A fresh start

Welcome to our new blog!  We hope to keep this blog up to date with pictures and posts about what is happening with our family...wherever we may be in the world.  So where are we right now?  We are in Waxhaw, NC, at our organization's aviation headquarters.  We have been here since mid-January and plan to stay until July.  We are here for training, in preparation of moving overseas.

Here are some highlights from our time here:

• The birth of our second son, Jozua Mark (Jozie)!  He was born on Leap Year Day, helping set a record for the number of births in one day at the hospital he was born in!  It is a joy to have another baby, especially one that is significantly easier than his older brother.  There is nothing like a little perspective to help you get through the "hard" things about having a newborn again.  For example, I thought it was wonderful when he was waking up every 3-4 hours at night to eat...because Benji's worst was every 30 minutes at 9 months old....

• Having neighbors AND a playground right next door!  Our last apartment was located in a place where we had ZERO neighbors and no playground (or nice place to walk) anywhere nearby.  It has been wonderful to be able to put both boys in the stroller and head outside to play with the neighbor kids.  And with the weather being amazing this "spring", we've been outside almost everyday.  We love it!  I wonder why Jozie sleeps best in his carseat in the stroller?!?  Oh and Benji has learned to ride a scooter AND a bike since being here (and he's not even 2 yet)!  We are pretty proud of him. :)  I'll post a video another time.

• Time with our families!  My parents were able to come for 2 weeks around the time Jozie was born.  Benji LOVED having "Pa" and "Ma" here.  And it was a great blessing for us to have them stay with Benji 4 nights while we were in the hospital.   Also, my brother, his wife and their 3 kids came to visit for 3 days (before Jozie was born).  It was so special to see them again after a year.  Our kids are in the stage where they change lots in just a couple weeks...so a year apart is a long time.  Kars' mom is now here for a couple months, his dad will arrive at the end of this week and we've gotten to see both of his brothers a couple different times!  We love our families and it is great when we get to see them (since we live on 3 different continents most of the time)!