Good Times

We have had so many wonderful adventures and good times over the last week or so! And everything’s been happening so quickly and we haven’t had instant access to the internet so this is the first time that I’ve been able to grab a few minutes in order to tell you about all of our adventures!

After finishing up my sewing project and our house-sitting job we went to stay with some friends who also have a dog, also speak French and also enjoy good food. So we shared some good times with them!

home-made profiteroles with home-made lemon ice cream and home-made strawberry sauce! words cannot describe its deliciousness!

Mabry and Serisse lounging on their pillows.

Shawn has been working on creating a home catering company and his first clients are some friends who have two boys. The idea is that the family buys the ingredients and then Shawn prepares the meals with help from the family and from me. I’m getting really good at snapping green beans and peeling potatoes. We usually (usually meaning the last two times we’ve done this) share one of the meals with them. It’s been a lot of fun!

Father and son stuffing pork chops with tastiness. It's so good to see everyone in the family participating!

All the boys eating stuffed jalapeno poppers.

Snoozing on Serisse

chillin'

Serisse is a snuggle-bug!

and a cuddle-bug

it's really too bad that our dog doesn't like people...

Not too long after this we were called in to welcome our dear friend’s first baby girl into the world. At 11:35 pm on Friday night we received the call that they were on their way to the hospital!

hugging on soon-to-be mamma A. before the contractions really set in.

Soon-to-be Papa A. looking at his hospital bracelet.

The above took place around 12:30am. Around 2 am, I started to get a little hungry so Shawn went to the grocery store and came back with a healthy mid-morning snack:  Wendy’s Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers. He also got some trail mix and fresh apples and dried apples and energy drinks. But it was FREEZING in the hospital so Shawn, being the wonderful serving husband that he is, went to the car and got me a jacket that’s been hanging out in our trunk waiting for just such an opportunity to be useful. This was still not enough to really warm me up so I drank a full cup of coffee. If you didn’t know this, I am very susceptible to caffeine. No coffee ever, cokes very rarely and tea only in the morning. Anyways, so after my 4am coffee I was ready to go! Then it was just time to wait around for the little bundle of joy to grace us with her presence.

About 5 hours later, I’m starting to get a little hungry again but I’m trying to avoid the Snickers bar because the thought of adding that to my coffee & burger diet just didn’t sound appealing. It is at this point that I thank God for experienced friends. Our friends (the R.s) who are also friends of our friends (the A.s)  have already had three daughters of their own so they’ve got this hospital visit thing DOWN! They came to the 9am rescue with an amazing breakfast for which we were all SOOOOO thankful!

wonderful breakfast after a sleepless night

trying to sleep as long as possible

Mamma and Papa 30 minutes prior to pushing and 1.5 hours prior to baby's arrival!

Shawn and I were kicked out of the room but you couldn’t get us to go too far away. We hung around outside the door, in a constant state of prayer, crying when we heard those first little baby cries and then jumping for joy when we heard that she was a beautiful baby girl! It was such an incredible honor to be a part of this moment for our dear friends.

Granny with the fresh newborn L.E.A.

There was much cuddling and crying and attribute assigning for the next several hours. She weighed 7lbs. 12 oz. and was 19 3/4″.

Me with 5 hour old L.E.A. while mamma & papa were napping

After all of this excitement and lack of sleep (maybe one hour between the two of us) we were pretty exhausted ourselves. Though not as exhausted as mamma and papa A. of course!!!

We are so excited about L.E.A. coming into the world healthy and we are so thankful to be a part of her birth and especially her life. Wow. I’m getting teary eyed just thinking about it. Can’t wait till I can hold her again!