Family photo shoot

While in Charlotte, North Carolina for the last two weeks we had a new friend take a bunch of pictures of our family.  We haven't been good about getting pictures with all four of us, so we remedied that on this trip.  Charlotte and Mercy were both very good for all of these pictures with no tears from anyone!

Our time in North Carolina was for SIM orientation, and we had a great time.  The weather was beautiful--in the 50s and 60s and sunny most days.  It felt like September in MN; the leaves were still on the trees and the grass was still green!

There were 20 people in the orientation with us, all going to different countries, and we made some good friends who are in very similar life situations as us.  We stayed up way too late most nights just talking to people.  Every day we had classes about a variety of things, everything from computer security to effective storytelling to learning a program for tracking fundraising to personality types and working in a team to how to be safe and many many other topics.  It was really useful stuff and we are still processing all of the information.  Charlotte went to a kids program every day with another 5 year old and three 3 year olds.  They had bible stories, crafts, play time, reading, field trips, walks, and even focused their reading and craft projects on Ethiopia and Kenya, the countries these particular families are moving to.  Charlotte had so much fun!

Belated

I forgot to post these pictures back in early September--oops!  Grandpa Randy came to visit and we took the girls to an apple orchard.

 Who is peeking out of the hay bales?!

 Oh!  It's baby Mercy!

 We rode on a wagon pulled by a tractor out to the apple trees.

 Then we picked our own apples!

 Charlotte and Grandpa had lots of fun picking apples.  It didn't take long to fill up our bags!

 Mercy wanted to help, but she was too sleepy...

Grandpa and his girls.