Family Vacation November 2007

Our family was given an ENORMOUS BLESSING by some friends - a 7-day cruise to the Mexican Riviera for the four of us! We were blown away! And, of course, we accepted!

Christiaan and I had been on a cruise before, but the kids hadn't. Jack was so cute when we told them about the trip -- he said we should take our fishing poles along, since we were going to be on a boat, and all. We looked up lots of pictures on the internet to help them get a concept of how huge the ship would be...all the pools, food, etc...he didn't bring up fishing again.

We sailed on the Golden Princess, of the Princess Cruise Line. Beautiful. It was SO much fun! We did a whole lot of...nothing! Nothing besides eating, resting, swimming, eating, playing games, eating. You get the picture.

The weather was hot, and so beautiful. That was such a treat! So every afternoon we would hang out poolside with the kids. Nice to maintain a little of what was left of our tans.

We thank God for this unexpected blessing. He is our Provider, and He loves us so much. To give us this treat, not because of anything we did or earned. He just loves us.

Checking out the port as we leaveFather/daughter dessert on the balcony right before dinner - not bad!

Riding the shuttle to go walk around Mazatlan

Check out the name on this boat we saw...same spelling, too!Swimming...obviously

Fun in the sun at Cabo San Lucas

Shopping for stuff

What a long day!

Thanksgiving 2007

We give thanks that we were able to be together with the Bakker family, minus the Stirlings :(. We all gathered at Dan and Crystal's house. We had a great time hanging out, playing games, eating, sharing, holding babies, laughing and joking around! "Scattergories" was our adult game of choice. The kids enjoyed Jr. Monopoly and Zingo.











We thank God for our family! We thank God for His mercy, His goodness and faithfulness. We thank God for His love on our family, that we all share in His salvation and can share in the work that He is doing in our lives.
One of our favorite new traditions is after our delicious Thanksgiving meals (with Dan as master chef), we each write down 2-3 things we are especially thankful for. Then we go around and share those things. The kids are definitely included in this. It is such a sweet time. Crystal, who started this tradition, has kept our cards from previous years, and place them all at our place settings, so we can look back and remember what God has done and the things we were thankful for in previous years. What a blessing!

Since we will not all be together for Christmas, we wrapped up the weekend with "Christmas". So everyone got to open a gift. No complaints for that!




Dan, Jordan and their babies: Owen, 15 months and Morgan, 10 months

Playing at the park
Jack and Andrew

Uncle Jordan giving the kids a whirl

Christiaan doing uncle duty with Morgan

Owen and Morgan

"I love my pretty mommy!"

Dan and Crystal - still cuddly after hosting 14 people for three days!