such a sweet girl -- and growing so fast!

Hello all!

We hope you all had a great 4th of July weekend! It was definitely a beautiful one here in Ft. Collins. Jason took Thursday as a vacation day, so we had a four-day weekend together!! We both loved it, and Gwyneth so enjoyed having her daddy home for an extra two days.

Some highlights from our family's weekend:

- Gwyneth is teething!! Yep, she has a little pearly white showing itself thru her bottom gum. I'd give it another two or three days to be out completely. And what a trooper -- other than a little bit of groaning, she's been her normal, cheerful self.

- Our college students came over for a great night of badminton (which I haven't played since grade school), bocci ball, and s'mores. What a sweet time! One of the girls, Melissa, came up from Denver and stayed the whole weekend; we were able to spend some wonderful time with her on Saturday, walking around Old Town and having some gelato as relief from the hot day (isn't that stuff amazing?).

- Our dear friends, Brian and Rachel Schultz, got home from a month-long summer project with Campus Crusade for Christ. We spent Friday evening with them, and watched FoCo's annual fireworks from their house -- even from 3 1/2 miles away, we could hear the crowd at City Park roaring in applause when it was over. We later found out that it was a miracle our Church was still standing; Immanuel is right across the street from the park, and pieces of firework debris - still burning! - were making it all the way to the ground. Our youth paster was up on the roof with a hose, just in case!

- Jason started work on the last major project at our house -- tiling our basement rec room! He's really getting creative with it, and it's going to look beautiful when it's finished. I'll post some pictures of it when completed.

- I had food poisoning on the first night of Jason's vacation... all from a bowl of grapes. I've always loved grapes, but I have to tell you, I'll think twice before I eat my next bunch of them.

- Gwyneth started drinking - and partly spilling - water from a glass. She was so interested in Jason's glass on Saturday morning that he let her grab it, just to see what she'd do. She reached out, put her little hands around it, and brought it to her mouth, which was wide open and ready to gulp! It's amazing that she's learned this just from watching us.

- Lots of relaxing. What vacations are for. :)

- Oh, and the best beef brisket we've ever had, even while in Texas!

Yep, I'm cool.

At Sports Camp, with Rose (in the youth group)Watching all these kids play in the sun makes me tired...Ok, you can kind of see her new facial expression in this picture -- we call it her "cheesy smile". She's been doing it all the time for the last few days. I'll post a better picture of it as soon as I can get one.Reading time with Jason. She loves that Rainbow Fish book, especially when her daddy is reading it to her.Here it is -- her first drink of water from a glass. Sippy cup, your days are numbered.