Adventures in Texas so far

It has been so nice being settled in at my parents home in Texas! We are blessed that we have the chance to spend nearly the entire month of June with them.

Our trip to Texas went very smoothly! Joseph left on 6/1/14 and drove our vehicle down with the dog. Bless his heart--he did the 15 hour drive by himself! Clare and I flew out the next morning with Hudson and survived flying with an infant! Hudson did very well, so I'm counting that as our practice run before we fly to Africa :)

Sleeping baby on the plane!

Since arriving in Texas I celebrated my 25th birthday. I got to enjoy the day with my family and even scored a couple beautiful pieces of jewelry as well some very great smelling perfume!

The new charms I got from Joseph for my birthday

We also got to see my little brother Andrew graduate from high school! I'm so proud of him graduating with honors. I'm excited for him as he heads off to college this fall.

Joseph and I with the graduate

And of course I have to give an update in little Hudson! We have started cereal! Hudson has done well with it, and I think he is enjoying his new food! He has now expanded his palate to rice cereal, oatmeal and sweet potatoes.

Joseph feeding Hudson some oatmeal

Just this past weekend we traveled to Dallas to enjoy a weekend as a family at The Gaylord Texan resort (compliments of Joseph's amazing discounts with Marriott!) We had a blast! We were able to relax and enjoy the sun at the pool and the water park at the resort. I was very pleased at how well Hudson did with the water. He is such a great baby and we are absolutely blessed to call him ours!

Hudson with Nana at the water park

While at the Gaylord we celebrated Father's Day. It was so nice to be able to celebrate Joseph on his first Father's Day as well as celebrate with my dad on his first one as a Grandpa.

Grandpa singing with Hudson
 

Joseph and Hudson on Father's day

To round out the trip, we unfortunately had to say goodbye to my sister Clare as she headed off to her next travel nurse assignment. We are not sure when we will see her next, but we are so thankful for the last three months that we have been able to spend with her. She was such a great blessing to us and we are so grateful for the wonderful memories we made with her.

Hudson enjoying time with his Aunt Clare

Before leaving Dallas we decided to visit the George W Bush Library. It was a very nice museum of his life and presidency. Well worth the stop!

Hudson and Joseph sitting in the replica Oval Office
 

We have had a wonderful time so far and are looking forward to the next couple of weeks in Texas!



 

Our Month of May

Last month is a complete blur when looking back at it. I would have never imagined in a million years how busy we were going to be and how much was going to be on our plates in a single month.

The first two weeks were busy trying to finish up my time as a Labor and Delivery nurse. I absolutely loved my job and enjoyed the work and will miss labor and delivery very much. I will also miss my co-workers and friends at CRMH. It was a pleasure to work with you all and learn all about L&D from and alongside you.

I also got to experience my first Mother's Day, and it was a wonderful time. I was blessed to spend the day with Joseph, Hudson and my sister Clare. I loved the sweet gifts my family gave to me but even more than the gifts, I loved that we were able to publicly dedicate our son Hudson to the Lord at church. What a blessing it was to publicly declare our intent as parents to raise Hudson up in the way of the Lord.


Hudson, Clare, and I on Mother's Day

Joseph and I having Hudson dedicated

After finishing up our full time jobs, we moved on to the task of packing and organizing all of our belongings to either sell, store or take to Malawi. Oh my word....what a HUGE undertaking that was. We first tackled the job of going through everything and selecting what we would put out at the yard sale. Let's just say, that was the first yard sale I ever did and will probably be the last for a long time! So much work! The Lord did bless all that hard work and we were able to get rid of a lot of the items we were trying to sell.

After getting all of the yard sale clutter out of our home, we were then able to work on organizing what was left into our "to store" and "to Malawi" piles. All I can say is I am so thankful for my sister Clare's help during this entire process; to have an extra set of hands to help pack and to help with Hudson was a HUGE help.

Hudson helping me pack up boxes for storage

 

Some of our things going into storage

We also got to see our little guy turn 4 months old! It is so wonderful getting to be his mom and watch him grow and change. He is a wonderful baby, and we are praying that he will be a great traveler in his first year of life because he is going to be doing a lot of traveling. We also celebrated 3 years of marriage! It is crazy to me that we have already been married for 3 years...where has that time gone? Although we didn't have any extravagant date plans, we got to enjoy Hudson's 4 month check up together and we even got to grab some Chick-fil-a together.

We also had the privilege of Joseph being ordained as a minister of the Gospel. I am such a proud wife and am so thankful God allowed me to share life with him. It was such a great experience to be a part of watching him be ordained and be charged with the Word from men that have given great influence in his life.

Whew! What a wild and crazy month! I just want to say a huge THANK YOU to all of our friends and family that helped us survive this past month. Without your prayers, generosity and friendships, we would not have made it through all the stress of packing up our lives!