REWIND! Our America Trip in Photo Review

We bought a new fabulous camera as soon as we arrived to help
us document all the exciting and mundane events in our 10-week visit.

Our kids met a lot of great new friends at a ton of brunches, lunches, dinners and playdates.

We did a December road trip down the Oregon and California coast.

2,500 miles in 10 days, but our kids continued to be super travelers!

We stopped every few hours to stretch legs at various beautiful spots.

Fred and I loved driving through the redwoods (literally and figuratively)

Outside of Oakland looking back at San Francisco while we waited
to meet up with one of the dozen or so people we met up with on the trip

Innocent go to dip his feet in his first ocean in sunny San Diego

And Gretchen played in sand for the first time

We went ice skating with some friends, which Innocent loved,
but this was the happiest Wesley was during the whole experience.

When we got back home, we went with cousins to cut a Christmas tree.
We ended up with a slightly taller tree than this one. 

We were blessed to be in Oregon for the warmest, sunniest winter I can remember,
so the boys got to spend a lot of time at the Newberg playground.

Christmas was a really special time for the kids.
They didn't get out of the sled for the better part of the morning.

Wesley (our future engineer) got a toolbox for Christmas.
He's still carrying it around a month later.

After Christmas we went to Eagle Crest for a week of actual non-working vacation with my parents.
It was really helpful for us to have that break in the middle of our visit.

Innocent and my dad did some swimming lessons while we were on vacation.

The boys got to play in snow and use their Christmas sled.

Most of our extended family members came up to Eagle Crest on the last day.

We got to have a small celebration of my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary.

Some wonderful friends paid for the boys to go to the dentist, which they actually enjoyed!

We did a lot of presentations on this visit, including at a few
 new church contacts, like Chehalem Baptist.

A presentation in Astoria to a group of my grandmother's friends and neighbors
 at which Wesley made himself a center of attention...as usual

Our whole family climbed the Astoria Column!

Gretchen saw and was seen by many friends and family, and accomplished crawling, walking,
first four teeth and some first words, like "uh-oh" and "daddy".

Many friends contributed to meet several one-time financial needs, like a new laptop for me!

Thanks to all the friends who had us over, prayed with us, gave money, spent time with our kids, offered skills and space and time to make our visit wonderful!  See you next time!