He's No. 1

So...one year ago on Friday, Jess and I cruised up to Savannah to the birth center, and Elliot entered our lives in the midst of a thunderstorm at 6:22 p.m. It's a year later. He still doesn't have much hair, but he's got a lot more personality. We had a little party for him yesterday, so now we know that he loves chocolate cake and cookies'n'creme ice cream. Shocking, yes, I know. We count ourselves blessed to be the parents of three very interesting children, and on this day we say, "We love you, Elliot!"

Happy Halloween!

We just got back from trick-or-treating, and the kids really hauled in a lot of candy this year. It's probably a good thing that I'm going to see the dentist this week! Annika was going to be a bat, but today she changed her mind and was a fairy. We had a grand plan set up for Sam to be a Bulldog and Elliot to be a Gator in honor of the Georgia-Florida game today, but Sam freaked out. It was also in the mid-70s this evening, so the boys ended up going as Beach Boys, which worked out fine in the end. We also caught up with the same group of girls who were all Disney Princesses last year. This year they were characters from the Wizard of Oz. Pretty great costumes! Oh yeah, Annika carved her first pumpkin this year. Can you guess which one?

Snakes in a Zoo!

So, we went to the Jacksonville Zoo last week, and the animals were all really active. Here's a video of Sam and Annika visiting the python. I think it's the closest they'll come to actually kissing a python, but - hey - they were having a great time!

Summer Wrap-Up

We spent a lot of time at the new community pool in the village this summer. All the kids really loved it, and we're sad that it's closed until Memorial Day now (although the weather is still good enough for swimming on most days). This first picture is the kids' play pool.




This new pool overlooks the ocean. We always enjoyed looking out of the pool at the ocean. One day we even saw about 50 dolphins playing in the sound while we were swimming. How cool is that?



We've got some more pictures to bring your way, but we wanted to get something new up on the blog.

We Have a Crawler!

Well...Elliot has been a bit slower than Sam when it comes to physical things. At nine months, he's finally figured out how to sit up. Sam was crawling at five months. Elliot has finally found his inspiration at nine months old. All it took was the vacuum cleaner, which he LOVES. Who would have thought?

So, NC is Pretty Great

It seems like everyone from St. Simons Island leaves the coast for the North Carolina mountains during the summer. We finally had the chance to head there at the end of July, and now we know why people love it. It's gorgeous (and pretty darn temperate) there.

Our friends from seminary came down and joined us. We spent most of the time wrangling five children, but it was wonderful to catch up with them, to see their kids again, and to just chat about life. We always have a great Texas-sized time with the Sutherluns. And they even got Jess to play games at night, so she has now experienced Settlers of Catan. Here are some pictures from mountaintop experience.

First Day of First Grade

Well...she's not quite all grown up, but she sure felt like it today. Annika went to first grade at Oglethorpe Point Elementary School (Go Ospreys!) today, which was a big first for all of us since we home-schooled her for kindergarten last year. The great news is that she had a marvelous first day, and we had a good first impression of her teacher. I think with Annika in school, we've entered a new phase of parenthood, and I hope it's a good one. Time will tell, but it was a great start to the day.

Return to the Mother Mitt

After the Fourth of July, Jess and I had the opportunity to return to Grand Rapids, where we both went to school. Rob Bell was hosting a preaching conference, so it gave us a good excuse to hear some interesting teaching, see a city we really love, and to spend a little time away from almost all the kids (Elliot came with us). The conference was really thought-provoking, and it provided me with a lot to work with as I return to pastoral ministry. The coolest part - at least for us - was that we got to stay in the Amway Grand Hotel in downtown GR, which was something that felt completely unattainable for us when we were Calvin students. I guess we can check that off of our list.

Grand Rapids is a really neat city. The people are really independent, and you see a lot of young entrepreneurs trying to make a go of it. The downtown area continues to see some (slow) revitalization, but there's a coffee shop there now called MadCap Coffee, which roasts its own beans and makes an amazing cup of coffee. You can see the picture below for Jess' morning cappuccino. We also got a chance to try the Cherry Deli, which is close to where we used to live. They, like everywhere else in Grand Rapids, served boxed water. Interesting.

We ended our time by taking Elliot to see Calvin College for himself. I doubt he'll go there some day, but it was nice to see a place that was so formative for us again.

Our Special Fourth of July

One of the main reasons we did this trip when we did was that Grandma Judy was turning 60 on July 4th. We had a lot of fun planning her special day with other family members, and the day turned out very well. We had a great time at the parade, and Grandma was surprised by her friends for an evening supper at Barone's in Glen Ellyn. The whole trip was worth it to celebrate such a wonderful person.

Hail to the Victors!

After leaving Erie, we made our way to Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is easily one of our favorite places on the planet. Having lived there for three years, we had 20 hours or so to see and do everything we wanted to do. And we were able to do quite a lot. We visited my brother, Trevor, and his son, Quentin. We met them at the Arbor Brewing Company, where we enjoyed some Sacred Cow IPA and organic pub food.



After spending the night, we got up and enjoyed some Washtenaw Dairy Doughnuts - the best cake doughnuts we know of. It was a treat to share them with Annika (again) and with Sammy for the first time.


Jess had managed to save frequent buyer cards for Bubble Island Bubble Tea, and so we ran over there to get a free bubble tea, almost five years after she last purchased a drink there.

We had lunch at the Jerusalem Garden (a middle-eastern greasy spoon) with our friend, Derek, and he was able to take another typically goofy HB family picture.

And, of course, no trip to Ann Arbor is complete without going to Zingerman's. We bought some bread and brownies to take with us to Chicago, packed our bags, and kept heading west.

It was great to get back to Ann Arbor, and next time, we definitely need more time and bigger stomachs!

More Pictures from Erie

Back from the North

We've been back from our Great Northern Journey for a few days, and so I wanted to take a few days to give an update on our trip. We started out in mid-June heading from St. Simons Island to my parents' house in North East, PA. We drove to Charlotte, NC, the first day, where we got to see good friends in a wonderful city. (Did we say that we think Charlotte is great?)

After a long day of driving, we made it to my parents, where we spent most of the week playing with the chickens, dodging massive dogs, going to the zoo, seeing extended family, and enjoying wonderful summer weather. The pictures below are from a couple of the highlights of that portion of the trip. I'll add some more to another post later tonight. I also plan to update the blog over the next several days with more highlights from our adventure.

We had a great trip. It was good to reconnect with our families!

Down...but Not Out

The pace has slowed considerably around here, which means picture taking has also slowed. Today marks one week since all of our kids started getting sick. Elliot was the first to go down, and Annika joined her brothers in illness on Monday night. We're almost through the woods, but it's been a LONG week. I think it was some type of roseola, as you can see by Elliot's lovely rash in the picture below. The irony of roseola is that when you look your worst - all rashy - you're no longer contagious. Needless to say, Elliot and Sam elicited a lot of questions at the pool...

The first picture below is of Annika and Sam at the "World's Best Frisbee Dogs" show that took place in Brunswick. (Of course, if they're the best, I wonder why they're in Brunswick, but I digress...) They had a lot of fun, even if it was in the upper 90s by 10 a.m. Gotta love Georgia summer.