AND our 10th Anniversary!

As if we don't have enough going on with our boys' birthdays, we also celebrated our 10th Anniversary on July 26! Derrick planned our overnight excursion and kept it all a surprise:

• Dinner at Guzzardo's in Lincoln, Illinois where we ate the evening we got engaged.
• Pictures at the park by Guzzardo's where he proposed to me. (see pic above)
  
• On to Champaign, Illinois to the Holiday Inn where we spent our honeymoon night on the way out of town to Door County, Wisconsin.

You didn't think he had that in him, did you. Neither did I! He's probably regretting he did all this because now I KNOW he can if he tries. :)

Fun Fact: Our hotel bill ended up discounted by 50% - there was no hot water in the hotel the next morning!

And Nathanael turns 2!

One week later, on August 7, Nathanael turned 2. We celebrated his day a few days later when Nana Pam and Papa Ron were here from Colorado. Uncle Dave, Aunt Kristin and Cousin Jackson were here too. Nathanael loved his "bug mountain" cake - he's always gotten a kick out bugs (yuck!)

Josiah turns 7!

Josiah turned 7 years old on July 31. Although I didn't think I did a cool enough job, Josiah thought his volcano cake was "totally awesome!" I guess that's all that matters.

Progress!

Rough plumbing on Thursday and concrete today! And the weather looks good for next week's work, so things could be picking up really quickly now. This concrete is just the main house; the garage, front porch and back patio are still to be framed and poured.

The first picture shows the house to the East of us (and the only other house on the lot); the second is taken from the back of the house facing North. You can see cars passing by on Route 16 from this view.

Hot Dog, Big Bird?

Nathanael enjoyed sharing his hotdogs and apple juice with Big Bird. In the last pic he is signing "bird."

Good Land!

You're looking at 6 lots in Tower Hill, half a city block, that are now ours. We will be building a house here over the next few months (with a really big back yard!) so we can move out of the parsonage to make room for our first full-time Youth/Associate Minister! Both of these things are very exciting . . . the new house and the new (additional) minister.
The land was sold to us by a family in the church and we are so grateful to them for their sacrifice! (By the way, Derrick said, "But we only need one or two lots." He answered, "It's all or none." :) Thus the reason we own 6 whole lots!)
Also, many friends have offered to help do different projects on the house in order to help keep our labor costs down - and let me tell you, we have some really talented people in our church that know how to do almost anything and everything. We are also grateful for their encouragement in this way.
At this time, the footings are already poured and we're just waiting for the rainy days to stop interrupting our building project. Isn't that how it goes?

Boys!

By far, the favorite pastime of the boys is wrestling with Daddy! I love this picture . . .I had it made into an 8x10 black & white and framed it for Derrick's Father's Day gift.