Way too long

This is by far the longest amount of time I've gone between posts. I feel like I was caught in a whirlwind and am still attempting to get out. The boys and I left Brazil on May 6th and traveled to NYC. We were there until the 26th. Our first two weeks consisted of seeing friends and catching up with NYC. It was a sweet time. Aaron met up with us on week 3 of our time there and we celebrated graduation. It was INCREDIBLE. God did tremendous things in the last two years and we were able to celebrate that among family and friends.

 

 

 

 

We also got to celebrate Austin's fourth birthday in NY. All the family gathered to go to the Bronx zoo. In the afternoon we had a party at Dolphin Playground at Riverside Park (one of our favorite parks in NYC). It was a sweet time. Unfortunately, I guess I didn't take any pictures at the zoo, but here are some of the birthday party. The boys best buds were there to join in celebrating him. The same 6 that were together for his 3rd birthday :) What deep gratitude we have for these friends!

 

 

After leaving NY, the boys and I made our way to Texas and Aaron made is way to Brazil. I think as a family, we were all surprised by how difficult it was to be apart. We anticipated hardship, but it stretched us more than expected. Though being apart was rough, we were so thankful to be amongst family and friends who love us so well. We got to swim a ton (both of the boys are now swimming like fishes), catch up with sweet friends, and enjoy the family that is in Texas. Meanwhile, Aaron worked his tail off to finish school, hand back our apartment, and close the chapter in Brazil. He after leaving Brazil, he flew to NYC to pick up our things that had been left in storage. His best bud Micah flew there from Texas to meet him and they drove our belongings across the country.  On July 8th we were finally reunited as a family. It was a breath of fresh air to be able to hug one another. The boys were thrilled to see Daddy, and I exhaled in his embrace! Though our time apart was so challenging, it made me appreciate how each member of our family values the unity we share!

We hit the ground running after Aaron's arrival. We had to buy two cars, research preschool options for the boys, consider what we were going to do for housing (we were still staying with his mom),  explore health insurance options and OH - prepare for having another baby! It has been wild! In the midst of the craziness we tried to catch up and enjoy some much needed time as a family. A highlight of that was a little vacation at Possum Kingdom Lake made possible through the generosity of our friends Dan and Gayle Grant who allowed us to spend the week at their lake house. I love our little family!

Now we have transitioned to our churches missions house. We have been gifted with residing here until December. We will likely only stay for another month to 6 weeks as we have a contract on a house for purchase! If all goes well, we will officially be home owners by the end of September. This will be the first time we've owned a house in our 10 years of marriage! How exciting! We won't move into the house right away,  as our baby girl is due about the same time we close on the house. So we will slowly move things into the home and hopefully reside there sometime in October.

Whew! This was quite a post. For you to be able to grasp the craziness of our life, this blog post has been composed with 5 times of me sitting at the computer to write. Little by little right?!?! It's by no means exhaustive. I wish I had written while in NYC to be able to fully capture the elation of graduation, the delight of being among dear kindred spirit friends, and the joy of being in NYC again. I wish I had more pictures of being reunited with friends and family in Texas to share. I wish I had blogged while at Possum Kingdom to fully articulate the gratitude for my little family. But I've decided if I want to back track and write out all that I missed, I won't ever blog again. Truth is, I love to blog. It's refreshing. It is a means for me to process and remember my long list of things to be grateful for. So here's to returning to the blog world! I sure hope I am able to stay more on top of blogging now that I'm back. But the reality is a baby's about to rock my world again. So all I can promise is that I'll do my best!

Thanks for caring to read this blog and follow our crazy journey!