Beautiful fall days…

Even though things haven't been easy lately, I am thankful for the Lord's provision and a beautiful October post-hurricane.

Thankful that my children are happy and healthy and for the wonderful community of women I have here.

October babies

Happy Birthday to our four October babies. It's going by too fast.

We love you!!!

Happy 1st birthday to Salem!

Ironically, Salem’s middle name is Helene. “She’s named after the hurricane,” my coworker said to her friend. Actually it might be the other way around. She got her name before the great storm of 2024 obviously. It has been quite the first year of life. And she did survive the hurricane.

After an extremely traumatic post-birth experience, and several days of being unnamed, we chose the name meaning “peace” for her. She was born during a particularly unpeaceful time for our family.

But as we wrapped up her first year, God has brought more stability and peace to our family over this last year.

Despite moving across the world, changing homes, jobs, neighbors and lifestyle, we are living in God’s peace, and Salem is a reminder of that.

She is a sweet girl with a silly laugh and a great smile. She loves crawling all over the place, standing up and walking on her knees, for some reason or other.

Camping

We survived our first camping trip as a family! It was a fun weekend at Watauga lake with the parents, Margaret and Charis at the campsite next to ours. We borrowed a tent and sleeping bags and Orcxance enjoyed getting up early and building the fire.

Father rented paddle boards and we all tried them out, even me. Micah also joined for the day on Saturday.

Salem had her first experience sleeping not in her bed, and she was very excited about it especially when she realized she could move all around the tent and explore.

I got some good camping tips from Anna which made logistics and food a little easier. The hardest part was probably the nights when I experienced a lot of pain which made sleeping almost impossible. The girls loved it and I hope we can go again next year.

September

This week we had my birthday celebration and a visit from Dr. Laura and her daughter Esther.

Becca stopped by on my birthday with a picnic lunch and a gift card and beautiful flowers.

The family made a great dinner and I was given some nice presents, most of which were surprises. Margaret gave us a gift card and future date night.

Thanks to Father and Mother, Orcxance even managed to go shopping twice without me knowing and bought a delicious chocolate cake, large mug, and a beautiful red rose, among other things.

He also wrote me a special birthday letter and bravely shared it with everyone at the table by asking Margaret to read the English version aloud. I felt very loved! We went on a few outings with Laura and Esther including the park, the Candy Barrel the greenway and tot lot park. See photos below:

Elk Knob Park Annual Festival:

This was a fun family outing! First time for me but apparently they do this festival every year.

There was lots of fiddle playing, traditional Scottish dancing, clogging, and singing.

There was also plenty of food, including some yummy fried chicken!

The girls were so excited to be able to ride in a wagon pulled by a team of ponies!

There was a cake walk complete with bagpipes music and Molly and Sudie won a cake.