Pumpkin patch kids

Saturday after lunch we headed to Butler's Orchard--a farm just down the road that has different crops throughout the year, but our excursion this time was for a pumpkin. The kids had lots of fun walking through the pumpkin patch--Isaac liked finding pumpkins, Samy liked pulling the leaves off the plants. We got some fun pictures!

Today I had the special treat of going to a baby shower for my dear friend from college, Laura. She was one of my bridesmaids and I was one of hers and she and her husband Joel have been dear friends to us for years! God has been kind to occasionally cross our paths through the years, and I am so excited now to live less than an hour away from them! So I included a picture of Laura, Baby T, and me. She's so cute pregnant!

The PC

For those who don't know much about Sovereign Grace Ministries or what in the world the "Pastors College" is that Keith is now serving at, here is a link to some info on it: http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/PC/Intro.aspx

These are a few of my favorite things

We are certainly enjoying our new home--quite a nice change from our last one! And surprisingly one of our very favorite parts is having carpet in the family room again. Keith and the kids had so missed being able to wrestle around on the floor (our last home had tile), so now there is frequently a big tickle fight on the floor after dinner.



Our kitchen, dining room, living room, hallway and family room form a loop and our kids have made it their track. If they're not being tickled than they are running! It is so funny to watch them entertain themselves by just running around and around the loop, laughing the whole time. I'm glad they have so much energy :o)


I haven't had my camera out much since we moved--just been busy unpacking and trying to get back into a routine and meet some new people. But I will take pictures of the house very soon! Here is one of the pond that is down the hill in front of our house, which is really pretty with big weeping willows by it. Isaac and Samy like throwing rocks in it, and Isaac likes exploring the "100 acre woods" next to it (my mom gave it that name and it stuck).

Edisto Island 2008

Ok, so I didn't get the pictures up this weekend, but it's only Wednesday :o)
Here are some pictures from our week long "pit stop" in South Carolina for the Pfaller family beach trip.
We celebrated Mom and Dad's 60th birthdays by doing a skit entitled "When you were my age." Each of us came out in appropriate attire from the year Mom and Dad were our age and presented a few facts of the year as well as personal family humor only we would understand :o) Since the Lindsey family couldn't join us this year they sent a video that was quite hilarious as we watched their second oldest daughter, Hannah portray a 12 year old Michelle perfectly!
But even funnier than their video was seeing my brother Mark in his wife's shorts and my shirt! Oh, I almost wet my pants when I saw him, and the scary thing is my Dad wore very similar clothes at that age! We ended our skit with the three littlest (Mika, Isaac and Samy) coming out with huge leaves for attire and Samy in her leopard print swimsuit and holding a sign that said, "When you were my age God created the earth!"
Sorry some of the pictures are blurry, the flash was off.

It was a wonderfully refreshing time after all the craziness of packing. Isaac and Mika were the best of buddies all week and Samy was frequently in Papaw's lap (which was a nice break from hanging on my leg!). We all had a wonderful time!

The Weltons are back online!

You may have been wondering if the Weltons had wandered right of the face of the earth on their way to Maryland it's been so long since I blogged, but we in fact were just without Internet :o) But I'm finally up and running again today and thought I'd give you a quick catch up on the last two weeks and hopefully pictures will follow sometime this weekend.

So we packed up in Sanford two weeks ago today with the help of our wonderful friends and home group and were on the road after a quick lunch. Saying goodbye didn't feel like goodbye since we were driving to the beach for a week before getting up to Maryland, it just felt like vacation with a U-Haul :o)

We had a great time with the Pfaller clan at the beach in South Carolina, though the cooler wet weather only allowed for about two days of playing on the beach. We had a blast playing games and of course all us girls went shopping.

Bright and early (actually it was still dark) Friday morning--5:40 AM to be precise--the Weltons and my parents headed for Maryland. According to mapquest, it was a 9 hour 35 minute trek, but mapquest obviously doesn't have small children and a U-Haul :o) we arrived at 5:15 PM with two very wound up kids and some stiff legs. [I just saw a chipmunk in our backyard! How cool is that!!] After a quick walk through with the realtor and a fabulous dinner brought over by Aaron and Crystal, our moving crew arrived and had us unloaded in less than an hour with all of the beds put together! There must have been 20 people here. We were welcomed with bags of groceries to stock our shelves from some friends from Knoxville who are at the PC and a bouquet of flowers from Matt and Siobhan Slack. Jeff (Keith's boss) and Julie Purswell came by with a big basket of goodies and more beautiful flowers to welcome us. Julie brought by some Krispy Kreme doughnuts Sunday evening, just after we finished our second delivered meal. Another family we don't know brought dinner on Tuesday, and another family brought by an apple pie Wednesday! I can't tell you how very welcomed we feel!! We are just overwhelmed at God's kindness to us in all that He has provided in getting us here and now that we are here! And I'm not finished telling you everything :o)
We went to Covenant Life Church Sunday morning for their first service at 9 (which is great b/c we're home in time for naps) and the kids greatly enjoyed class while we greatly enjoyed worshipping without them vying for our attention :o) Jeff Purswell taught and we both were very encouraged and convicted by the message. And they just finished painting the children's minstry hallways with beautiful murals of bible stories. It is really cool!!
And there have been so many little things that I just thank God for b/c He didn't have to give them to us (not that He had to give us any of this!), but He is so kind even in the smallest details! For instance, the kids bathroom is totally wallpapered with jungle animals which is fun and all but I thought sure I would have to buy yet another shower curtain to match something in there, but when I went to put the purple one I have up so my parents could use the shower, I noticed that most of the leaves in the wallpaper are the exact same shade of purple as my curtain! I know it might sound silly, but it was such a reminder to me of how God is caring for me even in the smallest details of my life.

Sorry for being so long, just one more thing for today...I got sick with a flu thing Wednesday afternoon (just a little 24 hour thing). But as I laid in bed with a fever, God brought to mind a word Darin Slack had given us about 5 years ago that has described our journey over the last 6 years to a tee. The Lord reminded me how very precisely He had worked out what He had spoken to us through Darin 5 years ago. It wasn't amazing that Darin had relayed this vision so well (though thank you Darin for being faithful to share it with us!)--no, what amazed me was how God knew the end from the beginning. How He had ordained our steps these last 5 years (well, really our whole lives) when it seemed like our prayers were hitting the ceiling. How tenderly He was caring for us when circumstantially it didn't seem like it. Us desiring to move to Atlanta and putting our house up for sale, us selling our house in this very rough market, then finding out about this job just weeks afterwards was no coincidence. Keith getting a seminary degree then getting a job he really didn't like was no stroke of bad luck. It was all the working of our Sovereign God!! We didn't understand it while we "wandered" about, but God was at work and still is, and I can't wait to see what He does next :o)
Love to all and we miss everyone!

Our free Chick-fil-A

So, I've been a little busy packing around here, but I finally downloaded my pictures to my computer so I'll do some catch up.
On Labor Day, Chick-fil-A was giving free chicken strips to everyone who wore a collegiate shirt so we all donned our game gear and got an almost free dinner! Keith and the kids were all in Tennessee shirts, but I still wore my Clemson one :o) The kids had a blast on the playground but we had to twist their arms to get them to eat (I can't believe Samy won't even eat fast food!). Here are some pictures...

Trees and hills

Keith and I left early Thursday morning for our 14 hour trek to Gaithersburg in his '91 pick-up truck that has no cruise control. Crystal said, "It's like a 14 hour date night!" It was quite reminiscent of our courting days, not having the children and being in the truck, but not what I would prefer for our dates to look like :o)
The big news of the trip is we found our new home in Maryland! God very kindly and graciously provided an amazing house for us and way more than we ever thought we would get in our price range! The realtor that was helping us up there saw this house (which was out of our price range) and thought it was so perfect for us he called the other realtor and asked the owners to lower the rent $150 a month and amazingly they agreed! They had had some terrible renters and just wanted some people who would care for their house and really enjoy it and after hearing about us they agreed to lower it! It had only been on the market 5 days, so it was really unheard of to lower it so much so quickly except for God giving us favor with them. We saw about 10 other places on Friday and none even came close to this one and most of them had 2-3 other people interested in the place.

So, it has 3 bedrooms, 2 full and 2 half bathrooms, plus a garage, a finished basement, and a sun room! The best part is that its only 5 minutes to where Keith is working (which is also where our church is) and there are like 15 families from the church in the neighborhood and a few of the pastors within a couple minutes walk! There is a huge common area and a couple of playgrounds in the neighborhood, and the grocery store is just around the corner. So, we shouldn't have to be driving too much which is a really good thing because I know I'm going to get lost! As our realtor put it, the roads are like spaghetti just plopped down--all curvy and intertwining and no rhyme or reason to them. Even this traffic engineer can't figure out what they were thinking when they made this city :o)

Gaithersburg is beautiful!! I felt like I was in a neighborhood the whole time we drove around because there are just trees and hills and beautiful parks and lakes everywhere. And it was already so much cooler than Orlando, though that's a reminder of how much colder our winters will be :o)