Sweet lovely fabulous beautiful brilliant Esther, Benjamin's middle sister, has been staying with us helping with the kids over the past few weeks, it has been WONDERFUL. Benjamin and I snuck out to Elliotts (our favorite coffee shop), we all pinicked at the beach, made and ate lots of great meals together, played in the the $20 blow-up pool from K-Mart(our best buy of the summer, hands down) and Josie went on lots and lots of walks with her auntie Es. IT WAS SOOOO NICE. I miss her so much already! We really are meant to be in community with one another, there is no question of that.

We also spent the week getting ready for "the Weddismation Weekend", as my friend Sarah has termed it. The weekend of August 17-19, Anna Lins, Benjamin's oldest sister, is getting married here in Norfolk (!), Josie is being baptised, and Benjamin is getting ordained. Talk about serious celebration!!!!!! I am so excited for all of it, all the people we love who are coming to town, all the great meals we get to enjoy (can you tell I am thinking about food right now!??!? I keep referring back to food today...I must be hungry), and all the exciting events taking place. Today I started crying with joy just imagining all of it. UGH. See, this is why I don't write much on the blog, I get obnoxiously mushy and start to run at the mouth (er, keyboard).

We found out today that several dear families from seminary will be able to attend the Ordination (the Teagues from Atlanta, the Pelanders from CA, the Thomases from Richmond, the Wares from DC, the Noyes from PGH, and maybe even some more)!!! In my opinion, this is nothing short of an extravagant gift from God. Both Ben and I are reeling, we are so happy we are in shock or something, bouncing around the house like children. I think partly it means so much to have GCTS folks there b.c they walked through this with us, hand in hand. It's been such a long and arduous process to get to this point, and it's so amazing to finally, FINALLY, have the finish line of the this leg of the journey in site. Being surrounded by so much family, old friends, and new friends is almost more than I can take. I CAN'T WAIT!

On a seperate note, Simon gave up the binky. COLD TURKEY. What is the secret, you ask?!?!? After having a child go to bed sucking the thing for every nap and bedtime for three years of his life, just how did we convnce our almost-3-year-old to give it up?!?!? BRIBARY, OF COURSE!!! We bought three little monster trucks and one big grave digger (I should explain, thats's the name of his favorite MT). We rewarded in segmants...he is now binky-free AND playing in the backyard in the dirt as we speak. Oh, we have such a LONG WAY to go as parents. At least I am honest about my horrible parenting tactics...although I will say, bribary clearly has a special place in my heart :)