Vay-cay-shun!
The joke is that pastors only work on Sundays and moms sit around watching Oprah and eating bons-bons…but no such luck in our household. It is our goal to end our lives TIRED…and we are well on our way. But, God throws us a life-line once in a while and our vacation to Deep Creek, Maryland was just what the doctor ordered!
We took off with our best buds for a glorious week of boating, swimming, hiking, date nights, sleeping, reading…and baby chasing (no vacations from THAT job). We laughed, talked, and chased babies for each other. Joel and I have many, many things to be thankful for but right at the top of the list is amazing friends! These guys love us, support us, and pray for us. And if we are all going to be figuring out this parenting thing, it is comforting to attempt it together.
Boat time!

Ella didn’t really care for the straight-jacket…I mean, life jacket.

Poor Owen (7 weeks)! He is in there somewhere!

One day the naps seemed to flow together so we took the kids hiking. We were so proud of Ellie! She LOVED hiking and didn’t ask to be carried once!

There were water falls and rapids…and, like any normal parents, we let our kids get in!
Sometimes they played nice.

Sometimes not…
(Confession: Ella saw time out a few times for pulling chunks of hair from Violet’s head. Not MY baby!)

No we didn’t…yes we did! We let the babies tube behind the boat!

We spent another day at a state park with a little lake. A beach without waves… it was heaven. We sat on the shore and relaxed while the kids played and played. We had to pull them in to re-apply sunblock from time to time but otherwise let them go for it.
Ellie and Go-Go

Ellie and Violet

“Yes mom? You called?”

“Ahhh…this is the life!”






































































