May/Jun 2006

In May our lovely friends Dave and Row came to visit. They shared a house with Lizzy in London before we married and have since got married themselves. This was the first time we got to meet Ben, their first child, since he had been born, so we were very excited to see them all. We took them to Sedona where we tried to swim in a river but it was far too muddy to get in - though the scenery was beautiful!

I know we look lost, but in fact this is 50 feet from the car park.

Daisy and Lucy loved playing with Ben...

They went for a week's travelling around Arizona,

looking at canyons, other canyons and more canyons!

And the Anthem water park finally opened!

Here's Dave doing a daring dive from the top board...

and Row and Ben relaxing in the pool...

What else? We were very sad that Lizzy's much loved Grandpa Curnock died. Lizzy was unable to go to the funeral but was part of it by writing a celebration of his life which was read out at the funeral by her sister, Esther. Daisy celebrated her 4th birthday and we marked our year anniversary of living State-side, temperatures hit +100F, pre-school ended, Lizzy's Mommy and Me group finished, Daisy went into hospital with Strep-B and was on a drip for dehydration (she's fine now), Lucy continues to try to talk, Brian Doerksen led worship at church and spent the day with the worship team, Lizzy's sister Esther got engaged... Not much, really!

Last week church ran 'VBS' (Vacation Bible School) which is a holiday club; Lizzy led a class of 16 four year olds and Gareth helped with the worship. We celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary by having a night away at a resort hotel which was wonderful.

Looking forward, Gareth's team are going on a 2 day retreat, and then he is travelling to Nashville for a writing retreat, and then off to Vancouver to spend some time with Brian Doerksen. We're then off to Family Camp, a church weekend away over July 4th weekend; all the while preparing for our return to the UK in July which we are really looking forward to.