Ohh man..

Long time no post! June ended up being busier than expected. We took 2 'working getaways' to attempt to write a book, aimed at HS and MS students titled 'Stand Your Ground.' Which is based off of Joel's school assembly presentation. The trips went well but the time away from Joel was difficult for us both!
Both getaways were at Indian Lake, in NW Ohio. A generous friend of ours and ministry donor encouraged us to use her huge lake house whenever we needed it.. we took major advantage of her offer! Joel writes about our book writing endeavor HERE in one of our latest Pentons' Progress issues. We made good progress, however, we still have a LONG way to go.. please pray for this huge undertaking as we would love to get it to the editing stages come September.

We also did some major house projects in June which were fun and much needed. The biggest one (in amount of hours) was moving Joel's former office into the loft so that we could set up and make room for Little Joel's new big boy room.. which will eventually be the room for both boys. (Hopefully the Lord will continue to bless us with more children!) sounds so easy.. right? Yeah, why are these projects always more difficult and time-consuming than expected? After we finally got Joel's new room mostly done we moved him in there and thought he would sleep just as well on a mattress on the floor as he did in his old crib. Ha. We sleep deprived him for a week (he would only sleep 1 hour for his nap but usually sleeps 3 hours) and then got horribly sick for a week straight after that. (See Below) So.. we moved him back to a pack n play inside his new room and will try again here soon. I attribute most of the problem to him not being adjusted to the room as 'his' room. So. ...we will see if time has helped or hurt the situation. Here is a pic of Joel enjoying his new table and chair set from IKEA, he is also enjoying a wrench of Daddy's.
We attended a couple of friends weddings, here is a pic of us at our friend Tim Rader's wedding.. I'm about 28 weeks in this pic, that would explain why I still look 'cute.'
We then had a lazy B-day celebration for Joel Jr. with some cake.
Then attended another wedding - a fancy wedding of Joel's good friend David Patterson, who was #97 on the D-Line.
With each wedding I get hotter (like, temperature wise) and huge-r. We are going to another wedding of a friend of mine in mid-August. I don't think I will be posting that picture!
We recently took a much needed 'Spiritual Retreat' where we watch and listened to 6 talks on 'The Supremacy of Christ and the Church in the Post Modern World." Click HERE for details. Again, we shipped our boy off to the grandparents.. It was refreshing and as I said above - much needed. We are considering doing this annually and possibly as a ministry.. because seriously, what is more important than Jesus? Honestly though, I think we were challenged to ask ourselves that question over and over during the trip itself as our dear son came down with high fevers for 4 days (like above 103) and then a rash and extreme irritability. (it was Roseola) Finally, he recovered and we were all reunited just last week - it was a relief!

Right now I am focused on making it through each day without passing out and trying not to become a whale. The new baby seems to move much more than Joel did and does seem to be bigger, however its easy to forget. Right now I'm almost 32 weeks and I feel like I did at around 37 weeks with Joel.. I am not sure how I will make it through August!

VIDEO UPDATES
Joel sitting in lawn chair : http://blip.tv/file/3895131
Joel lifts weights: http://blip.tv/file/3895226
Joel and Daddy sword fighting: http://blip.tv/file/3897975
Joel does his 'funny walk' : http://blip.tv/file/3900266