HUGE VACATION UPDATE!

The Lord truly blessed our little vacation. It was so wonderful to be in fellowship with our close friends again. When we lived in Seattle, Dan and I often just hopped up to my sisters house for dinner or movies or a game of Scrabble. It was so hard to leave them last summer as they are such good friends of ours (and family!). They have been so encouraging to us and supportive of us over the years. It was hard being in Malawi without them. Jessica and Brendan have been our closest friends for four years, now. We love to talk about how Jessica is mostly responsible for Dan and I getting together (of course, we know that God had a lot to do with it, too!). Dan and Brendan were roommates for 2 years, while Jessica and I lived together during our last year of singleness. We have walked through our first years of marriage together, and now are entering parenthood at the same time! Anyways, it was such a blessing to be with them again. While in Malawi, we often ached to just sit and talk with them about things. Needless to say, this little vacation visit was LONG overdue!

It all began Saturday before last. Dan and I picked up the rental car and headed up north towards Indianapolis to visit my Sarah, Nathan and Amos. We arrived Thursday night, just in time for Dan and Nathan to jump in the car and pick up the Riberas from the airport (arriving from Seattle). The plan was for all of us to meet up and have a wonderful visit together in Indiana, and that is exaclty what we did. Here are some photos from that leg of the trip.

Amos and I had a great time playing together. It was great seeing him this second time, because he remembered us from when he came to see us in Tennessee just a few weeks ago!

Dan, Amos and I danced quite a bit together. Amos LOVES to dance at the sound of music (or anything that resembles a beat). Amos was also helping me with folding his old clothes, which Eli will be wearing during his first 3 months.

Here we are playing Cranium (girls verses boys). Of course, the girls won, although the boys weren't too far behind.


The boys were being silly in front of the house.

Jessica plays with Amos while Dan reads his Bible on the front porch. I was just enjoying the chill in the air!

Jessica and I with our baby bellies.
Sarah, Jessica and I getting ready for our walk downtown.


Dan points out a cool building while walking downtown.
Amos and Brendan had a blast playing at this cute little toy store. Amos had a hard time leaving the toy store (naturally).

Walking downtown...Amos did such a great job walking!

Amos stands in front of a huge monument in the middle of the circle in downtown Indy. All he wanted to do was crawl up and down those stairs all day long!
We had a great time at the library with Amos!!!
We spent a good 5 minutes watching the 'vroom vrooms' pass by below us through the third floor window of the library downtown. Amos just settled into the seat I provided with my belly and waved at all the cars.

I read a Bible Baby Names book while Jessica giggled with Amos in the library.

The view of Indianapolis from the library.

We were on our way out, when we discovered the coolest thing! It was a staged area complete with a HUGE green screen and tv's that featured different little scenes. In this one, Sarah, Amos and I are running a race AND had to jump hurdles! Amos loved 'chasing' me!
You can see us 'feeding the fish' on the screen in the upper right corner of the picture.
In this one, Dan and I were working together to get the laundry on the line. You can see Amos climbing onto the stage to join us.
Here we all are enjoying the sunshine along the river in a cute part of town. (from left to right: Myself, Dan, Nathan holding Amos, Jessica, Brendan, and Sarah)
This is a window which was taken out of the Redeemer Presbyterian Church building where Nathan works. It was made by Lewis Comfort Tiffany and can be found at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. We definitely didn't have enough at the museum...they had really great art there! And the best thing is that it's free!!!

On Thursday, the Riberas joined us in the rental car for the drive back to Nashville. We arrived at my parents house that evening, and had a wonderful long weekend together here in Tennessee. We walked around historic downtown Franklin, Leiper's Fork and Hillsboro Village in Nashville. We ate good food and just hung out together. It was so awesome to relax with our friends.

Here we are at the Loveless Cafe. Jessica was craving some good ole fashioned home cookin'.

Dan and I, Brendan and Jessica right before we headed out for the airport. By the way, I am 34 weeks now!!! Only 6 more to go, give or take a few:)
Jessica has an amazing ability to be supportive, fun and brutally honest with me all at the same time, and I so appreciate that and have missed that so much! Jessica is also pregnant with a little boy, and is exactly 5 weeks behind me in her pregnancy. My mom did a mini appointment with us both which was fun. We got to hear both Eli and Spud (they haven't picked out a name yet) heart beats! Spud has been kicking more and more, and by the time they left, he was getting pretty active. I think Eli might have taught him some of his moves! It was great to be with our best friends again. It felt like we just picked up where we left off. Very refreshing and uplifting. I had been looking forward to this visit since January!

We just dropped them off at the airport this afternoon. It was hard to say goodbye, but not too hard because we know we will see them again in Seattle in July. It's fun to think that the next time we hug each other, we will both be significantly thinner, and our little boys will be out and ready to play!