Eyes

A few more pictures

Since arriving back from SC, we have been busy having fun as a family. Some bikes rides, some parks, and lots of pool time! The girls love the pool and Ellie getting more and more comfortable in the pool. She is actively kicking her legs and has started using her arms to swim. Though I don't think she will be without floaties by the end of the summer, she is making loads of progress. We celebrated Ainsley's birthday by spending the day at Coney Island while Jeff's mom was in town. Ainsley was able to invite her friend Ashleigh to go with her and they had a lot of fun. It was a great day together and Mackenzie said this was a great idea..better than any birthday party! So I guess they are now big fans of picking one friend and doing something they choose.

Jeff's mom was in for 5 days and we had a great time with her. The girls were sad the day she left. We love having family in town to visit!

We went to one of the library programs tonight with a traveling children's theatre. It was cute and the girls enjoyed it. Then off to UDF for ice cream..yum!

We are getting ready to take the older two girls to SC on Sunday. Mackenzie will be going to camp with her cousin Madelyne and Ainsley has been invited to spend the week with her cousins while the older two are at camp. Though Janice is just getting back from vacation and may change her mind! They are both really looking forward to the time with their cousins! Tomorrow is a day at the park with Cedarville grads as we have a Cedarville Alumni reunion. The girls are looking forward to the park, but not sure they care about anything to do with Cedarville...:)

Pictures from South Carolina

Pastor Jon Basner

I know that it has been a while since I have posted. We have been busy in the last few weeks just hanging out and having fun as a family. And hopefully I will update the blog with some of those activities in the next few days. But I wanted to take a few moments to remember a friend who passed away recently. My friend, Lisa Basner, lost her husband last week to cancer. Jon and I weren't close but Lisa and I were good friends in college. I knew Jon primarily because he dated Lisa. Though we haven't kept in close contact over the years, there is a bond that stays forever it seems with friends that we make in college. At least that is the case for me. My heart goes out to Lisa and the pain and loss that she is going through right now and to their two kids, Jillian and JJ. If you want to take the time to look over Jon's blog I will post the link. I have followed it for a while through the struggles, trials and triumphs of his journey with cancer. He modeled what is means to follow Christ even through his death. Praise the Lord that he is with his Savior. If you think of it, and even if you don't know them, please pray for Lisa and their kids as they learn to live their life here on this earth without him.

http://pastrjon.blogspot.com/

South Carolina

We have returned from our trip to South Carolina. And I have at least some pictures to prove it! I haven't downloaded the rest from Jeff's computer but hopefully I will do that in the next few days. We had a really great time with my brother and his family. The girls had a lot of fun playing with their cousins and really did a great job getting along. Each year seems to get a little bit easier as the kids get older. We had lots of fun celebrating the 4th of July. Mark and jackson purchased fireworks and some of the neighbors in the cul-de-sac got together and set off all of their collective fireworks. It was great fun! The night before the "official" 4th of July, we went to a community celebration at a nearby church. It was a free event and it was a blast! We all got tickets and we were able to redeem them for free food! I love free family events:) Free hot dogs, popcorn, drinks, snow cones and nachos. There were lot of games to play for the kids, inflatable to jump and play on and live musical entertainment. And of course once it was dark, there were fireworks. This is where I found out that Ellie would not be staying up for our own "official" 4th of July fireworks the next night! She hated the fireworks. I am pretty sure it was the loud noise of the fireworks but she clung to me and refused to even look at them. Needless to say I took her back to the van before they were finally done and we waited it out in the van. Saturday night saw her going to bed well before fireworks officially started. But the free night was a hit with everyone involved. Another exciting and fun part to our trip was that we got to spend some time with our China friends the Smiths. We don't get to see them very often since they live in China but they are home this summer visiting. So we planned our trip around getting to see them too! The last time we saw them was when we were in China adopting Ellie so it had been 19-20 months. It was great to catch up and spend time with them and get to meet their second addition to their family! They have a little boy, Moyer, whom we got to see in China and then Keturah, who is 6 months old. She is also a cutie:) I did get some pictures of them so I will post those once I download them. Needless to say we had a great vacation! We also got to meet the newest addition to the Moody clan on this trip which was pretty cool. Melia is about 2 1/2 months old, I believe, and cute as a button. Hopefully I spelled her name right! I just loved holding her since it has been a while since I have held a little one. I think the whole Moody clan is good looking but Jackson mentioned Melia being the cutest baby of all of them several times...I am not sure if that was because he really thinks so or if it is because I mentioned that she looked like him as a baby:)

Now we are settling back into KY life and enjoying the rest of our summer. There are no more "official" trips though I am sure that we will do a few shorter trips here and there over the remaining weeks of summer.

I have tried twice to upload pics and I haven't been able to so I will just try again later!