Dear Friends from West Virginia

We have been thrilled to have our dear friends, Bill & Alice Agee, here visiting from West Virginia. They are members of the church where Jeff pastored in Big Springs, WV. They took care of our children in the days immediately after our accident in July of 2003. They have adopted us as part of their family and our children call them "Mamaw and Papaw".
We have had a really great visit with them catching up and taking lots of pictures. They go home on Friday and we'll miss them.

Here is the youngest pianist in our family! She looks so sharp wearing Luke's fancy hat, doesn't she?!

We'll be leaving for our very first family vacation on Saturday. We've rented a cottage on a lake up north about 4 hours from here near Algonquin Park in Ontario. Everyone will have their own bed - YEA!!!! There is a playground a very short distance from our cottage and the kids are really excited about the fact that they have a trampoline right in the lake. Of course I'll take tons of pictures to post when we get home. I might take the laptop in the slim chance that they have wireless internet.

A few pictures from the last little while

Luke, Victoria and AJ on our last Sunday in the market.

Lily with my grandmother on her 85th birthday!

Our favourite pet - Buckeye! (our only pet) :-)

Squeeky-clean after bathtime.

Cuddle time with AJ

Cuddle time with Luke

Story time with Tori and Lily

Congratulations on the new building - my gorgeous husband and my wonderful dad

My adorable parents - Bob & Betty Gortson

My dad playing for a minute with the children in the backyard at the church.

Lily patiently waiting for everyone to be ready to go home!

Peeking around the corner

Yuck!

Lily loves her keys. She looks like she's cheering here.

119 Division Street

Yesterday was "move-in day" for Beacon Baptist Church. By 2:30 p.m. the last paperwork was signed at the attorney's office and 119 Division Street was official the new home of Beacon Baptist Church.

Here is all of us at the side of our new building with all of our things moved in - not unpacked yet, but at least everything is here.

The men had previously agreed to meet at our old location at 6pm last evening, but our deacon, Joel Wellard, was able to get off work early and borrowed a truck from work to help move. So the men met late afternoon to start working. By the time I got there around 5pm, there was only one load left to move! It was such a blessing to have Joel, Jim, Terry, Ed and Garry there to help Jeff.

This is our deacon, Joel Wellard, his wife, Angela, and their two boys, Colin & Carter.

This is the head of our trustee board, among other things, Jim Gillap and his wife, Bonnie, with cutie pie, Lily-Bean.

Here is Ang with her boys.

Luke, AJ and Victoria!

This was earlier in the day, but I couldn't help including our big girl, Lily, holding her own bottle.

Beacon Baptist Church is Moving!

We are all "over-the-top" thrilled about our move to 119 Division Street here in Welland. Our new building is a very short walk from our old building which is a real plus. We are glad to continue to be located right in the middle of downtown Welland.

Our current building has been a God-send and we love it. It seats (packed and jammed) about 45 people. Our nursery is a remodeled camping trailer in the driveway. It's hard to believe that we've been at 2 Market Square for over 3 years now.

Our new building has a full basement with a kitchen, nursery and lots of space for Sunday school/day school classrooms. Just the way it sits right now, it would seat 140 in the auditorium. We even have a very nice sized grassy, fenced backyard.

We are actually trading buildings with the church that currently occupies 119 Division Street. In my opinion, that is unheard of. It is going to be a really great move for both churches. The church who is going to occupy our building has a much smaller and older congregation and our building is going to suit them very well. It is extremely handicap-accessible and there's lots of space for them.

There are many upgrades that need to be done to our new building. It is not at all handicap-accessible which is one of our two main priorities. The other is making it fire-safe. It is quite an older building, but beautiful, so it will need some sprucing up. Please pray for Jeff as I have a feeling, I won't be seeing him much in the near future aside from bringing him lunch and supper at the church. Once he has such a big project like this, he will most likely keep working non-stop until the jobs are complete. I think I'll be reintroducing myself to him in about two months or so. :-)

The above room is currently used as a prayer room and will be renovated to be our nursery. Unbelievable that our nursery will actually be located inside the church building! :-)

The ladies especially are thrilled about the full kitchen that is located in the basement of our new church building.

Goin' on a Bike Ride!

Jeff has been taking the three older children on a bike ride every so often since the weather has been warmer. Well, today we went and got one of those bike trailers that babies can ride in for Lily. He hooked it up (while we all watched giving our moral support and of course the occasional suggestion) !!

They went on a two-hour bike ride. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Lily napped for most of the ride, but all in all the bike trip was a success!

We are looking forward to many more bicycle trips to come!