Birthday Bash!

We celebrated Abigail's 2nd birthday yesterday! Last month we were at the store and she had a choice between Disney Princesses or Winnie the Pooh party supplies and she chose the Princesses. So we went with it...although not as far as we could've gone. I was looking up ideas online and am amazed at all that people go to for parties! We just had the napkins and cups and a castle cake, which was a lot more complicated to make than the "how-to" video showed online. It kept crumbling and breaking off as I was frosting it, so we decided it was a true European Castle cake since most of them are crumbling to some degree too! Abigail liked it and that was all that mattered!

It was so fun to celebrate our little 2 year old with our friends! There is a family here for the summer interning with JV, hoping to move here long-term. We actually met them through my parents at Ranch Chapel (church) on Crooked River Ranch. They have 3 boys, Zachary, Nathan & Corban and Abigail has enjoyed playing with them a little bit this summer. Nathan is just 10 days older than Abigail and Corban is 2 months older than Eli so it's been fun to have kids close in age around here.

So, without further adieu, here is the slideshow of yesterday's party! Enjoy! Just click on it if you'd like to see it larger. It'll take you to the original in Picassa.

Happy Birthday!

Abigail is 2 years old today!

A New Bench!

New to me at least! The night before the Cornerstone team left, Joel said, "Hey Amy, why not ask Kitty & Shelley if they'd like to go junking with you tonight?" I jumped at the chance and so did they! We had a great time and found some things. This bench is one of our finds.

I brought it home, sanded it, stained it added a basket for shoes and voila!

My friend Ajda

Ajda (Ida) lives next door. She has a new baby sister. I like Ajda. She has a yellow slide that I like to slide down and a big swing set. Sometimes I go over to her house and play without telling my Mama or Dada. Then I get in trouble. Today Ajda and I had a tea party. We drank a lot of tea which was really just apple juice and water. We ate crackers. I like Ajda. And "Yiya" likes her swing set.

Six Months Already!

Elijah is six months now! Wow! Our neighbors just had a baby girl recently and when I saw her and then looked at Eli who was swinging in their swingset, I couldn't believe that it was just 6 months ago that he really was that small and fragile.

He is sitting up pretty good on his own, and is now falling gracefully. : ) It's amazing to watch how that process develops! He is creeping everywhere, rolling all over the floor to get wherever or whatever he wants and should be crawling pretty soon too! It's like he's in fast motion all-the-time! Maybe he's making up for being 11 days late!

He's so different from Abigail and it makes me feel like I'm getting to know her better through watching Elijah develop. When she was small I didn't know what was "her" and what was just normal baby stuff, so it's fun to see just how different Eli is from his sister.

Each month I'm getting pictures of Eli next to this bear to show how he grows, but it's turned into more of a wrestling match each month and it's so cute to see the progression on film. The first three months he didn't even notice the bear was beside him! I just love all the pictures this month, so I decided to include them all! It may be one of those "only a mother will like" things, but the pictures are there if you want to watch!

Enjoy!

Family time in Vienna

The kids and I were able to go with Joel to Vienna, which was both good and bad for us all. : ) All four of us were in a small room with a sky light that lit up our room every morning at 6am, waking both of the kids for the whole day. Then with all that was going on, they were staying up later each night. It was trying for us all and will most likely be the last camp that the kids and I go to for at least a few years. It's just better if we stay at home and pray for the camp! : )

The Hunnicutt family also went with all of us and Abigail really enjoyed the extra play time with Lili. There was a full size bathtub at the Hospitality House, so Abigail had two baths while we were there and loved the room to stretch her legs and even to share a bath time with Lili one night!

Also, one day we were able to hang out with Joel in Vienna while the students were off doing things in their English class groups. It turned out to be July 15th, which was Elijah's 6 month birthday, so we got some fun pics of him throughout the day!

Enjoying some Starbucks with Mom & Dad!

And banging on the menu at TGIFriday's!

Abigail fed the ducks with Dada and got to ride a "choo-choo" which was fun for her. The trip in to Vienna she was so exhausted, she actually slept the entire 50 minutes. She thoroughly enjoyed her trip back with Lili though.

English Camp with a twist!

The time in Vienna was fast and furious! We left bright and early Sunday morning at 7am, stopped along the way in Graz, Austria for a break and an English activity. We hit the road again and arrived at the Hospitality House around 4, tired and ready to stay away from cars for awhile.

The Hospitality House provided breakfast in the mornings, but we had to be creative with the rest of the meals. The first night we had a Chinese night, complete with Chinese food, chopsticks and fortune cookies. Another meal was pizza from a local pizzeria, dinner at TGIFriday's and expensive coffee at Starbucks.

The camp was shorter than usual and in some ways it jump started friendships because of the long car rides, train rides to and from Vienna and the time of relaxing at the Hospitality House. We had so many great conversations and formed some great friendships. We are excited to continue these relationships through the year.

Sometimes it all doesn't work out like we plan. Months ago we made detailed plans for the HS camp. Along the way the Lord took it from a "normal" English camp to our trip to Vienna. Then one of the vans we were planning on to take some students, broke down. We were able to borrow another van from a friend and then on the way back 30 minutes from home it broke down and now needs a new engine! The Chineese restaurant we were planning on using was closed for 4 weeks for vacation and the Subway restaurants that were one of the points for a orientation game had been closed.

I ended up getting home at eleven Wednesday night and had 3 american's staying to help out from Oregon leaving 7 the next morning. When I got back, I jumped right back in bed and the whole family slept until 9:40! That's a first for us in years! We've been sleeping and getting caught up on house stuff.

Thanks for praying!

Vienna here we come...

We have been having some problems with our email so I don't think many people, if any have gotten our last couple emails about camps, sorry. We'll try to correct this problem when we get back next week.

Jr. High camp was INCREDIBLE! We saw the Lord do exactly what we were praying for. There is another group of awesome students who are eager to get together in the fall and continue conversations about friendship, life, and Jesus. We are so excited.

We also really saw our HS helpers step up. Matic said it great at the end of camp when he thanked the Americans for "investing in me these last 3 years so that I can invest in these students!" He got it and so did others. It feels like momentum has started and is being led by Slovenes. I am amazed at what the Lord has done in the last 3 years, going from nothing to bringing a passion in some young people's heart to reach their friends and generation just below them.

Tomorrow morning we head out bright and early to Vienna where we will have our HS English camp. The Lord has really designed this camp way different than what our plans were so we are anticipating the Lord to really do something amazing! Please pray for us as a group of 28 people car pool up to a hospitality house just outside of Vienna to spend a few days in interactive English, with trips to TGI Friday's, Starbucks and more!
We'll let you know how He shaped the whole thing. Thanks!

4th of July

It's been almost a week now, but I wanted to post these photos from the 4th of July anyway. Shelley Ekstrom came on the Cornerstone team and brought these cute outfits for the kids. The 4th ended up being the team's day off so we all went to Ljubljana for the day. It was a super hot day and Abigail was exhausted!

Biscotti for Eli

Abigail and I made teething biscotti for Elijahand she's been practicing saying "cheese" for the camera
since this girl doesn't just smile for it! : )

She also practiced cutting all her plastic fruits and vegetables with her plastic knife,

and I must say, she did very well!And good ol' PB&J for the girl!

Almost sitting up!

Elijah is almost sitting up on his own these days. Sitting in this bean-bag-chair really helps out with that and having this fun toy to bang on really makes it worthwhile for him.

Jr. High Camp?! Really??

I just received a text message on my phone from Joel that reads, "It is a special evening here, I'll tell you tomorrow."

Every time I ask Joel how camp is going, he says "it's a really easy camp, it's going really great!" During last year's Jr. High camp I received many different messages that said much the opposite, so it's fun to hear these messages this year!

I just wrote him back asking him more about it and he said, "I don't know. Camp has just turned a corner and Zan is leading it!"

Oh, Zan. How we love thee...at times. This kid... he has two completely different sides to him. One side, is pure gold and when you get him you just want to hang on to him. The other side...well, he's 16. Enough said. : ) (Zan is in the picture, on the left.)

Zan first came into our lives at the Jr. High Camp we did here in Kranj, three years ago. He has been a faithful part of anything we've done these past three years and has been slowly and steadily walking toward the Lord, often times when he didn't even want to be.

Over coffee recently, Zan told Joel, "I could see myself doing what you do." And it sounds as if the Lord is using him in that way right this moment! Would you take a moment to pray for Zan and the rest of the students at camp?

One other urgent prayer request is for David Abrahamson. He fell today during sports and dislocated his collar bone. Joel was able to take him to the hospital (after handing over speaking responsibilities to Ty Cook who we heard did a really great job!) for x-rays and such. He's in a sling right now and I think a lot of pain despite not wanting to show it. : ) He'll need to have surgery when he gets back to Oregon.

Props for Pampers!

At the picnic last Saturday, Abigail ended up in the swimming pool with her normal diaper on instead of a swim one. It filled up pretty fast and was barely hangin' on to the girl. But I must say.... it did it's job! Maybe a bit too good!
PS--that's Christina Stanton holding the diaper. She's a JV staffer in Ljubljana and an amazing woman! Check out her blog!

Camp season is here!!

The Good Shepherd & Cornerstone teams both arrived around noon today and are now at one of the English Camp facilities (most likely) sleeping by now. : ) We were able to keep them all awake today with lunch and an afternoon hike/walk in Vintgar Gorge, near Bled.

They'll be having some training time the next couple days with Ljubljana's High School camp starting on Friday and our Jr. High camp beginning that day as well.

Last Saturday at our house we had a BBQ with all the JV staff here as well as the new summer interns. Ty Cook is here from Good Shepherd and will be helping at both of our camps, as well as a girl named, Stephanie from Oregon as well. There is also a family here from Oregon that are praying, planning and hoping to move to Slovenia as missionaries to possibly work with JV. We met them several years ago at my parents church in Crooked River Ranch, Oregon. ...small world!We've seen them a couple times through the years, so it's fun to reconnect with them over here, knowing this has been a dream of theirs for at least 6 years now. It will be exciting to watch as the Lord leads them this summer.

Another fun part about them is that they have 3 young boys, their second is just 19 days older than Abigail and their third is 2 months older than Elijah, so it would be fun to have them join our younger JV team!

I will post more prayer requests in the next couple days, but for now could you pray about this dilemma?

The facility we rented for camp has also rented it out to another group of 40 people for the same time we're there since we didn't fill all the beds. For too many reasons to list here, it would be really great to have the whole facility to ourselves this next week. Would you join us in praying the second group would be moved to another facility up the road? Thank you!

Potty Chair

Nope, not for Abigail yet! I found this cute potty chair in the trash back in April and finally got around to getting it cleaned up and "potted". : )

Dress Up

Yesterday Abigail played "dress up" for the first time. It was so fun!! We were sitting on a blanket in the backyard, talking and playing with her doll. She had already taken off her shorts and was just running around in her diaper and tank top and then all of a sudden she ran inside the house. She came back out with her shorts and asked me to put them on her doll.

Then she took off again. She was taking a long time so I finally went inside to investigate and Joel was carrying her downstairs. She is able to climb the stairs in our house, thankfully though, she has a healthy fear of coming down. They are really steep and narrow with a concrete wall at the bottom. So she goes up and then just calls for someone to bring her back down. So there she was with a pair of pants that will fit her in the fall. She brought them outside and put them on as best she could, then I helped her with the rest. She wore them for about a minute and then took them off again.

Then she was off again. This time I followed her. She ran upstairs again and found a denim jacket with leopard fur trim that is also for this fall. It was so, so cute to see her walking around with the denim jacket on...and a diaper! I got video of it instead of a picture, otherwise there would be a picture here!

Anyway. I'm looking forward to many more dress-ups with this girl!

The last week

has been really busy, so I'm just going to post one time and include news from the whole week!

Elijah turned 5 months on Sunday!

He's sitting up better and better, rolling over all the time (especially during diaper changes!!) and using his vocal chords a lot lately! He is so much fun! We're just really enjoying this little guy. We also celebrated Joel's second Father's Day on Sunday. That was fun! He got a new wheelbarrow!! And was actually excited about it. He "inherited" one with the house that was completely rusty and had a flat tire, so he was glad to receive a new one. Also, I found a program online where you can take a photo and turn it into a sketch for a coloring page. So I did that with a picture of Abigail and Joel that she colored for him for Father's Day. As she was coloring it, she kept saying, "Dada!" and "Abby!" It was really cute!

Also last week, Abigail got the flu. It felt like it was her first time to actually have a temperature of 100 degrees. I remember one other time, at the JV Spring Conf last year, but other than that, I don't remember her having an actual high temperature. It was really sweet to have her just wanting to cuddle and be held. She also spent a lot of time on the couch, like in this photo, which she rarely ever does. It was sweet and short lived...After she got better though, it became a sort-of pretend game that she liked playing for, oh, about a day! She kept asking, "ho Lila?" which means, "Can I hold Elijah?" and then she would make room on the couch for him to sit beside her. I think these two are really going to enjoy playing together once this boy gets to moving!And finally, we've been having lots of rainy days over here! Bleh! We're running out of indoor activities to do! The other day I got out some watercolor paints for Abigail to try. She's still a bit young, but we gave it a try! It turned out to be more WATER than the color, but she enjoyed it and didn't make too much of a mess. She liked putting the brush in the paint, then putting it in the water and then putting it on the paper. I had to hang the papers outside on the laundry line to dry, they were so wet! It ended when she discovered putting her hand in the water was more fun than using the brush. I think she's ready for finger paints, but I need to get some plastic tablecloths before I am!!

The President Has Left the Country

It was exciting knowing that President Bush was just 5 minutes from our house today! All roads to and from the airport were blocked off to secure traffic during the approximate expected time of his arrival last night. Kathy Codanti and I excitedly walked with cameras in hand to the edge of our village in high hopes of seeing his entourage. We listened and watched for his plane, finally saw it and then waited for his parade to pass by.

There were several routes he could take to get to Brdo, and unfortunately he chose the one that DID NOT pass by us. Bummer. Today though, I was watching the EU Summit on TV so Joel and I had a good idea of when he would be passing by this time and most definitely where! So we took the kids for a walk and met up with our friends, the Hunnicutts and we all watched his entourage and his plane take off.

As I watched his interactions with people, I was so proud of our President. He seemed so sincere, affectionate and culturally sensitive. I think that last one in particular sparked some pride because this is a country I've grown to love with it's people, traditions and culture. It was honoring to see our President enjoying those things as well.

Oh! And those close up shots are compliments of Reuters, definitely not mine! Although, I would have loved to have taken them! : )

A Presidential Visit

Laura Bush is in flight to arrive in Slovenia tonight and her husband will arrive tomorrow. About a week ago there was a story on the news saying that they were considering where she would stay during her visit and we wondered if we should offer our couch. We live just a mile and a half from the airport and many people coming through use us for housing and a ride to the airport, why should we turn her away just because she's The First Lady?

Trooper

I asked Abigail to point to her "owie" and she pointed to her old owie that was just getting better! I must say that I never expected so many hurts with a little girl!She was running from the living room into the kitchen and somehow fell into a pretty sharp-edged door jam. It wasn't until after she got home that I noticed the streak it left diagonally down her face. She might be a little sore tomorrow! ....then again, she might not!

Sleeping...

I took Abigail to two hospitals before we ended up in Jesenice, north of here on the border of Austria where they put two stitches in her lip. She did great and the doctors were so friendly to her. They decided not to numb the area because it would hurt just as much as a stitch or two would.

It made me think of all the times my parents took me to the hospital. She got home and didn't even seem like anything was wrong. It was more traumatic for her parents than for her, I'm sure. She is sleeping now. A thousand more bruises, cuts, and owies to go... this parenting thing is tough!

Split Lip

Abigail fell about an hour and a half ago in our hallway and split her bottom lip open vertically. Joel is with her right now at the hospital having stitches put in. Would you please pray for her? Thank you so much!

A new twist on camps...

In our search for ever improving camps as a way to build relationships this year I am trying something a little different. For everyone signed up for our JH camp we are arranging a time to meet with them and their parents both for testing to make English classes early and building relationships with the whole family. So far I am only done with 2 students but already it has been great! These next two weeks we are investing a huge amount of time and energy into making this happen but we really believe this will give us a running start to camp and alleviate fear of us being some kind of sect.

My Girl

We just adore our little girl!
She is so, so sweet and we think this picture captures her just perfectly!

She is repeating more and more words these days, mostly just the first two sounds of the word though, but enough to be able to understand her. Here is a list of some of her words:

• Ca = Car
• Ba = Down (yeah, who knows about that one), bottle, ball
  
• T = tea, tv, teeth, toothbrush, toothpaste
• Moo = cow, horse or any large animal
  
• Bee = bees or any small insect
• Joo = juice
• To = toast
• Shus = shoes

The other night I put her to bed with a teddy bear and a half hour later I could hear her naming all the bear's facial parts and giggling to herself and I'm sure, the bear. She's also learning how to jump lately and enjoys "jumping" off the front door step.
We went for a long walk yesterday, her pushing a baby doll in her little stroller and me pushing Elijah in the "real" stroller. It was so fun. Most people we passed made comments to Abigail about what a good girl she was and asked what her baby's name is. It was really sweet. One lady was asking what the baby's name was and Abigail was telling her, her name which she has just recently started saying, "Abby". It was really cute!

My Boy

Elijah Thomas...is such a sweet little guy! We are really enjoying him. He's becoming so vocal and expressive. He's on his way to rolling over, playing more and more with toys and enjoying watching the world that whirls around him. He's also almost sitting up on his own now. Today I sat him in front of a Fisher Price "sing along stage" that my parents brought when they visited in March. He really got into playing with that. He wasn't so into looking at himself in the mirror like Abigail is, but he really liked hitting the drum and keyboard parts because every time they're hit, little things jump up from behind them! He was really getting into it. It was fun!

So yeah...he's almost sitting up on his own...mostly just leaning over at this pointbut not for long!

A bed is a nice soft place to practice!