A Family Trip to the Outer Banks

A first dip in the Atlantic!

Today we returned from a lovely vacation in Avon, NC with both sets of parents, Laura's sister, Cindy, her daughters, Marlea and Harmony, and Laura's best friend, Annmarie. We had so much fun making memories and relaxing. Noah had his pick of eager babysitters between 2 grandmas, 2 grandpas, and 2 aunts. (c: He enjoyed his first try at playing in the ocean surf and sand. To our surprise, he was rather indifferent to his first taste of sand, sucking on his sandy hand and letting some sandy mud run out the side of his mouth - I think my face (Laura) was more obviously disgusted than his was. But really, what's a little sand going to hurt.
Our house was beautiful! Named "Sunset Watch," we were able to see the sun setting over the sound each evening. It was pretty new and had plenty of space for all of us. Thank you to our parents for chipping in so generously to allow us to stay in such a place! It even had a pool and hot tub which were frequented often through the week. One night we enjoyed a clear evening on the beach, complete with nearly full moon, a bonfire, and a nearby fireworks display - a big highlight of the week, especially for Marlea and Harmony who had never had s'mores before.
Both of us and our Dads took out Dad Erickson's Sailfish on the sound one day. He built it when he was 14 and has had many happy memories with it - it's always fun to hear a new story about it when we go out. It can only take 2 adults at a time, so we took turns. You'll have to ask Dad S what happened when he took it out solo the first time. (c:
After the beach, we followed Mom and Dad back to their farm in Stokes, NC and stayed with them a couple days. We got to visit their church yesterday, worshiped with them and had a chance to meet with their missions committee. What an encouragement that was!
Overall, we had just a delightful time, bonding with family, laughing, and making many happy memories. We are home in Arlington just 2 short nights before heading out to Chicago and Wisconsin for more visiting with family - what a joy this is.
We'll be sure to post some more pictures from this trip once we get them compiled. Cindy, the professional among us, did a fabulous job of documenting it.

Grandma and her little angel

Our First Posting!

So, we're finally joining the blogging world. It's about time! Noah is almost 7 months old and changing before our eyes. He's quite a mobile roller and daily gets closer to crawling. Right now, he scoots...backwards. He's also widening his palate - he's ventured into the world of real food and has so far enjoyed all of his rice cereal, sweet potatoes, peaches, and pears. Just today he had a doctor's appointment and he weighs all of 15 lbs 4 oz, a little guy if you're going by the charts. He's got a lot of character, though. Recently, he likes to reach out and grab things, like our faces, hair, favorite toys, the spoons he eats from, and as of yesterday, the dog - Jaz. Today, Grandpa (Dad) gave Noah a piece of bread from the table to give Jaz. Once Noah felt it and decided not to put it in his own mouth, he held it out and Jaz very gently took it. We all laughed and clapped for Noah who looked around seeming to not have a clue of what had just happened. Noah is also sticking out his tongue more, often when he smiles. It's so cute to see a new expression added to the hundreds. We found a new way to make him giggle today too, playing chase! Michael chases us and then we make a Noah sandwich when he catches us. How we love to hear those giggles!

Michael's parents are graciously letting us live with them since returning from NYC. We were living for a month in Manhatten for cross-cultural training with Mission to the World(MTW). We're gearing up for our next big adventure, moving to Lima, Peru as missionaries. This past month we joined about 25 other missionaries-in-training and learned all we could about language acquisition and linguistics, team building, church planting, and cross-cultural adaption. We had the joy of working with a Spanish-speaking church in Woodside, Queens. We helped out with several of their ministries, but they helped us more by showing us their way of worship, letting us get to know them, their cultures and music, and letting us practice Spanish.

Wow, there's so much we could write about... Thanks for your interest!