A Visit with the Sangers

We were blessed while we were in West Virginia to be able to meet with Randy and Melissa for a short visit. They live not too far from where we were staying for our mission trip so they came over to meet us for a late supper and to see Brent on his birthday.

 Bekah enjoyed getting to see "Miss Lissa."

 Both girls even gave us grownups a chance to visit a little bit as they were enthralled by technology. Yep, you guessed it, Miss Lissa's phone!

Rachel enjoyed her time with Mr Randy too.
Thanks for making time to see us, Randy and Melissa, and waiting so patiently, when our trip to get there took longer than we thought! We are always glad to get to spend time with you all!

Happy Birthday, Brent!

 On Friday, November 8th, Brent celebrated his 32nd birthday.
Here is Brent, with our girls, on his birthday. I am so thankful for the Godly, loving and adventurous husband that the Lord has given me and also for the wonderful Dad he is to our girls. We are thankful for all the ways he blesses our family, serves us and provides for us! We have had many adventures with you this past year and are looking forward to all the memories to be in this upcoming year!

Here is his cake and the funny story to go with it:  I knew there was no way I could hide a cake in the van and him not see it. So I asked our host missionary, Debbie, to please get a cake for his birthday,so we could surprise him. Here is the neat thing about his cake. In all my to do list,  I forgot to tell Debbie anything about the kind of cake that Brent likes. Without anything to go on, she picked a cake with Oreo cream frosting, which is Brent's exact favorite cake!
Happy Birthday, Brent!
We Love You!!

A Visit From Nana and Papa

 Last Wednesday, we enjoyed a fun, but fast visit, from Nana and Papa. They were able to visit with us for about 24 hours before they had to head back to NC. They came up to bring us their Buick Rendezvous for the snowy winters here.


I had planned to meet my friend Molly for lunch with her little daughter, Hannah, because Bekah had been asking over and over to see her friend Hannah. I think it is great that they are becoming such good friends already. Nana and Papa were able to join us for lunch too.
 The girls and I had several errands to ran and Nana and Papa kept us company. Most importantly they were able to see both girls dance while they were here.

 

Coloring together

Reading together

 They were also able to spend some time with the girls on Thursday. However, I have no pictures of that day because I had to work.
We love you, Nana and Papa, and we enjoyed our visit with you!

Ballet for Bekah

 Two weeks ago, Bekah had the opportunity to begin ballet class. I actually waited 2 weeks to post this to let her try it a couple of times and see how she did with it. Let me tell you, she loves it. If you ask her on Wednesday, what she is doing this afternoon, she says "I do ballet"
The picture above is her heading into her very first class. Rachel also wore this leotard at her first dance class and so did Bekah and it was originally my sister's when she began ballet about 19 years ago!

Bekah, when she first goes in, stands very still and watches everyone for about the first 5 minutes to see what they all are doing and then she joins right in

 Here she was practicing her twirls, with Ms. Jenna, her teacher

 This is one of the things she seems to like most about dance class...jumping through the hula hoops!

 Since she really seemed to like the first week, we took her to get fitted for ballet shoes. Her little feet are so tiny, she definitely has some growing room!

 And here is "Little Hollywood" in her glasses and ballet shoes.

These pictures are from this past week. Nana and Papa were able to come watch this week and Bekah actually fell asleep about 3 minutes from the dance studio. I carried her in asleep and tried to wake her to change her into her leotard. She began to cry but then I realized we could hear the music from her class starting in the room next to the changing room. I told her we had to hurry so she didn't miss ballet. She stopped crying, stood up and said "I do ballet" and off she went!

!

 This week, they pulled out the fluffy tutus. Isn't that just cute!! She also got fitted for her recital costume for the Spring.

Wednesday afternoons have become very busy as Rachel also dances a little later on Wednesdays as well but we are very thankful for great dance teachers and the opportunity for both girls to do something they enjoy so much! So on Wednesdays, as Bekah says, "We do Ballet!"

New Friends

 Today we enjoyed getting to spend some time with new friends. First we had to run some errands and practice the privilege we enjoy in our country of being able to vote. The top collection of Rachel's stickers are from our Kroger run and both are sporting their "I Voted" sticker.
Then this evening, we enjoyed having two families from our church over for dinner and a visit. Our girls were thrilled to have new play mates over! Alyssa, who is 8, was the helper for all the other kids and she did a great job playing with them.

 Here is the big kid table with Alyssa, Rachel, Scott and Sadie and below is the two year old section with Tucker and Bekah.

 All the kids played so well together all evening and gave their parents a great chance to visit together.

 Bekah loved Scott playing train set with her

 Here they were cooking

and here they decided to open a store.

Thank you Rebecca, Michael, Sadie, Scott, Tucker and Amber and Alyssa for coming over! We had a great time with each of you and look forward to getting together again soon!

Two Years

 Today marked TWO years since we began serving at Faith Mountain. It is hard to believe the time goes by so quickly. I was looking back at our pictures as I got ready to write this post and it is amazing how many moments and memories of life are made in two years.

Our Family, November 4, 2012

                                 
 Here we are at this same time last year as we completed our first full year serving the Lord at FMBC.  The picture below it with us wearing the purple is from today.
What a year it has been! Through the Lord's faithfulness and His people, we paid off the church building this year. We are getting ready to take our second mission trip this year to West Virginia with over 25 people this coming week. We are excited for what the Lord has done and trusting Him for what He will continue to do in His church here.

Our family, and several others in our church today, chose to wear purple to recognize Epilepsy Awareness Month. We have two beautiful young ladies in our church family dealing with epilepsy and we pray for them and their families.

  This is also a special week in our family as Brent celebrates his birthday this week as well. Here he is being recognized with the other November birthdays in our church today.
 Here are our girls after their first Rockbridge County Wildcats football game the week we moved here in 2011 and together at home after church today. Isn't it amazing the difference two years can make?!!

Somehow, I missed getting a picture of our family the first Sunday we were at FMBC. Brent and I always talk about how we can mark Rebekah's growth by when we began at Faith Mountain. We moved here when she was 4 weeks and 2 days old and had our first Sunday at FMBC when she was 5 weeks old. So it is a blessing to watch she and Rachel grow as we serve here. We pray they will grow into young ladies that love Jesus more than anything and that they will serve Him all the days of their lives.

West Virginia Weekend 2013

Since I am catching up on the blog, I wanted to cover our adventures in October. The first weekend in October, we headed to Canaan Valley, West Virginia, which is in the Potomac Highlands of West Virginia. This is an annual event for us that began back in 2010 with our friends, the Sangers.

We meet our friends Randy and Melissa for the weekend and since Melissa is a teacher she usually has this Friday off every year so we are able to get an early start on Friday. Though I didn't feel very good over the weekend, we still had a great time visiting with Randy and Melissa and enjoying the beauty of this area.

Here are Rachel and Bekah with their dolls from Mrs. Melissa and playing with her phone. Both girls loved their dolls and Bekah's even played "Jesus Loves Me" which is her favorite song right now.

 The first morning we were there, we got an early start to head to Dolly Sods for sunrise.Here is Bekah, not quite ready for the early morning. This is a spot we go to each year for sunrise. It is very similar to a Canadian forest as far as the types of plants and climate there.

 While the photographers were working quickly to capture pictures of the sunrise, I did manage to snap a quick picture of Randy, Melissa and Rocky

 It was actually pretty warm up there this year compared to some years, but always very windy. A warm hat is always a good idea and this year Bekah decided she liked my hat betters than hers... yep, that was my hat.
Here is Bekah hiking in the blueberry bushes. She already wants to hike instead of ride in the backpack. In fact, we were hiking recently and she was holding my hand. I asked "Bekah, do you want Mommy or Daddy to carry you?" To which she replied, "NO...I good"

This is the first year I managed to get everyone gathered in one place while we were at Dolly Sods for a group picture!

The McGuirts and Sangers   October 2013

 

 This area has some of the prettiest colors I have seen. There are a lot of maples in this area, so as you can see, the colors are very vivid. We even saw some bright reds this year.
The next day, Brent, Randy and Todd along with a group of others headed out on a more difficult hike. The girls headed to a playground Melissa and Randy found for us at Blackwater Falls State Park. These girls loved it!

 

Rachel and Rebekah   October 2013

 With a lot of help from Melissa, I was able to get both girls looking at the camera at the same time. This is one of my favorite pictures I have gotten of the girls in quite a while!

We were so glad to be able to enjoy our annual trip with the Sangers to Canaan Valley. We are so thankful for you guys and always glad for our families to get to spend some time together! Before we know it, it will be time for our 2014 trip!