A Blur...

Little Trenor is now two weeks old! And what a very full two weeks that has been for our family! Of course, spending time with Josh, Abbey, Bella and Trenor was high priority! But mixed in with it all were a few other events that required our attention as well.

Friday evening, December 4th, we had the fun of taking part in a local town's annual "Victorian Christmas" celebration. It was very cold, but fun and memorable!

There was a parade, carolers, and other festivities around town, but our job was to demonstrate a few old English dances.

We got together 8 couples from our church (including the young gents picture above) and put a few dances to well known Christmas tunes and danced in the center of the town square!

Like I said, it was a very cold evening, and we were grateful to be able to hang out indoors for part of the time!

The rest of that weekend and most of the next week was occupied with this little guy and his family. Abbey and Trenor were able to return home from the hospital on Sunday afternoon, December 6. Thank you to all of you were praying for her! Aside from lingering weakness and the standard weariness of having a 2 week old (and 11 month old!), Abbey is doing very well now.

Bella is thrilled with her new little brother and loves him very much!

But while all that excitement was going on at home, I (Jessica) was off galavanting about the country! On Saturday, Dec. 5, Dad and I headed out to Omaha, NE for an ordination service at one of our sister churches. Dad returned home on Monday morning, but I stayed out there with the Kayser family until Tuesday when I rode with them down to Cincinnati, OH (or actually, across the river in KY) for a conference on the Sufficiency of Scripture.

I had been invited down to help out at the conference, so I got to spend the weekend working alongside this great group of ladies! It was a very enjoyable blessing to get to know them all better (we had all at least met before). I also had the opportunity to visit with others of the attendees and came home refreshed in spirit, but rather in need of a few extra hours of sleep!
I also got to know the Kayser family better as they hosted me in Omaha and as we spent many hours in the van together! Thank you SO MUCH, Kaysers - for the meals, the lodging, the transportation, your warm hospitality, your encouraging conversations... I greatly appreciated it all!

After dropping me off at home, the Kaysers spent all day Sunday with us before we finally said farewell on Monday morning (we are up to Dec. 14th, now).

But before we parted, Ben finally won a game of Quarto! Congratulations! :-)

So that brings us up to this week. And this week has been full of fulfilling our "duties" as aunts, uncles, and grandparents; final music lessons before Christmas break; counting down the days until Jonathan is back home (only 7 left!); Strufoli making; Christmas shopping and other gift preparations; trying to finalize plans for the various events of the next two weeks; and I don't know what else, but it seems to have flown by quickly without many spare moments! But, of course, when "busy" is related to "family" it's a good busy!