We're back!

We made it home again! I just finished going through the pictures of our trip, and realized that in May and the first week of June I (with some help) took almost 400 pictures. I hope to not keep that up! Taking and posting pictures has been my outlet this month for some loneliness and feeling unconnected with my family, especially since two siblings just had new babies! Now I've met both babies, which is wonderful. It is an amazing thing to be an aunt of blood-related (not just marriage-related) children! Speaking of which, congratulations to Erik, my first marriage-related nephew, on his graduation from highschool! It's hard to believe it's been that long -- he was just Matthias' age when I met him.

Back to the pictures, I was pondering one evening if I was wasting my God-given time on "connecting" and documenting. Then, as I thought about it, I realized that angels are going back and forth to heaven all the time, observing what we do and recording it in the books of record. Nothing will be truly forgotten -- sins overcome will be listed as victories. Last Sabbath in Trail we discussed whether the memory of sin would be wiped out, and I have to say I agreed with those who maintained that it will not. The memory of sin (and its results) is the very factor which will ensure that God's children never fall again! This is one of the benefits we will have which Lucifer did not have, before he fell. It is like our vaccination against sin. So anyway, I figured if record-keeping was that important to God, it couldn't be wrong for me to spend time on it (provided I don't neglect my other duties, of course).

More pictures are coming later, but I wanted to share this one with you:

This one has had such an impact on Carrie Ann's life, since it is where she learned "Bike, Hat, Owie!"
Her first real word was "up" -- Frank taught her to say this instead of crying when she wants me to pick her up! "Dada" came months before "Mama" ("Mum-mum", which sounds an awful lot like her word for yummy, "num-num"). She calls Bethany "Bet-a-dine" with the emphasis on "Bet", and where "dine" is so long it almost rhymes with "Jane" sometimes. Matthias is some version of "Tias", with an "a" in front occasionally, or an extra "us" at the end, or a "sh" sound at the end... but usually we know who she means! She doesn't refer to herself at all yet, though once she pointed to herself and said, "me-me-me". She is the only baby I've known to learn "pls" before "no" -- which she rarely if ever says. Yesterday Bethany asked if she wanted to go up and jump on the bed together, and she nodded enthusiastically, saying, "Yah-yah-yeah!"