Kam Wears His Daddy's Clothes

Kam arrived today looking like the modern fashionable baby that he is...

 But tonight was the night that Nana finally dressed him up in the one outfit she saved from his daddy's baby wardrobe ever so many years ago. It's especially precious to me because some pictures of Baby Nick dressed in this outfit with his Great-Aunt Jeannine, shown at the end of this blog.

Baby Nick, January 1992, age 6 months

 I never saw a picture of Kam smiling that I didn't love!

 His mom and dad really know how to make him laugh! (Well, he finds his mom especially hilarious!

 All these laughing baby pictures may look just the same to you as you quickly scroll down, but this discerning nana sees subtle differences to enjoy in each one!

Kam and his daddy Nick

Such a big boy!!

 And here is the picture of my Aunt Jeannine (my mom's sister) with Nick. They visited in December, 1991.  (My mom passed away when I was 14, so my aunts are especially precious to me.)

Just as awesome is this picture of Nick in this outfit with my Aunt Jeannine, his brothers, cousins and his Great-Uncle Lester.

Brittany Troyer, Craig, Tyler Troyer, Eric

Maybe I'm weird, but I love this nostalgic bit of family history being passed on to Kam in this little way. 

I wish I knew what Kam was thinking…he was staring at me with great concern for awhile.  Probably wishing he could thank me for the chance to wear his daddy's old outfit, which his daddy seemed to think looked a little goofy!

And the story continues with Kam and his Nana. I'm going to hold onto the outfit for Kam's son to wear someday!

Hub City Church Launch

What a unique and wonderful experience: to go to church and listen to an inspiring sermon preached by a young man who used to run around at my house playing with my kids! This morning we attended the Hub City Church launch in Albany. Nathan Riley is the lead pastor at this new church.

"Jesus Restore Albany" 

 Ok, not a great picture I know, but I didn't really want to be too conspicuous!

We loved every minute of this church service, starting with the discovery of end tables among the chairs, which is so convenient when you accept a cup of really good coffee on your way in!

I don't normally take pictures and send snap chats to my kids when I'm in church, but I just had to do this one!

The music and worship time was beautiful, and the children were there until dismissed for their own class just before the sermon started. I love seeing the children in the service, singing and clapping, and then watching them eagerly head out wearing priceless clothing, such as a princess dress with athletic shoes!

The sermon was preached with humor and humility from Acts 1:11. Nathan reminded us that we are a continuation of the first church and need to be radically committed to Jesus's mission of restoration. You can listen to it here if you want! (Go to the bottom of the page under "Sermons".)

We've known Nathan for nearly 20 years, since he and our oldest son, Craig, became friends in 5th grade when we moved to Tangent. Nathan was always one of those kids that a mom felt really good about having her kid hang out with. So mature, so polite, so smart, such leadership. Imagine my shock one day when they were in high school and for some reason, I was in the Bronco with Craig when he drove over there. As we drove into their driveway, Nathan (obviously not noticing my presence in the passenger seat) came running across the yard and threw himself onto the hood. I was absolutely shocked at this dangerous, risky behavior from this highly regarded young man! (So nobody's perfect, ok?!)

They ended up in a band together in high school and have had many adventures together.  When Craig was in a bad place a couple of years after high school, God used Nathan to answer our prayers and change the direction of his life. What an amazing friend and servant of God this young man showed himself to be. You can read a little about it here.  Craig ended up spending some time in YWAM in Germany with him and what a difference it made in his life!  We enjoyed seeing Nathan and his beautiful family this past summer when we had the rehearsal dinner for Craig's wedding in our back yard.

All this to say, if you don't already have a home church and you'd like to belong to a community of people who are passionate about Jesus and the hope and joy that he brings to the lives that He restores, if you'd like to start your week by meeting with these people, worshiping with some great music and hearing truth from God's Word in a way that will keep you awake and make you want to live your life the way God intended, check out the Hub City Church! We're excited to see what God will do in the coming years!

And don't worry or start rumors, friends, we plan to be back at our own church just down the street next Sunday! It was a privilege to witness and support Nathan and the others there today, and we pray God's blessing on them. (And who knows, we might need to sneak over there every now and then just because!)

Linda's Birthday 2015

The Birthday Girl was smiling as usual as the family gathered at Mom's house to celebrate Linda's 62nd birthday.

 Brianna's daughter Janae wanted to sit on Linda's lap and check out the balloon.

 Though Linda smiles all the time, she rarely laughs out loud. When I said something like, "Now you know that if you have a balloon in front of you, children will want to sit on your lap," she gave a little snort of laughter!

 I'm not sure if there were really 62 candles on that cake, but there were enough to inspire awe in the hearts of the children there!

 And she blew them all out!

 Jamie (Jean's youngest) was quite impressed! (That lovely scarf is her gift from me!)

Now on a side note, I must point out that our dear Beaver believer brother Doug struggled just a bit with the idea of eating a Duck-decorated cake….

Doug and Joel (Hope's son)

but chocolate cake won out! He's only human! (Jean brought the remaining cake from Chavon's birthday.)

 The kids had some checkers fun. That's my Eric on the right.

 (Don't worry, Brandon, I honored your request not to put your picture on Facebook!)

Baby Sister Jean, Big Sister Linda, me, the former Baby Sister Hope

After Linda's recent hospital stay, it was extra special to have her back on her feet and celebrating her birthday. We don't really know what caused the medical problems, but she has made an excellent recovery and seems to be pretty much back to where she was before. She is at work again this week and enjoying it very much.  My brother John and his wife Betsy were visiting from British Columbia, and we had a family dinner at my house the day before her birthday party. I thought it might be too much for her to be out two nights in a row, but when I talked to the staff member at her house, she assured me that Linda had already heard about the dinner at my house and was excited about coming!  And last night, Linda made sure to point out to me, "LeAnn, I guess I saw you yesterday and I saw you today. I saw you two days in a row." (No chance that she could say, "I haven't seen you for a long time." which is her standard opening line with nearly all of us!)

When the staff came to pick her up last night, I mentioned we hadn't had a chance to sing with her yet, other than Happy Birthday. Linda immediately started singing "Happy Birthday" so we joined in and sang it again!

Here's to sisters!

Kam in January 2015

Did I mention how much I missed this little guy on my recent two-week vacation? Fortunately his mama is really good about sending me pics of him. We got to see him Sunday and Thursday with other family, but I really needed some quality Nana time with him, so I talked Christina into letting me take him off her hands for about 24 hours starting yesterday afternoon.

Love this happy face so much!

He stands and walks around things. Sure wasn't doing that 2 weeks ago!

He really likes Zeek!

No fear at all of this enormous creature sticking his big face up to his.

He spent a good bit of time here, staring up the stairway like maybe he was weighing the odds of being able to climb all the way up there.

But then he noticed the silk plant and went for it instead!

After he got down safely under Nana's watchful eyes, he decided to help Papa load the dishwasher.

And he found a delicious cardboard book to chew on.

Today we went to his Great-Grandma Troyer's house. Five-year-old Serena assured me she is good at watching babies so she followed him around and reported when he got into anything he shouldn't, such as the newspapers/magazines under the end table.

We though he might go to sleep, he sat quietly on her lap for so long!

Precious, precious, precious! Kam will be 8 months old this month!

Maui Week 2: Friday and Saturday, Dec. 26-27

JD wanted to be sure and catch the last run together on Friday, especially when I mentioned we should take a break at the beach Starbucks that we ran by so many times!

Of course, we had to stop and view the beautiful koi again for the last time.

We counted ourselves fortunate that the line at Starbucks got super long after we were through it.

We walked on the beach as we finished our drinks and practiced taking selfies. Love this boy!

Naptime was necessary for some of our party!

We went back to DT Fleming beach and Galen and I did a little hiking on a trail there.

Just gorgeous.

I think I'm getting better at selfies. (What a thing to aspire to! I feel slightly ashamed.) (And what kind of grammar is that?!)

Now this girl takes amazing selfies! They make me laugh every time. It's pretty fun getting random snapchats from a really cool niece back in Oregon when you're far across the ocean. (I'm pretty sure she doesn't read this blog so I should be safe from being killed or even worse.)

So beautiful. I think I took about a million pictures. Ok, maybe half a million.

Definitely another gorgeous day on the beach. There goes JD again.

Late afternoon, we returned and headed down to Whaler's Village for a little shopping and sunset viewing with Galen and Carol.

Galen and Carol

Things got a little wild at the house that night. There was whipped cream that needed to be used, and Rachelle thought Will deserved some. He didn't really think so.

He ended up with a white mustache instead of a mouthful. 

It was funny. You had to be there.

Whipped cream was used liberally. You can't let this stuff go to waste. JD wouldn't mind getting used to this!

Things started winding down about 10 p.m., but Steve thought we should have a final game of Scrabble. Galen, Carol and I were once again trounced by him. I used to think I was a decent Scrabble player. I need more practice.

On our last morning, Steve and I got up a little extra early for a last run. Steve wanted to go a little over 3 miles to reach his goal of 50 miles during the vacation, so off we went. Sadly for me, I didn't notice a speed bump as we cut through a parking lot to get to the beach. My usual windmilling stagger did not keep me upright as so frequently does after a trip, and despite my greatest efforts, I crashed to the asphalt. I left a little skin from my left hand and knee there, but I bounced back up, ok, I managed to drag myself up, and continued on. I was holding my phone in my right hand because I was tracking with Runkeeper. I am so thankful for Will's insistence on buying me a Lifeproof Case. There is quite a scratch across it, and I fear without the case it would not have survived the crash. Oh well. 

We had to be out of the house by 10, so after we finished packing (with a little stress about how much stuff I bought that added weight to our bags), we headed out to a whale watching lookout for our parting.

JD was hot and succeeded in finding some shade!

I love all these people so much! How does two weeks go so fast?!  I am so grateful that I am so blessed and privileged to be an aunt/great-aunt/sister etc. to so many wonderful people on this earth, and I am up for vacationing with any of my family and extended family, anywhere,  any time I can manage to do it!

We made it safely home, though I feared for awhile that Will wasn't going to make it out of Honolulu as I watched while he was thoroughly searched by a tiny little Hawaiian agent, but fortunately he and his backpack finally were approved to pass through! It's always good to be home, and someday if my memories start to go, I can read these blog entries, look at the pictures, and remember all the fun, love and beauty that we shared!