A little winter sunshine

Jay and I just returned from spending a few days in the Dominican Republic. It was glorious to sit in the sunshine, read a book, eat meals leisurely, and just enjoy some time together.

Jay's regional agency hosts these trips as a reward for meeting certain annual goals. It's a really nice reward for Jay and all of his hard work. I don't say it publicly enough, but I am so thankful for my husband who works really hard to take care of me and our five little people. The man gets up at 4am most days, works for 11-12 hours each day, and takes a lot of challenges and risks. It takes a lot of courage, discipline, and motivation to do what he does. And he loves it! I'm very thankful for him.

And this week I was thankful for the warm sunshine too.

Many many thanks to ALL the grandparents who kept our kids. Catherine and Will were with my dad and Kay. Anna stayed with my mom. Mimi and Poppop kept the babies and then had all 5 for one night and day. We really appreciate our family's support of our marriage. When you have lots of little kids, (or even if you don't) it's important to take some time away and just relax, have a conversation, and make new memories together.

Just take a min

New running shoes
Beautiful weather
Time to run downtown
By myself
A chance to breathe
My husband knew I needed it
It's hard to step out of the craziness
He had to push me out the door
He's pretty awesome

A little trip with the babies

Jay and the babies and I had the opportunity to go to Amelia Island, Florida for the past four days. Jay had some committee meetings and they invite the spouses to come along. The babies were happy to join us too.

They really enjoyed having extra mommy attention while daddy was in meetings. Then we all had some free time together. Jay got to play some golf and tennis; I went to the spa one afternoon; and the babies were happy to hold hands and play on the hotel bed. James especially liked staying at the hotel and christened it by peeing all over the wallpaper in the hotel bathroom. Way to make your mark buddy!

We missed our other kiddos but were thankful for the break and time away. Now it's back to real life!

We're still here....

I haven't posted anything in a while.

Here's some quick snapshots of what's been going on.

• Jay and I just got back from 4 days in Puerto Rico with our annual Northwestern trip. It was 85 degrees and I thoroughly enjoyed the warmth and sunshine. The babies and I needed some extra Vitamin D. We did nothing except eat, sleep, and read books while we were gone. I didn't even take my camera. It was great to get away with Jay for a few days, but I was ready to come home to our little people by the end.
• Catherine lost another tooth. She now has a pretty large gap on the bottom. It's really cute.
• Will alternates between being dressed in a suit and tie or his exercise clothes or camoflouge. He's a renaissance man with many talents. His speech is significantly improving and we are very pleased with his progress.
• Anna is talking lots more. It's really cute when she says "okay." She has also started calling Catherine "sissy" and gets really excited to pick her up from school.
• Speaking of school, today I registered Catherine for first grade. I didn't even cry (yet).
• I am finally starting to feel better from the nausea. I've even had 3 or 4 days in the last week that I've made it without nausea medication. However, the indigestion has hit full force, so now I'll start taking medicine for it. I am so very thankful for these babies, but physically this pregnancy is already wearing me out in a different way.

That's about it for now. I'll do better soon about taking pictures soon.

Just wanted to let you know we're here.

Great Anniversary Weekend

Jay and I will celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary this Wednesday.

To celebrate, just the two of us headed to Asheville this past weekend. We spent part of our honeymoon there and it's always a special place for us to go and relax.

We went to the Grove Park Inn and had lunch in the Great Hall. We walked around

and looked at the gingerbread houses and Christmas trees. (They host an amazing Gingerbread House competition every Christmas. Truly amazing what these people can make.) Then we sat in the rocking chairs, read our books/magazines, and Jay even took a short nap.

Then we went to The Cove (Billy Graham's conference center) for the Andrew Peterson

"Behold the Lamb" Christmas concert. We had dinner there, went to the concert, stayed the night, and had breakfast the next morning. We love AP's Christmas album. I listen to it year round and we've always wanted to hear it in concert. It was great. I highly recommend checking out if you aren't familiar with it. It tells the Christmas story in the context of the whole Bible and how Christ was the fulfillment of what was promised in the Old Testament. True and celebratory!

Then we headed back to Union to pick up our kiddos. Thanks to my family for watching everybody. It was so nice to be away that I didn't even take my camera out of my purse. That's unusual for me but I think Jay appreciated it! There's nobody else in the whole world I'd rather spend time with than Jay, and we relish our time when it's just the two of us.

Happy Anniversary! Here's to many, many more years.

Victoria, B.C.

Jay and I had the chance to go to Victoria this past weekend. He had some Northwestern committee meetings and they invited the spouses to come with them on this trip. Neither of us had ever been to this part of the Northwest and we loved having a new place to explore and some time together.

We stayed at The Empress Hotel, which was built in 1908. It reminded me a cross between the Biltmore and the Homestead--very elaborate rooms, intricate woodwork, luxurious decorations. It was a great place to stay and within walking distance of pretty much everything we did.

One of the main traditions at the Empress is High Tea. So on Friday, all the ladies had tea in this beautiful room while the guys finished their meetings. (After I told Catherine about my tea party, she's thinking of having one for her birthday party.)
This was the view from our hotel room. What a great view of the harbor. We watched lots of boats and seaplanes coming and going each day. And it was gorgeous to watch the sunset there.
Jay and I both took time to explore a little while we went for our morning runs. Actually, he did the exploring and then came back and told me where I should run! This was our favorite place--a lighthouse. You can actually run along the wall out to the lighthouse. I also ran in a beautiful park one morning. It's a 55 acre park right in the middle of the city. I saw a peacock, 2 raccoons, and a couple of people camping out.
On Friday afternoon, we headed over to the Butchart Gardens. It was about 30 mins from our hotel but definitely worth it. It has over 150 acres of beautiful gardens. This section was my favorite in the Sunken Garden. There were also rose gardens, Italian gardens, Japanese gardens, and more. I'll probably post some more pics of it because I loved it so much. I kept walking around thinking of all the things I want to plant in our yard. And Jay was gracious enough to walk around for 2 hours and look at plants with me. Thanks, honey!

Right across from our street was Victoria's government building.
At night it's all lit up. So pretty! Across the street from this is the BC Royal Museum, where we had dinner on Friday night. After the museum was closed our group rented out one floor and they had our dinner tables set up right in the middle of the exhibits. Pretty neat!
Victoria has a lot of Asian influences. We went to their Chinatown on Saturday for lunch. And this is apparently the most narrow street in North America. Yep, that's a street with shops on it.
We really did have a great time and both said that we would go back. We'd love to take the kids when they're older. There's lots more there to do that we just didn't have time for in our short weekend (whale watching, castles and museums to visit, hiking, zip lines, etc). It was a very comfortable and clean city with a neat mixture of tradition/BC royalty combined with outdoors/hippiness and some Asian influences. I'm so glad we got to go on a quick, fun trip together.