First day in pig tails - she's growing up!

August 20 Abigail wore TWO (her favorite number) pony tails for the first time. Her personality and understanding of life are really coming out these days as her vocabulary increases. She talks in paragraphs of mostly one-word sentences: "Baf! Waher! Spash! Bubbles. Towwul. Da-da!" But verbs are starting to join all those nouns: Abigail says "walk, wunning, hohle (hold), dwink, hehp (help), share and obey." She's learning her colors and identifes green (learned first because of stoplights), pink, white, and yellow accurately most of the time. She loves to sit at the piano and play (if a friend or a doll will join her, all the better!). If you ask her to sing, she'll start "Je-suh wuhs. . ." and then wait for you to pick it up "the little children, all the children of the world. . . ."

Visiting the Talleys in Alabama

We spent August 10-11 with Nathan's sister Talitha and her family at their new home in Crossville, Alabama. The time together was a such a treat and of course the cousins had lots of fun. Lane is seven and had just begun second grade. Patrick just turned six and he started kindergarten the day we arrived. Laoise and Gavin are three and very funny. Abigail talks about her cousins all the time now! On the way home, we met Mom and Dad Garner for supper at Cracker Barrel.

Granddad & Grandma Johnson's 60th Anniversary

July 28th Julia's grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in Norfolk, Virginia. Congratulations, Granddad and Grandma Johnson! Well over a hundred people were present and we loved the opportunity to spend time with family members and see/meet many long time friends of our grandparents. Abigail was delighted to see her third (?) cousin Sherilan Bedogne and showered her with hugs the whole weekend. On the way home Sunday afternoon, we had a surprise (see pictures). So thankful that the Lord protected us from harm and enabled Nathan and Caleb to remedy the situation in short order!

P.S. For those who are new to blogs (like us): If you click on a slide show, the captions will appear.

Charleston family gathering - July 2007

Friday, July 20 the Mee/Patteson/Garner clan (formed July 2006) met up in Charleston for a weekend together. We stayed in KOA camping cabins and enjoyed time at the beaches (Kiawah and Folly).