back from there

We are back from the great land of michigan after a two week vacation/deputation visit. It was a really good time to remember what's good about the west coast (of the mitten) and get our fill of high humidity, sunlight, soft evenings, pretty sunsets, and cows. Thank you to everyone who came out to the open house. It was great to see so many people come out for hot dogs and look at the baby. A couple of special folks that we saw:

My uncle and aunt from the far north came down to coo over tobo:



Finally got tobo and Ch together.


We also were so pleased to see uwee's mom and dad as well as far flung friends from kzoo and St. Joe who made the trip. It was a great time.

Paul and I did go to the Beyond Beijing conference in Byron Center the next day, which as an amazing testimony for the work that is going on in China. I hope to say more about that in our prayer letter if I ever can finish it before August. We also caught dinner with a old friends in their new house and we got a chance to catch up with the IV staff worker at Kzoo just before we left. Oh, and we did get out sans tobo, but only for an hour or so due to exhaustion. All in all it was a good trip, but we are ready to be home.

Two weeks in baby time is crazy long, so Tobo has developed a number of new skills while we were away. Tobo can now:
- roll over. In his sleep. Which is most exciting
- one -hand grab toys
- teethe (which means drool)
- sleep in his crib with the light out
- grab at your plate at the table
- grab your finger and chew on it (see teething)
- do baby situps (with help from momma)
- found his feet. (didn't do anything else with them but tried to bend over to get them)
- has probably put on another .5 lb to make him 13 lbs

We tried a little smashed banana today, a lot of it got pushed back out, so I think we'll wait a bit and try again in a week or two. No rush. Really the teething is what's got his attention these days. He's sleeping more consistantly (9pm bed \ up at 1:30a to eat \ up at 4:30a to eat \ up between 6:30 and 7am for the day) and we're at least not up ever single hour of the night. Some of that is we've started to put him to sleep on a blanket on our bed, then when he's floppy we move him and the blanket to the crib. It worked really well until he started rolling in his sleep. So, now he's on a very thin blanket that we tuck in to the mattress once we move him. I think we made the mistake of putting to sleep in arms just to have him wake up when we put him down. But he's so much more alert and aware than he was. I think he will find our place boring now since there is no one here but us.

Paul and I are are glad to be home. It was a welcomed break, but we came home to yet another qwest dsl box on our steps. We now have 6 modems that need to be shipped back. We also came home to clean carpets and many dead spiders. Hopefully we won't have to have the pest control back until fall. I think the spiders are really a summer thing around here.

Today, I think we are doing laundry and may hang some pictures up. I'm certainly taking the day off, not sure if Paul is going to go in or not. Oh, and banana boy will most definitely be getting a bath today.

Lots of photos over at:

From Cute Things M...