Zach's baptism

Of all the responsibilities I have as a parent, their spiritual development is the most important.  Deut. 11:19 - "Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."
So getting to see the pay off of my child accepting Christ and then pledging his life to Jesus through the outward expression of Baptism, is the highlight of my life!  It's like an addiction, I can't wait to do it again with Samantha!  Watching, teaching, listening as we discover the Lord together was, at times, a struggle.  But now, Zach is the one instigating Bible study.  He hungers for the Word and reminds me to be more diligent.  I couldn't be prouder.

Zachariah Daniel Baierl Baptized: August 22, 2010

Kids at camp.

We dropped off both kids this year at Sky Lodge Christian Camp.  Whao, that was a little scary.  Zach was excited to show off his knowledge to Sam as soon as we got there.  It was hard keeping them by us while we checked in!  I can't believe how fast they are growing up.  There were no tears as we left.  Just a quick hug and some words of wisdom.  Then, they were off playing with friends again.
When we came to pick them up a week later, they were talking over each other to tell us all about their adventures.  I love this place and thankfully to do the kids.  I was told several kids came to Christ while at camp, woot!  Sam told me she swam almost everyday.  I guess she missed one day.  No shock there for my little fish.  Unfortunately, the kids didn't get any pictures while they were there.  The Canteen that normally sells them was sold out I guess.  But they absolutely loved it and we are already starting to save for next year which will be Zach's last year to be able to go.

12 year Aniversary & Matt's birthday

After we dropped the kids off at Sky Lodge Christian Camp, Matt and I had a whole week to ourselves.  We spent the first part of the week doing, well, not much of anything.  I got ready for the new school year, whoo hoo.  But we did take time out for us.  We went to Chicago and spent a lazy, pamper ourselves time at the Amalfi Hotel.  It was so relaxing.  Here is our view from our hotel window.

The room was average size.  Nothing really that special.  But here it is anyway.

I think our favorite place in the hotel was the fitness room.  I miss it already.  We only spent one night at this place. so there wasn't much we could do in our limited time.  But the hotel had free evening cocktails, so we tried that.  The lounge area was kinda small for the number of people that were in there so we left after one drink and went across the street to Harry Caray's Italian Steakhouse.

Which we also could see from our room window.  It was pricey, but good.  Then again everything, in my opinion, was a little pricey.  But price aside, we enjoyed ourselves and that was the whole point of the vacation.  Of course the next day we checked out and the then tooled around down town Chicago, but after awhile we got frustrated with the traffic and headed home.  Turns out President Obama was in town and Transformers 3 was being filmed so there were several streets that were blocked off and that made traffic a nightmare.
Matt loved the busy city and handled the traffic brilliantly, I just felt claustrophobic.  Thankfully the good Lord gave me this man as my husband who, is a calm get through busy streets while taxi's pass you in the parking lane, kind of driver.  Which makes me, a normally stressed out driver, able to sit back, enjoy the view, and make the occasional comment about crazy taxi drivers.