA about 1.5 months ago. :-)

We did take a couple of more trips since then, including a deputation/anniversary/babymoon trip to what is fast becoming our favorite vacation state ~ Maine! In between two deputation meetings, Nat and I had a sweet getaway in and surrounding Brunswick, Maine.

Nat is his mother's child, so we took as many opportunities as possible to get close to the water. We didn't actually go swimming in the ocean (hello 50 degree water!), but it was wonderful to be near it!

We decided to go to the Maine Maritime Museum which also included a river boat tour. The museum was quite interesting and we spent just the right amount of time there.

I was studying some lobster cages in one of the buildings when Nat called my name and so I turned around. Although not intentional, it is rather amusing to see how my shirt matches the horizontal slats on the lobster cages. :-)

By the way, notice my hoodie hanging over my purse?? It was actually cool enough by the water to put the hoodie on to ward off the chill. *Sigh* I think 70 degree weather is just perfect!

We really enjoyed the river boat tour, which included a couple of lighthouse sightings. Hey, you can't go wrong with cruising out on the water!

Of course, when in Maine one must try a lobster - or "lobstah" as the locals say! Nat was the adventurous one while I sat contently by watching him crack it open as I ate my shrimp. :-)

The whole trip was so wonderful! One nice thing was we were staying in the same place for four consecutive days... something that is fast becoming a luxury rather than necessity!

We're taking the next two months off from deputation as we wait for Peanut to make his or her grand entrance. We even finally registered for some baby items, mainly because of the free gift card incentive that Babies 'R Us offers. Well, that and the fact that Nat just loves that scanner and wants to scan everything he sees. :-)

Five weeks until my official due date. We'll see how official Peanut is in arriving and just how much he or she takes after Mommy in being early for everything!

Oh, let's hope it's not another five weeks before I squeak out another blog post.

That last period of silence was embarrassing!

Mother's Day.

Nat and I have been visiting with his immediate family in central Texas while we finish up our last few meetings for this leg of deputation. It was pretty convenient that we managed to get into town 2 days before Mother's Day - why yes he is a good son! For the past couple of years, I've always been away for Mother's Day, so it was nice to actually be with one of our moms for the day!

Of course we have plans to take my mom out for lunch when we return to PA. We did that last year and found out the restaurant we wanted to go to had burned up... I'm hoping history does not repeat itself this year!

Nat's been mentioning for weeks we need to take a picture to track peanut's growth. I'm not a huge fan of the weekly picture some moms do, so I finally decided it would be nice to get a picture on Mother's Day. Nat's sister found a nice spot on the front yard and enjoyed taking pictures:).

I'm 25.5 weeks - I'm never sure what that translates into months - but I'm thinking it's somewhere around 6 months. :)

We plan to be out on the road for two more weeks before returning back to PA. After being in Oklahoma and Texas for the past couple of weeks and experiencing their heat in April/May, I'm very glad that I live in Pennsylvania where the heat isn't as bad as in the south. Of course a friend reminded me this morning on the phone that we are heading to Thailand, but I'm not going to think about the heat over there... just yet!

Mass Advertising.

I've mentioned in the past about how funny I think it is when a tourist attraction is advertised several hours away from the actual tourist attraction. It just strikes me as... humorous. :)

Well I found a new tourist attraction to add to my list: Meramec Cavern! Now I don't recall exactly when the billboards started, but perhaps what they lacked in mileage they made up in abundance. As in many. :-) I wish I had taken a picture of the three billboards that were within close proximity of each other ~ all advertising the same thing! I'm really restraining myself because we're only 7 miles away from this cave and I feel like I should at least give it the benefit of the doubt that it's not a dud of a tourist attraction. :-)

We'll be in Missouri for the next few days at a conference, so perhaps during our spare time, we might be tempted to give in and visit well-advertised cave.

I'll keep you updated should we dare to go below... :-)

Deputation Trail ~ #2

Where to start?

I'll spare you all the details of just how pretty Pennsylvania is -- yes we did decide to take the road less traveled in western PA! -- but we have had a fantastic start to our deputation trail! We left bring and early Thursday morning - wait, 8:15 AM isn't bright and early?? :) We had the privilege of joining in on Anchor Baptist Church's third annual missions conference as well as the third anniversary of the church! We were really looking forward to being in this conference because our church was able to have a part in supporting them from the beginning! So it was neat to be with a missionary that we supported. :)

I can tell already that one thing about deputation will be hard: spending several days with a church and the families, getting to know them and interact with them, and then - moving on. Bummer! A wonderful family from Anchor housed us while we were there and they were generosity from the start. From asking what kind of foods we liked to eat to having us try snoogles, we were well taken care of!

Of course Anchor Baptist were wonderful hosts too. Each evening there was a delicious meal provided (courtesy of the ladies of the church) and we enjoyed getting to know the other church planters, missionaries, and evangelists. One of the church planters is from Maine, and we discovered that the little Baptist church we attended while on our honeymoon in Maine was started with the help of this church planter! Small world. :)

Saturday morning we got to go out on visitation and then for lunch the ladies and men split up and went out to eat. I loved the fact that the ladies of Anchor really enjoy spending time with each other and laughing! We had a great time... I keep saying that, don't I? ;)

To end the missions conference, the pastor had all the missionaries stand up front and since it was their Faith Promise Sunday, he had the church members give their faith promise commitment cards to the missionaries. That was really neat to watch the whole church family - little kids included! - come up front and give their commitment cards in. The pastor's emphasis was that all the money that comes in for Faith Promise goes directly to the missionaries.

After the noon meal, the pastor shared that the commitments doubled from last year! I was extremely thrilled for this church as they take a step of faith forward!!

We had a meeting work out for Sunday night, so we drove the hour east and really enjoyed being at Stow Falls Baptist Church. The Lord really set up this meeting for us in a neat way. When we got to the missions conference at Anchor on Thursday night, there happened to be another man there who knew the pastor at Stow Falls. After talking with my husband about our ministry, this man called the pastor up and told him about our ministry. Not ten minutes before this man called, the pastor and another man were praying about the same particular people group that we plan on working with! This church has a real heart for this people group and has a bus ministry that brings in about 100 of this people group every Sunday. We just so happened to have Sunday night available since the missions conference at Anchor ended with an afternoon service. Isn't God good?!?!

Stow Falls was extremely welcoming and friendly and I just loved the singing... I felt like I was back at my home church. :) After the service, there was a fellowship (which had already been planned - details only the Lord works out!) so we were able to visit with some people. This church graciously put us up in a hotel and the pastor said we could meet for lunch, not breakfast at an insane hour of 8 AM or something like that. ;) We were really appreciative of having the opportunity to get a good night of rest and just s-l-o-w down from the marathon it feels like we've been running. :D Of course the bonus for this hotel was having a breakfast provided, so we made sure to take advantage of that!

So that's just part one of Deputation Trail #2! We still have five weeks in this trip so I'm sure there will be many more updates along the way. ;)

From Trip To Trip.

Nat and I just returned from a quick trip to Long Island and we decided to pack a lot into the 24-hour trip... just because. :-) Actually, the most exciting adventure was driving through New York City ~ traffic at its best! We did discover that you don't have to pay to use the Holland Tunnel... if you're leaving the city. That was a nice surprise since tunnels, bridges, and sometimes just existing seem to cost a bunch of bucks!

Long Island Baptist Church was a very gracious host and we felt welcomed from the start! I've known several of the ladies there through the blogging world for a long time, so it was so nice to finally meet them in person. :-) After the service we went out to eat with a dear, dear couple and thoroughly enjoyed our time visiting and fellowshipping with them. Heaven gets sweeter all the time as I meet new friends ~ just think, no more good-byes in Heaven!

This morning we went way out on Long Island to a place called Riverhead where a new church is being started by Long Island Baptist Church. It was exciting to hear the pastor talk about the area and the growth the church has personally seen. The needs are everywhere and the great thing is God is at work!

So it was a quick trip, but we really had a great time and now it's on to the next trip. I just realized tonight that we *are* leaving in two days for a 6-week trip and I should start packing and getting things ready! Between now and then are two very full days, including an ultrasound for peanut!

Some how, some way it will all come together.... it always does. :-)

Home.... But Not For Long!

It was a good week to travel... don't we look so happy?!? :D

I must say, this was one of the best trips I have taken with teens; we really had a great time:). We even got sleep on the bus, which is practically a miracle! It helped that the boys were in the front of the bus this time, so we didn't hear most of the noise;). The only down side to sitting in the back of the bus was the blaring music. Apparently you can barely hear the music up front because of the engine noise, so that means the volume gets turned waaaaaaay up until they can hear it. Bad news for the back because the level goes from comfortable to unbearable. Thankfully the Lord gave grace, especially when anyone had a headache. :)

The thing I was most concerned/terrified about with this trip was stopping the bus just so I could go to the restroom. I'm happy to report that I only stopped the bus once each time, going and coming! Of course I was at the front of the line for every other rest stop but that's just a given when you have an expectant lady on board;).

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This week I reach the halfway point in my pregnancy! It has seriously flown by and I would like to know how to slow the days down a bit. :D I finally bought two maternity skirts, but I'm grateful I can still fit in my normal clothes. :) Peanut/peanutella has been giving some light kicks, especially when I'm going to sleep at night. We go in next Tuesday for our ultrasound appointment and we're looking forward to that!

As for preparing for this baby, we have exactly two things, both of which were given to us - a stroller/car seat combo and a couple of gender neutral outfits and that's it. :)

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We are planning on leaving in just over a week for a 6-week trip (deputation #2). During this time, we hope to see some family and friends-that-are-like-family as well as being in some new (to us!) churches. Much to do before we leave, but we're looking forward to this trip and what the Lord has in store for us!