How We Got From August til Now

 Get ready for lots of pictures. Lots to catch up from the last few months before our move. Way back in August, we had the pleasure of going to Estes Park, Colorado for a CBC reunion. CBC was the year long Bible College in Ecuador where Matt and I spent our freshmen year. Turned out to be a very formative year for both Matt and I (besides the fact that its where we met). It was so great to reconnect with great friends from that year. We had such a great and meaningful time.

For our fellow CBCers: here's a little sneak of some of the pictures I need to update the CBC blog with...I will do it eventually.

 This is from the first night in CO. So much catching up to do.

And Daves on the phone.

Best buds Zeke, Lucia and Manu

 It was also a great chance to enjoy the outdoors and hikes at Rocky Mountain National Park

 

Our cute little hiker

Lucia loved hanging out with the horses all weekend

One night we had a lovely picnic by Lake Estes

The kids had fun splashing in the water

All the CBCers who were able to attend.

 Loving Tresor's weird talking cat app thing

 We stayed at this old ranch/lodge type place that my family had stayed at a long time ago. Lots of quirks and apparently its haunted.

This is where a bunch of us stayed.

Conquering Old Man mountain

We saw this guy along the way.

I tried to convince our crew to climb down this tree instead of going around it. Bad idea- and I'm glad I wasn't able to convince everyone because I don't think it would have ended well.

 We got to stay in this room with the lovely mural. And the last night we found out it was the most haunted of all the rooms in the most haunted of all the houses which meant I had a little more trouble sleeping that night.

 So onto the rest of the summer. Matt left for Washington/Oregon straight from Colorado. Lucia and I headed back to Chicago for a few more months. We had fun accompanying Linnea to her trapeze lesson.

And then Sonja wanted a try at it. Here she is getting ready. She's covering her ears cause the Blue Angels were practicing directly above us at the time. So if flying on a trapeze isn't scary enough, doing it with Blue Angels barreling past oughta scare a 5 year old...but not this five year old...

She did great!

 Then we had a fun lakeside picnic.

 We found some new fun parks this summer.

Last beach trip

We also went to the air show and it was sooooooo cold but the girls had fun running around.

To go back before CO, we had a fun time catching up with one of the World Relief families I worked with about 4 years ago. So fun to see how they were doing and how well their kids were growing up.

And Lucia made a great new friend. Even though they were speaking two different languages, they seemed to completely understand each other. It was pretty amazing.

Lucia also went to her first movie. She loved it (as evidenced by her 'in-the-zone' face here).

Fun at Ikea. Jumping on things they aren't supposed to.

Grandpa Bert's birthday party

Helping blow out the candles.

Eric showed off his sweet hula hoop skillz

Grandpa and all his great-grand daughters

 All the sisters with their dad:)

 Group hug!

 Although we were apart, I still kept up our tradition of breaking a glass on our anniversary (this one being our 8th one). This years glass was from a scented candle that I had since it smelled like one from our honeymoon.

 And I sent Matt a piece to take part.

 We had fun watching butterflies hatch? out of their cocoon.

It was pretty cool to watch

We had fun watching 'Wizard of Oz' at Millennium Park on one of the last warm summer nights.

And then onto Buckingham Fountain which Lucia got scared of.

Pretty girls on a pretty day

 Us girls had a fun day in Humboldt

 Park with Uncle Eric

This tree fell down in the yard which left us with out power a few days.

This car was probably the thing most damaged.

So we made the most of it and had fun hanging out in the candle light.

We had many visits with GG and Grandpa Ray, eating lunch and looking at the fish.

At the zoo

Doing some yoga....so cute

Sisters! After spending so much time together we figured we should get at least one picture together. (I don't know where you were, Greta.)

We had many surprises in store for our mom's big birthday in October. First was to surprise her at the end of her race.

Then onto Walker Bros.

 And the main event was a surprise tea party at Greta's. Here are all of us sisters with our mom. Happy Birthday Mom! It was a fun day! So fun, I forgot to take pics at the tea party.

Taking a walk on a fluke warm autumn day (while our car was at Wally's getting fixed).

Celebrating Sonja's 6th birthday.

Taking advantage of the new big tree stump.

At Wagner Farm

And Chicago Botanic Gardens

Lucia ran off the path and did this funny little dance under the tree right after I said it looked like it belonged in Oregon.

 Most of the time we spent together with Matt gone looked like this: Lucia trying to get away from me. But we had tons of fun in Chicago those last few months. I tried my hardest to soak in all the scenes, all of our family and all of our dear friends. We'll be excited to come back and visit and see some of you out here too!