Ethan’s First Graduation

On Friday, May 25, 2012, Ethan experienced his first graduation. He completed “studies” at the Clearfield Pre-School Center. It was a two-year program. Ethan now moves on to Kindergarten!

God, Give Me a Heart Like Yours!

One of the children’s books the kids have enjoyed over the last several months is Hermie, a Common Caterpillar, by Max Lucado (there’s also a DVD). Basically, Hermie, and his friend, Wormie, feel bad about being common caterpillars and keep asking God why they have to be so common. God keeps reminding them that he’s … Read more

It Takes Time to Recover

Last month, Joleen and I celebrated 18 years of marriage (Really?!). It’s been quite an adventure. Everyone has challenges, and we’ve certainly had ours! The first 9 years of our marriage were intense enough—married in 1994, graduated from seminary and moved to PA to co-pastor a small, dying church in 1995, moved to Williamsburg to … Read more

Celebrating 4 Years With Ethan

Four years ago, Joleen and I were in Seoul, Korea to pick up Ethan. It’s one of the real highlights of our lives, a day for which we are very grateful to God! These four photos put the hours surrounding the pick-up of Ethan in a nutshell, from the meeting on February 11 to the … Read more

Family Time at the Bishop’s Retreat

One of the nice things about going to the Bishop’s Retreat each January is that it’s an opportunity to go as a family. This was the fourth retreat that Joleen and I have attended. Amazingly, this was also 4.5 year-old Ethan’s fourth retreat and almost-3 year-old Sarah’s third retreat! The retreat begins on Monday and … Read more

2011 Comes to an End

As 2011 comes to an end, we are grateful for God’s unfailing love and faithfulness. We’re also grateful for our blessings, including our family! It’s been a little while since we’ve posted family photos, so here are several from the last couple of months, including some from our trip to visit family in Tennessee at … Read more

Benefits of Signing

I’ve written about signing before (see Sign Language for Kids and Signing). But I just saw that Signing Time (we have a few of their DVDs) has posted a new PDF document summarizing research on signing. Dr. Claire Vallotton compiled the document which summarizes research findings on the impact of signing on preschool and school-age … Read more

Sarah’s Second Gotcha Day

Two years ago today, Joleen and I were in Seoul, Korea, welcoming Sarah into our family (the day we “got” Sarah). Less than two days later, we brought Sarah home and introduced her to her new brother. Yesterday, we celebrated Sarah’s gotcha day at Chuck E. Cheese in Altoona with Grammy and Pappy, eating pizza … Read more

Sesame Street

A couple of weeks ago, we took the kids to see the Sesame Street show at the War Memorial Arena in Johnstown, PA. We attended the morning show (there were two shows later in the day), which was lightly attended (same as the Thomas & Friends and Barney shows we had attended before). It was … Read more

York, Maine

We recently returned from vacation where we spent a week in York, Maine, on the coast of southern Maine. It was a great week, and the kids enjoyed it tremendously. They got to spend some time at the beach, mostly playing in the sand at Long Sands Beach. They also enjoyed climbing on the rocks … Read more