Thanksgiving Week

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving break!  We started off the week with a very special occasion, Audrey's baptism!  Audrey has been asking to be baptized for about 3 years now.  For quite a while she has understood that when you decide you want to follow Jesus in your life, the way to show it to your church family is through baptism.  Our church does not teach salvation through baptism, and I don't think that is how Audrey understood it either at her young age, but it is hard to grasp the idea of a symbolic act (our own submersion into and out of water symbolizing our new life given to us by Jesus) versus a saving act (the work done only through Jesus' death on the cross and resurrection from the grave) .  Over the past few years she has matured spiritually and mentally to a point where Randy and I and our Children's Pastor felt she truly understood the concept of the symbolic act of baptism.  Pastor Krystal met with Audrey over a course of four weeks to work through some readings and some research (both in the Bible and by interviewing friends and family about their baptisms).  So, on Sunday morning, November 18th, Audrey was baptized at our church in front of her church family!

When Pastor Krystal asked her if she had accepted Jesus as her Savior and wanted him to be Lord of her life, she responded with a joyful, "Yep!"  Her heartfelt, excited response summed up her life with Jesus so far...she has always had such a loving, sensitive spirit towards others that both shines and shares God's love!  As she has heard the Bible stories over the years, she has soaked them in and responded to God's commands with a straight-forward attitude of, "Sure, if that's what He wants, I'll do it!"  She is a wonderful example to me to take God at his word and work heartily at what He has planned in advance for me to do!  We are so proud of her for taking this "next step" in her journey with God!



The rest of our week included lots of meals with family and friends, as well as a trip to San Jose to be with my parents.  After Randy got off work on Tuesday, we packed up the van, had a quick bite to eat, and hit the road.  But along with holiday traffic, roadwork on the 99, and me realizing I left my purse on the kitchen table after we'd already gone about 20 miles (along with all of Isaiah's medical info/foster paperwork we need to have with us when we travel out of town), and then driving back to retrieve it, we got into San Jose quite late on Tuesday night.  But all the kids were excited for a holiday excursion and woke up Wednesday morning ready to drive into San Francisco for a day at the California Academy of Sciences.  We had a great time exploring the rain forest exhibit and the aquarium, listening to talks about reindeer and ostriches (both live exhibits) and experienced a simulated earth quake in the new 1906 S.F. Quake house.

Waiting for a butterfly!

Isaac had some luck!

Birds of the rainforest

Givin' big sister some love! 

Exploring the tide pools!

Watching the fish!

Doing an ostrich dance...silly!

Wednesday night was a relaxing evening.  My parents had dinner with the kiddos and let them watch a movie while Randy and I got out by ourselves for a bit (always an ENORMOUS treat...thanks, Mom and Dad).  We tried to find a good place for pho and succeeded in finding a good, but not great, place.  There are over 300 Vietnamese restaurants in San Jose though, so I'm sure we'll find a gem someday!

Thursday Randy started his morning with 25,000 other runners and walkers at the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot...crazy!  He ran a personal best time, coming in 250th out of 10,000 10K runners!  We enjoyed the beautiful weather throughout the day, taking the kids to a wonderful park (Bernal Park), walking around the neighborhood, playing croquet in the front yard and, of course, eating a yummy dinner!

Kansas sunrises (a special drink Grandpa's made for the kids for years)

Words cannot express how thankful I am for this guy in my life!!!

Friday we had a leisurely start to our day and headed back to Fresno after lunch.  My parents, however, didn't stay in San Jose, but followed us home, since we were having a get-together in Visalia on Saturday with my dad's side of the family.  My dad even had the Sunday off so they didn't head back until after lunch on Sunday!

As has been the case for the past 7 months, we can't post pictures of Isaiah online.  We do have some great ones of him from the week though!  You can see them HERE, but you'll need the password.  Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We all have so much to be thankful for!