Hey Kids. . .This is America!

Here we are in Washington D.C.! We made it for the Cherry Blossom Festival. It was an awesome experience. I called ahead and got a work book from the National Park Service that is a scavenger hunt and at the end the children receive a jr. ranger badge. We had a great time finding everything.


We visited Baltimore MD for a couple of days and met a wonderful community that has pr-d for us for years. It was great to finally meet face to face. Here is Manon with our host's dog Tucker reading a book.

Here we are on the Stanton Island Ferry with Jessica taking a look at the Statue of Liberty. Every time we mentioned visiting New York our girls insisted on seeing the famous statue. We assured them that we would. After talking more about it we realized the famous statue they were referring to is of Balto the brave Alaskan dog. They have a book about Balto and his adventure's and at the end of the book it tells the children to look for his statue in Central Park. Our girls could have cared less about the Statue of Liberty but the statue of Balto was a must see on their list. I think this year in school we should focus a bit more on U.S. history:).

Monty ummmhmmm. . . I mean Judah was so excited to meet the real Spider Man! You can see Judah trying to shoot webs from his hands.
Henna enjoyed the real NY Pizza!
Here we are at Toys R Us in Times Square. There was a 5 story indoor farris wheel.
In front of FAO Schwartz Toy Store. It was a bit overwhelming so I took the kids to the book section and found some awesome books that I had not seen in typical book stores. We loaded up!

Boone, NC with the Biddy's

Our good friends since OCU days Jessica and Andy Biddy joined us for a week of vacation in Boone NC. We had a great time talking, playing games, shopping, fishing, hiking etc. Our kids called Andy to "Uncle Awesome" which morphed into "Uncle Opossum" by the end of the week.
While Jessica and I seemed to be sitting on the sofa most of the vacation nursing our little babies Monty and Andy sat on the sofa making their computers talk to one another. I think you would have had to been there but they cracked up the entire week doing this!

don't worry; it's grape juice:)
This is Sam, Judah's long time friend. Sam's mom and I found out we were pregnant the same week when vacationing in Thailand. The boys are only a couple of days apart in age but Sam has lived so much more than only 2 years. You can read more of his story on his mom's blog at klearlife.blogspot.com He has had many challenges and I was so grateful to see him again smiling and healthy!
A highlight of our time in Boone was a visit from Amma Cathy and Appa Jack and a trip to Grandfather Mountain with them. This is where Jack and Cathy use to go when they were dating! It was great being with them and enjoying such a sweet friendship!

After Boone we drove to Franklin TN to spend time with the Young family. Rooke, Adrian and Mark are getting to know Ezra. Can you believe Monty and I use to baby sit Rooke and Adrian not that long ago when we first moved to Mae Sai! Here is their sister Ahkasa playing with Manon and Henna.
We had a great time with Marcus and Alyxius. Alyxius and a friend spent some time pr-ing for me which was so refreshing. God was preparing us for the next season. On our last night in Nashville we received a phone call that my Uncle Gary had cancer and my mom had a heart attack and was in the hospital. Our time in the states took a huge turn. We were grateful to have been in the U.S.to walk through the next season with our family members.

Our time traveling on the east coast was most of the month of April 09.