Unexpected Changes

Some of you have already heard this story, but here are pictures....

From Fall '08

We recently experienced some rather unexpected changes. The Sunday after Thanksgiving we returned home to CA after 3 wonderful weeks in Portland to find a piece of paper stapled to the outside of our rental home. Much to our surprise it was a forclosure notice (apparently our landlord does not see it necessary to take our rent & pay her mortgage). We called our property manager on Monday morning & she informed us that we had two weeks to get out of our home before the house went up for auction. So I spent Monday morning driving all over the area looking at the only two rentals she had in the area. The first was great & very similar to the home we were currently renting, although it would cost us an additional $100/mo in rent. The other one was REALLY small, in a bad part of town & you could see daylight through the front door (i.e. it was EXTREALY poorly insulated) - and it was only $50 less per month than we were currently paying. We were pretty discouraged...I have a 3 1/2 yr old & a one month old & how can I move while Ryan is working full time?!!! But you know, God is good & he knows what we can handle!!! The property manager felt so bad about our situation that she contacted the owner of the nice home & was able to talk them down on their rent so that it would match what we are currently paying...praise the Lord!!!

Our new home

From Fall '08

From Fall '08

So obviously for the past two weeks we have been moving. Every evening after work Ryan & I will load our two cars full to the max with stuff & transport it over to the new home. During the day I pack things up & try to keep two small children happy. On Wednesday I thought I had hit the wall....I had moved nearly everything over & I didn't think I could unpack another box. Then my wonderful husband informed me that he was going to take the day off so that he could stay home & help me unpack the house...isn't he wonderful!!! So now I am sitting in our new home, which is closer to town but feels like it's more out in the country, with not a single box around & it actually feels like home.

It's not what I really wanted to do for two weeks before Christmas, but it's where we are. Hopefully we can stay in this home for a while. On Sunday Ryan & I decided that we were going to boycott moving & decided to drive to the next town over (45 min drive) to pick up a Christmas tree. Before all this chaos happened Ryan had intended on doing & Christmas tree & celebrating it all with Micah...but then we didn't figure it was going to work out. But by Sunday we had had enough & decided that Micah needed to understand the "Reason for the Season" more than just noticing Christmas lights on other people's homes. So now our home smells like pine & we love it!!!

Decorating the tree with Daddy

From Fall '08

Admiring their work

From Fall '08

We hope to head back up to Portland for Christmas & hopefully when we return we won't have another surprise like this :-)

p.s. I know this isn't a good picture...but before we moved here I didn't even know there was such a thing as an "albino deer" but apparently we have one that lives in the neighborhood & was on our property yesterday

From Fall '08

Thanksgiving

Well we all knew that our time in Portland had to draw to an end...and what a great way to celebrate time with a few Thanksgiving Feasts (two to be exact). It was wonderful to catch up with friends and family, enjoy our old "haunts" in Portland & just relax. It's shocking how much Abby has grown in 3 short weeks. She is still a very calm baby & Micah continues to get better at being gentle with her. We look forward to returning to Portland for Christmas.


The whole Fast Family at Thanksgiving

Maternity Leave Done Right

Well, today was Ryan's last day of matenity leave :-( Just like with Micah, we decided to postpone Ryan's maternity leave until Abby could travel. So this time we waited until she was two weeks old & traveled up to Portland. We have been up here for the last two weeks absolutly loving it!!! We had the opportunity to rest, reconnect with friends and share with many about where the Lord is leading us in our ministry with Teen Missions. While we were here has had a wonderful support network from out family who offered to hold the baby & give Micah a little TLC when he needed us. Much more importantly we were able to spend some significant time as a family!! Ryan was able to take Micah to the Zoo & we went as a "4-some" to the Children's Museum. Today Ryan returned to Hayfork to work the first three days of this week, then he'll come back up to celebrate Thanksgiving with our Portland/Vancouver family. We are going to be really sad to leave after such a wonderful vacation/Materntiy leave, but I know Micah & I will definatly be counting the days until Christmas :-)

Abby Meets Great-Grandma


Day at the Children's Museum


"Open Wide Daddy!"


3 yr old's facepainting....scary!!!





"Look at me!!! I'm Daddy!"

Day 4 and counting....

I am loving having a baby in the house again. It has been fun to watch her & snuggle with her. Tonight we had to take some pictures, but it's funny 'cause I think all baby photos look the same...but I tried. Hope you enjoy these new photos.

My babies...


Big Brother




Abby with her "man face" on


the "little angel"

She's here!!

Ryan and I are very excited to announce the arrival of the newest member of our family...Abigail Elizabeth!

So here's the long story....

On Friday morning at about 1am I woke up with contractions. I didn't think much of it, because I have been having a lot of "false" labor during the last couple weeks & it has been keeping me up for hours on end for the past couple weeks. By 3:30am I realized that it wasn't going away & was actually getting stronger. So I woke Ryan up & we began to get ready to at least head down the hill & get things checked out. Of course, we really weren't ready to go because she wasn't due until November 10th, which is 2 1/2 weeks away! So by 7am we had dropped Micah off at the Pastor's house & we headed down the hill to the hospital (which is an hour & a half away). Of course, through the drive & our initial arrival at the hospital I noticed that my contractions were disappearing & it looked like it really was false labor, but we had driven that far so we figured we'd better check it out. After about 2 hrs of monitors with only about 3-4 contractions/hr Ryan & I were convinced that we were going to be sent home. To our surprise the nurse came in to check me after two hours & said that I had progressed from 4cm to 6cm!! What!! How could that be the case? The next thing I know the Dr. on call is walking in the room offering to break my water...I wasn't too sure if I was ready for all...I still have another 2 1/2 weeks!!! But being that this was a small hospital and there was only one OB on call for the entire maternity ward, and it was a busy day (they delivered 8 babies that day!) I knew I was going to get to wait. So about 4 hrs later (3pm) the Dr. decided to break my water & things took a dramatic turn. I began to have INTENSE contractions (much more than I ever had with Micah) and they quickly progressed to 1-2 minutes apart. After quickly getting my Epidural (man, I LOVE those things!!!) we were off to the races!!! I began pushing at 5:10pm & we had our little girl in our hands by 5:36pm. This was a VERY different labor than Micah's. With Micah I never had very strong or intense contractions before my Epidural & I pushed for over 2 1/2 hours. I expected to endure the same this time around, but it was quite different.

Abby is a beautiful baby girl, with deep blue eyes & a little bit of brown hair on top. We aren't too sure what color her hair will eventually be because she has VERY light eyebrows & eyelashes...maybe a redhead?!! We stayed in the hospital for only 24 hrs & everything checked out fine, so I was eager to return home & introduce Micah to his new baby sister. Micah is actually doing really well with her & we continue to remind him to be gentle with her. She is a VERY quite baby & sleeps a lot & has to be reminded to eat...but I'm ok with that.

I am blessed to have my parents here & hope to send Micah home with them for a week before we take our "big" trip up to Portland to show Abby off. I hope all of you get a chance to meet her soon also!!!

One last escape...

One last great escape. As many of you know I don't like to keep my feet on the ground for very long :-) But now that I'm nearing the final strech of this pregnency it starts to get hard to be "stuck" at home. It's shocking to realize that I have less than 4 wks until this baby is born (much less than that if she follows in Micah's footsteps). So last weekend we decided to take one last trip away from home & the hospital. We went over & spent the night in Eureka. It was beautiful! The weather was georgous & we had the chance to explore & enjoy the "big city" (which really isn't that big for most of you).

On Saturday, after we had finished our shopping (this is usually a ritual whereever we go because of our remote location) we decided to head south on 101 & explore the Redwoods. We took a beautiful 31 mile drive through Humboldt Redwoods State Park. It had been over 9 years since we were last in the Redwoods & we had never been south of Eureka....it was amazing. We really wanted to get out and hike, but we knew two things stood in our way...a sleeping 3 yr old in the back seat & a pregnent Mommy with the best of intentions who can only make it 100 ft. So we explored from the car & roadside stops. But it was enough to make us want to come back & camp...SOON!!

But until our little girl shows up & gets a little bigger I doubt there will be much camping...but we did have Micah camping by 2 1/2 months...so there is hope :-)

Me at 36 wks...the tree doesn't look quite as big with my big belly in front of it :-)


An angle you NEVER want anyone to take of you...but it was funny all the same :-)

It's begining to feel a lot like Halloween

The other day we were at Babies R Us & Micah was trying to convince me to buy him a new Halloween Costume. I don't think he has any idea about Halloween, but he does LOVE to dress up & Halloween is like candy for a kid who likes to dress up. So today we pulled out last year's Halloween costume & were excited to see that it still fit. It's definatly a bit more snug & was hard to get the pants up over his waist...but guess what, Micah is going as Curious George again this year!!



This is last year's photo...it's hard to believe that a year ago we were still living in the 5th wheel, it has sure been a LONG year!

Baby Shower

From Fall '08

What wonderful sister-in-laws I have! This weekend Andree & Christina threw me a baby shower. It was great to get all the cute girl clothes & exciting to see that I don't have to dress my little girl in ALL pink, but a little bit never hurt anyone.

From Fall '08

Watch out!! Don't let the pregnent woman sit in a chair she can't get out of :-)

From Fall '08

I was blessed to have both sides of the family there (including a great sister-in-law who drove all the day down from Seattle!!)

From Fall '08

From Fall '08

Trying to Sew

Ok, I've never claimed to be very crafty. I enjoy to do them, as many of you know, but they definatly look like a grade school art project. So lately I was surfing the web looking to buy a superhero cape for Micah. Well let's just say that those things, if they were of any quality, were WAYYYYY out of my price range (come-on we're talking about a toy for a 3 yr old, he doesn't have high expectations!). Well, I found a very basic pattern that allowed me to sew the superhero cape. I figured, how hard can that be?! Although you have to remember I have virtually ZERO sewing experience. In middle school we learned to sew drawstring bags & I feel like I can make those pretty well (I've made enough TMI dish bags to be a bit of an expert) but I've never tried anything else. Well, but 1 am last night I had finally finished it. It definatly isn't perfect & there's probably a reason why I'm not going to show you close up pictures :-) But Micah LOVES it & that's what matters & when all was said & done it only cost me $10 in materials (much better than the $30-40 they wanted on-line!). So here is my first attempt at sewing:

From Fall '08

Micah puts up with Mom shoving a camera in his face :-)

From Fall '08

"Super Dog!!," says Micah. This is his new favorite superhero show, "Krypto Super Dog" on Cartoon Network...it's kinda strange, but innocent.

From Fall '08

The Superman side

From Fall '08

The Batman side

I think if I got good at making these, they would be great for a birthday party...but I've got till next June to see if that's a crazy idea :-)

Life in Rural California

I recently received a story explaining what life used to be in our small community 50 yrs ago...and you know what? little has changed :-) The article describes the long windy drive up the mountians to a small valley community surrounded by trees. Today all the timber mills are gone, but the trees still stand. People enjoy to live in this rural community because they really don't want to be bothered by civilization, they are very independently minded & figure they can do it for themselves. Today we got our first rain in over 6 mos. I'm told that the winter months involve a lot of heavy rains, but I haven't seen much of that.

Last weekend we took an exciting drive over to Eureka, on the California coast. It was beautiful & reminded us a lot of the NW (which we miss so much). You would have loved to be a fly on the wall as Micah exclaimed from the back seat, "Wow, it's beautiful!! Look at that!!! It's amazing!!," as we drove into the town of Eureka. Our little Micah has spent so much time in rural America that he gets excited when he sees the "bright lights of the big city" :-)

Well, I origionally started this post as an excuse to update many of you with some pictures from the last couple months, but it seems like I haven't been taking too many since Family Camp. But we have been busy!!! After Family Camp we all went down to Monterey to do promotions for Teen Missions at Spirit West Coast. Then we had a lovely visit from Ryan's parents (Ryan's mom agrees that it's not that much fun to drive the windy roads to get here :-). Finally we all traveled back up to Oregon to join the family camping at Ft. Stevens. Micah had a blast playing with his cousins & Ryan even joined us for a couple days. Since then, life has slowed down a bit, the fires have died out & Micah & I have been exploring the area.

So here's some pictures of life in rural Northern California:


Micah after playing in the sprinklers after a hot day


Micah is obsessed with watering the plants although I don't know how much good it has done, we were gone so much & it was soooo hot this summer most look like they've lost the battle.


Micah building a "castle" while mom works on the computer


Me at 32 wks, some of you have asked to see how it's coming along

Family Camp

Every year when I return to Lake Retreat I am flooded by memories of good times. It's hard to believe that I have been going there since I was 7 years old!!! Some things have changed...others have not, but my favorite part still remains the same, the lake. This year was no exception. We (Micah & I) spent a beautiful 4 days up at family camp with my family & it was wonderful. Micah spent the morning in "class" where he learned to play "Duck, Duck, Goosse" & sing songs. This was the highlight for him. I enjoyed just relaxing with family...it was wonderful. Here are a few images from the week :-)

Micah & Ella enjoying the tire swing


Micah's face from inside the tire swing


Time in the lake






Uncle Jon takes Micah out on a boat...it's a miracle that he didn't fall in