This is Aldiana; an orphan in our city. She went to see the Jesus film and decided afterward that Jesus is her God. She loves to come over for prayer and to just hang out. Please pray that I can learn this language so I can talk to her better. 

Braden is now six years old. We celebrated at our house with a bunch of kids, cake, and pizza. Isn't he a handsome six year old? 

Let's see....what could we do for a game for this party? (Since I didn't plan ahead much). I know...let's have a staring contest! 

Yes this is what it takes to keep our family warm for the winter...scroll down and see the wood also needed. It's a big event for the boys to watch the big truck dump the load of coal. 

They seem really happy, don't they? Well they don't realize that they will be helping daddy move all the wood to a better place. 

This was taken at Grandma's house in July. Caleb found all kinds of fun things to play with there. 

This was taken on a ferry in Seattle. Aren't those some handsome men. 

This is Don and Helen Lee. Don (whom we call Papa) is very sick. Please pray for him. 

Safe in Bosnia and as you can see it's not warm 

A new season

Yes, I'm sorry it's been forever since we've updated, but we didn't have a lot of computer time in the states. Now we are home. It's so good to be home and good that it feels like home. The boys are happy to be running around outside without any meetings to go to. We had a lot of fun in the states and got spoiled in a lot of ways. Now it's time to get back in to the swing of life in Bosnia. We have lots of the same challenges as before and a lot of new ones. Our biggest challenge now is being here with our grandpa back home dying quickly from the most aggressive form of Cancer. It's hard to be on the other side of the world knowing we might not get to see him again. Please pray with us for his healing. Caleb has just been amazing since we got back. He is not shy at all with the Bosnians. I suppose that's what happens when you go home, but it's weird that this is really home to him. Braden is very excited about starting school. He asks me every morning, "When are we going to start school?" And that pretty much means, "Mommy when are you gonna stop doing dishes and sit down and teach me something new?" Gage and Nick are moving right along. Nick's favorite thing to do is tell Braden the best way to do everything. Stacy's been busy with Bosnians and trying to figure out how we'll get wood and coal for the winter. You know it's not like we can just go down to the local home depot. We have to find someone that knows someone that knows someone else who knows this guy who can get some wood from his friend's dad who works for the guy who's friend can get wood. So it takes a bit of time. Meanwhile it has been beautiful here the past few days....thank you Lord.

I'll go try and attach some pics for you know. I hope I can remember how to do this. Bye for now. C.

Happy Easter everyone! This is Caleb enjoying our first trip to the park after a very long winter. His leg is healing up, but he is so clumsy (like Gage) and continues to fall and scare us daily. Please continue to pray for him. 

Vacation in Graz

The last time we got out of Bosnia was back in September so it was about time we had another break. We were invited to attend a leaders meeting in Graz, Austria with the Millers, Don Prokop, and various other (mostly german speaking) pastors. We stayed at the Millers home and arrived early to get a few days of playtime in before the meeting's started. As usual we had our fill of Burger King, the mall, and Ikea. The boys had saved up their money and had fun at the Toy stores. Most of the toys in Bosnia are cheaply made or too expensive.
The meeting's lasted three days and included a speaker, lots of business discussion, and lots of prayer. The best part about the gathering is the prayer times. Each group is prayed over and receives encouraging words from the Lord for each other. Stacy and I were both crying when we got prayed for. God spoke through these people and touched out hearts in a big way. God is so good to provide this place of refreshing for us.
After the meetings were finished we headed to Slovenia for a three day stay at a Hot Springs resort. It's like an indoor water park with really warm water complete with slides and wave pools. The boys were in heaven while mom and dad stressed about where they were at all times. Well we didn't stress too much. Braden wore floaties and is on his way to swimming. Caleb just sat at the shallow part and played with his boat most of the time. Gage and Nick were everywhere and even made some english speaking friends.
We are back home now and unfortunately came home to a lot of chaos. Our water heater is broken and all the snow melted so the river is up really high. When this happens the city shuts off our water. So there's laundry and dishes to be done and no water, yuck! But it's still good to be home.

We found an awesome park close to where we stayed. The boys ran wild for a couple hours. 

It was so nice to get out of the snow and play outside. It was cloudy this day, but we did get a couple days of sunshine.  

This is Sam and Jen. They came to stay with us last weekend. Sam is in radio and he spent his time with a mic in hand interviewing us all. He works for a radio station in America and is planning to share our stories with about 200 radio stations. I'll let you know when you can hear us. 

I officially have a ten year old. Oh my! We had a big party to celebrate the big day. Can you see Caleb crawling around in the background with his cast? Two birthdays...two casts:( 

Party games are so fun...look at the excitement! And check out Nick in this one...he's in mid-air. 

I'm not sure what was happening in this picture, but I just like it. 

Caleb turned two on February 10. He wanted me to light the candle over and over again so he could blow it out. 

Gage broke his arm the other day. This is only the second broken arm he's had. He decided he would try and snowboard. We were in the house when we heard, "Mommy, I broke my arm!" He broke both bones right through. He's doing fine now and is in no hurry to try that again. We keep telling him that we know many adults who tried snowboarding for the first time and broke their arm.  

We've had more snow these last couple of days than the whole winter combined. Braden is not smiling here, but I promise you, he was having fun. And after all the anticipation, I'm wondering why I was so desperate for snow. I forgot about getting everyone dressed, having to be outside myself since Caleb can't be alone, and all the tears that come with frostbitten toes afterwards. Oh and the difficulties with cars. Last night we had one friend stuck sideways on the road, and another friends car with one wheel hanging off his driveway. To top off all the fun; I managed to slip and fall straight on my back with Caleb in my arms. OUCH! But I'm fine, Caleb wasn't hurt, and all the cars are safe in their driveways. I can't complain after asking God to bless us with snow for the last two months :)  

I don't really know what to say about this one.....just that it's us in front of a pine tree and in case you were wondering; we still like each other very much. 

This was the aftermath of a very brutal snowball fight. Well they weren't really throwing snowballs. They were using a snow shovel and their sleds to scoop up piles of snow and dumping it on each other. As I was trying to take the picture, Stacy was saying, "Hurry up, my face is burning!" And that's Mirko who I'm sure started the whole thing. 

Surprisingly Caleb came up with this idea on his own and then Braden joined him. You can't tell in the picture that it was snowing, but it was. And Caleb was eating them as they fell. 

Today Caleb decided he would use his potty. I have another picture of him sitting on it, but I thought it looked a little too graphic for the internet....so here he is waiting and waiting for something to happen....nothing. Oh well...maybe next time. 

Well it finally snowed again. It snowed way back in November, and then for a minute in December. But this time we had a good dump; enough to go sleding and make this miniature snowman. 

Caleb really likes the snow, but mostly in his mouth. When I would get up close to him, he would say, "NO, NO, Mommy" because he doesn't want me to take away his snowcone.