Our Trip to NYC

Phil came back from camp with his hair shaved OFF! Better than the afro but I have never seen him without hair so it was a little shocking for me and the girls. Ellie told him he looked funny...understatement! This is a picture of us in New Jersey waiting on the train...we are headed to NYC for the day. I was there for 2 weeks for work, so Phil's parents came and watched the girls for the weekend so Phil could come and visit me in the city. What a wonderful weekend!!!! We had not had any time alone since Sophie was born (6 months) so it was a great time to explore New York and act like a married couple with no kids for at least one day! :o) Another is a photo of me with some of New York's finest firefighters. Aaaahhh...love firefighters...must be the uniform...ever since Billy Baldwin in "Backdraft" I've looooved firemen! haha. So Phil makes these guys stop what they are doing and act like they like me and take a picture. i got as close as I could to the cute one! ;o) Sweet guys with hilarious Brooklyn accents. What a tough job they have. Notice on the truck that there are the names listed of the men they lost on September 11th. Heart breaking. We thanked them for their service to our country and for doing what they do everyday.

Phil Gets a 'Phro!

Phil got his A-"Phro" today after growing his hair out for over 4 months. The "Put Phil in a 'Phro" campaign started last semester to get kids to sign up for Young Life camp. He said if he had 25 kids sign up he'd perm his hair into an afro. We had t-shirts made with Phil's picture in a photo-shopped afro that the kids wore at school. He is a man of his word, of course, so he quit getting his hair cut last February (much to my disappointment) because he KNEW he was going to have 25+ kids sign up for camp. (I need to tell you that we took 4 kids last year...so my boy has a LOT of faith!!). God is so good because he is taking 26 kids to camp July 19-27!!!!!!! YAHOO!!!!! I took before and after shots. Ali who always cuts our hair is the cute girl with him in the photos. He will be rocking a David Beckham style buzz cut when he comes back from camp next week because he will finally cut it while they are there. Can you see the resemblance to Will Ferrell?!? EEK!!

Finally some photos

Here are the latest pictures of the girls from the Fourth of July weekend. We played with the neighbors and some friends in a huge water slide. As you can see, I am surrounded by little girls...thus the title of the blog. Look at my cute Sophie girl! She is growing up so fast. Ellie and Grace are getting taller by the minute, and I'm afraid Sophie is going to follow. :o(

Frontier Ranch Photos

Here are some of the pictures from the trip. I won't bore you with all the details but the "western" ones are of a night called Tableau which is French for "Giant Still Scene" where everyone is dressed from the 1890's, and stands still until a gunshot goes off then acts out their part (wedding, bar scene, fight scene, etc.). It's pretty cool. The campers love it. Ellie hates the gunshot, but otherwise loves all the costumes. Morgan, holding Ellie,helped me with the girls everyday while we were there...what an awesome girl and what a huge help that was with three little girls to get up and down the mountain every day! I could not have made it without her!! The two little girls in the picture with Ellie & Sophie are Avery and Reese who Ellie played with nonstop.

Frontier Ranch Colorado

As most of you already know, either by not seeing us for more than a month or by my constant complaining about being away from home, etc., we were in Colorado for 33 days while Phil worked at Frontier Ranch Young Life camp from the end of May through the end of June. I reluctantly drug all 3 kids away from home with all the junk that 3 kids and two adults need for a month in a new place with two seasons!! It snowed twice the first week and then was in the 80's by the time we left. I had prayed before leaving that it would be a great experience and I would actually enjoy myself...and despite a few missteps we had a wonderful time. We were surrounded by wonderful families who were there on assignment with us, Ellie & Grace had friends to play with (which was great for me too!) and we loved the work crew kids that Phil was working with everyday. The only hard part was Phil's horrendous work schedule, the mice and chipmunks that lived with us (no really...) and being away from home for so long with a four month old. Otherwise, it was a spiritual experience that is beyond words. God did some wonderful things on that mountain. We saw almost 1,500 come through camp in 4 weeks with over 400+ accepting Christ while they were there. Amazing. I felt a little like a teenager experiencing camp because I laughed more in that month than I have in a long time. I feel blessed that my children get to grow up surrounded by Young Life and what it stands for. I feel blessed that they know that being a Christian can be cool and fun, not boring and full of rules. And I feel blessed to be back home! :o)

Up and running...

I am finally getting a blog together after almost 3 years of saying I was going to do it. So for my computer illiterate friends (and I am including myself in this category) it is basically a web page where I can post pictures of the kids and update you without having to send you a thousand emails to do so. Good for you, good for me. That way, you don't have to read my long rants anymore...you just don't have to click on the link! YAHOO for you!!! Now, the trick will be to figure out how to post all the cute pictures I took this weekend of the girls with my new (inexpensive, but good) digital camera. Stay tuned...