Getting Ready to Leave

Well, Sterling and I getting ready to leave in the morning, so I wanted to do one more post before we move to CA because I don't know about getting the internet there. Luke just arrived last night and he's starting to get unpacked and settled in. These pictures are from this last week. We got to see Nathan and Jayme Rector, and the picture is of Sterling with their daughter Cameryn. The other pictures are from swimming on Sunday, petting the goats at the fair, and playing cards at the fair. We've been having fun, and now we're looking forward to our next adventure in California!

Fair Week 2007

These are just some random pictures from the Putnam County Fair, the highlight of my family's summer! Sterling has gotten lots of close up encounters with the cows and he loves it. He has been petting the goats and running around everywhere. One of the pictures is my sisters showing their cows, another is my dad and Sterling in their flannel shirts together, another is me and Kara reluctantly posing for a picture and this first picture is Luke and Sterling enjoying an ear of corn from the garden together.

More Colorado

Here are a few more pictures of Colorado. We got to spend time with Luke's aunt Francie and uncle Rosy and Sterling loved getting to climb and hike with them. He had a blast. The next picture is Sterling with some of the friends he met at MTI. They were so nice to Sterling even though he was a lot younger than him. The bottom picture is our entire Tokyo team and we all got to be together for training, which was awesome! We are so excited about working with this amazing group of people.

Grandma and Grandpa Chase and Farming

These pictures are from when Steve and Linda came to visit us (before we left for Colorado). The internet was so slow out there, I could only get a couple of pics at a time, so I'm going to try to catch up now that we have a week of the internet here at the church. The pictures were taken at the park, where Sterling had so much fun playing. The other pictures are from different times he was out on the farm, just having fun. The little red overalls used to be my brother Kyle's! The dog that Sterling is with is named Spike, and they are good friends. Sterling feeds him rocks and grass and flowers, and Spike is pretty good natured about it all :)

Sterling; 16 months

Here's another photo of Sterling we got.

Sterling at 16 months

We had a friend of ours, Bill Hill, do some family photos for us, and here is a cute one he got of Sterling.

Weekend in the Mountains

Once again, I had trouble getting pictures on here, so here are 2 out of many that I wanted to get on, but couldn't. We had a big weekend- we went to the zoo on saturday, then visited the Will Rogers memorial. The two pictures below are looking up at the memorial and us on top of it. On Sunday we drove a couple of hours west to visit luke's aunt and uncle, Francie and Rosy. We had a great visit, and Sterling even got to hike and be a mountain climber during the afternoon- he loved it!

MTI days

Well, for whatever reason, the pictures aren't showing up while I'm typing this, so I'm going to have to go by my memory on what all the pictures are :) The first one is Sterling and I with Caitlin Greer, one of our teammates. There is also a picture of Sterling with Owen Parsons (Nick and Rachel's son) and Andy Rodriguez, another member of our team. That picture is from when we went to the playground last Saturday morning. The picture of Luke and Sterling is at Garden of the Gods, and the last picture is Owen and Sterling getting into mischief together at the water fountain. They have proven to be accomplices in getting themselves in trouble constantly! :) Read below for more details! :)





We are having a great time here at MTI...Now that we have ALL had the flu and are over it! It was a miserable weekend for us as Sterling had it first, then me, then Luke. But we are better now and are having a much more enjoyable time :) Yesterday Luke's aunt Francie and friend Candy came to visit us and we went to the Garden of the God's together. There are pictures above; it is an area full of huge red rocks jutting out of the ground. It is truly amazing and beautiful. We have been learning a lot while we're hear-- today we did a simulation of being taken hostages so that we could work through stress and conflict. It was very interesting and challenging. We 've also talked about how it will be entering a new culture and how to manage the stress that it will bring. We've also talked about how to maintain spiritual vitality while we're on the field (without many other Christians around). Those are just some of the things we've dealt with; it is all going to be very helpful training for the field. In our free time we are getting to know our team better, playing games, getting coffee together and playing with all the kids. We miss you all, and hope this gives you a better idea of what we're doing here!

Well, it has been extremely difficult to get pictures on here because the internet is slow here. We have taken many pictures, but I'm only going to put this one up for now because it's already taken me so long to do this! Luke and STerling are down playing in our room waiting on me, so I have to do this quickly. We are doing well here, it's beautiful as you can tell. The training is really good, and sterling is adjusting fairly well to having to be in childcare from 8:30-4:00 during the week. We take him out a lot in the mornings and afternoons and let him run around outside. He just got sick last night in the middle of the night, which stinks because the flu is going around here, and we are all living in close quarters. He seems much better this morning. Hopefully i will be able to post more pictures soon, if I can figure out a better system than this! We love everyone and we miss you all!