I'm way worse at this than anticipated...

Okay, so I stink at this blog thing - SORRY!!!!

I'm not going to make any promises - because I've done that before on this blog and well - we all know how that turned out.

Instead, I'm just going to take one day at a time and pray that I get better at updating this thing and get better at a lot of other things I hope to get better at as well. :)

So here's a quick update on our life:

Oxford:

We just spent the week in a small town called Oxford in the South Island. Dalton was teaching on a Discipleship Training School while me and Isaiah just hung out. It was very exciting because I have never been to the south island so it was wonderful to finally get to go. It was just enough to wet my appetite for more. The weather was pretty bad all week long - rainy and cold. So Isaiah and I spent most of our time inside. However, the last two days we were there we had beautiful weather. On Friday when Dalton was done teaching we went to a place called Castle Hill. It's this crazy place with boulders and rock structures all over. That's what the pictures are of below. It was beautiful. We felt like we were back in Scotland. We spent our last day in Christ Church with a good friend of ours Mom - she showed us the sights, fed our tummies and inspired us with her love and devotion to Jesus. It was a good day. This was also the second flying trip for Isaiah and he did just as good this time as he did when we went to Australia. And we're just warming up for that big 12 hour flight, that we hope to be taking sooner rather than later, to America. :)











which leads me to our next portion of news...

Trip to America:

While we were hoping to come home for Christmas - we just couldn't come up with the dough we needed to make it happen. We did have some generous gifts given towards tickets and we have put them aside to purchase tickets for a later date. We're hoping to make a trip around April or May. So it looks like another hot Christmas for us which Dalton isn't too sad about, but I must admit - I was really, really, really hoping to get home for Christmas. But I am determined to make Isaiah's first Christmas a special one! Even though he won't know the difference from that day to any other day - it's more for me. :) We are approaching a 3 week break over the holiday's - which is a pretty long one! We're not sure what we're going to do yet - probably take a few short trips so Dalton can surf his brains out. But mostly we're just looking forward to resting and enjoying each other's company. As much as I wanted to be home for Christmas, this is New Zealand's most beautiful time of the year, so I am glad we get to be here for that.

ISAIAH:

He's growing up so fast I'm afraid I'm going to blink my eyes and he'll be marching off to the mission field somewhere to preach the gospel (haha, normally you would say "sending him off to college" in a sentence like that - but i thought mission field was more appropriate for our college dropout/high school dropout family. :)) When we went to Australia, he rolled over for the first time and got his first tooth. When we went to Oxford, he sat up by himself for the first time (meaning, balanced while sitting by himself, not actually "sat up" from laying down) and got his second tooth! He's getting stronger and stronger every day and cuter and cuter every day. His personality is starting to shine through more and more which is so fun to watch. He is a happy baby - only crying when he needs to (for the most part - he certainly has his grumpy days). He is very personal, likes lots of attention and is quite adventuras - always wanting to try to do more than his little body is able. We fall in love with him more and more every day - he is such a precious gift from Jesus for us. So excited to spend our lives together. :)













Ok - I'll leave it here for now and hopefully I'll update another one soon after we decorate our Christmas tree. I know, I know - why are we waiting so long to decorate our tree? I know my brother's thinking that - I'm sure they're house is already decorated top to bottom *sigh*. But we've been crunched for time lately - we're planning on decorating tonight.

I'll sign off until next time, and hopefully next time will be sooner than Isaiah's 16th birthday party!