Halloween

This year for Halloween we took the kids to the McDowell's house....the neighborhood that I spent every year trick-or-treating in as a child. Last year we couldn't get Blake to step foot in his costume and he screamed until we gave up trying. This year he loved wearing his dinosaur costume that grandma made him. We even took him trick-or-treating for the first time with his little buddy Diego...they LOVED it! I think that Matt and I had even more fun than him however....watching him knock on the door and try to say "treat" was just adorable. There were tons of kids out this year too and most of the houses were pretty decked out with decorations.

Blake and Diego

Manuel, Diego, Blake, and Matt

Brittany and Tessa...such an adorable little cow she makes!

Woodland Park Zoo

Yesterday we took the kids to the Woodland Park Zoo! Kids in costume got in free and the zoo gave pumpkins to several of the animals. It ended up being a beautiful sunny day and we had a blast seeing all the adorable kids in their different costumes. I think Blake's favorite part was the monkeys, though we didn't get any pictures of those. One highlight for us was seeing all of the animals that came from Indonesia....and there were several! We saw orangutans, Komodo dragons, tigers, monkeys, and many others....all from the country that we will be moving to!

Beautiful Sumatran Tigers

Sloth Bear trying to get an apple out of this pumpkin

Blake wearing his dinosaur costume that grandma made!

Cutie in her bear costume

Rainy City

After several weeks on the road, we have arrived in Seattle! I have to say, it is so nice to be here at my parents house and be able to spread out a little. We plan to stay through Thanksgiving, connecting with churches and friends in the area. One of the highlights so far has been introducing our little Callie to my grandma, who had to wait four months to meet her! The emotion on her face when she met Callie brought tears to my eyes. What a special moment. She also just celebrated her 90th birthday. I was devastated to have missed the party, but we celebrated a little when we got here. Each moment with her is such a gift....I just love my grandma.

Ellie

Random Pictures from Trip

Mt. Shasta

Cousins with their party hats...what a bunch of cuties!

Whoa look at those cakes!

Late birthday celebrations

Grandpa Scheer

Aunt Jamie and Abby

Blake picking out his pumpkin on Zach's pre-school field trip

Cousins in thier purple jammies (Callie and Abby)

Crazy Life

The day after we finished re-siding and painting the whole house, we packed up to leave for our several week journey up and down the West Coast. Luckily we found people to watch our house while away. After loading up the van with 4 adults, the kids, the cat, baby swings, bouncers, toys (you get the idea), we were off!

The next several days included stopping in Seattle for the night before heading down the coast to Brookings, Oregon. A friend allowed us to stay in their lovely condo for a couple of nights. Most of the time it was pretty foggy, but what a beautiful place! Blake was a little scared of the ocean, but overall he had a good time.

Driving through the Redwood Forest was amazing. It's hard to fathom that some of those trees have been there for over a thousand years! From Brookings we drove to San Jose....it took us a total of TWELVE hours with the kids and when we finally arrived in San Francisco, after at least 10 and a half hours of driving, we got stuck in the middle of the city in an absolute gridlock. We must have sat there for over an hour and moved only a few blocks. Callie was screaming in the back, and Blake had done amazingly well until that point but then he lost it too. I will not lie...it was horrible. I will say that through all of this we are learning to be more and more flexible. Many nights we are up with the kids and it feels like we are constantly packing up and moving again, finding odd places for the kids to sleep and messing with nap and meal schedules...but we've made it so far.

We have been in San Jose for about a week, staying at Matt's sister's house, and it has been a lot of fun! It's a little tight in the house (there are 4 of us adults and 5 kids, not including the family that comes over during the day), but we've all been doing pretty well. We've had some pretty fun dinners with the whole family too....one night we had a Rwandese meal...last night we had an Indonesian night...yum yum!

So what's the plan? We are now in Oakland for a couple of nights with the entire extended family on Matt's mom's side, to hold a memorial service for his grandma Waite. Then we will head back to San Jose for a week and then leave to head back up the coast, eventually stopping in Seattle for several weeks.

Re-siding our House

Re-siding our house has been on our list of things to do since moving in six years ago. We finally decided that we'd better make it a priority while the weather is nice, since we plan to sell before we head to Indonesia. We are extremely blessed to have a church that is dedicated to helping us get to Indonesia, so they made and announcement one Sunday and several guys from the church came out to help on a Saturday. We were so amazed and all of the people willing to serve, especially on a Saturday! Matt and my dad finished the rest, and then Matt's parents came to visit and Matt's dad helped us paint. Unfortunately we had to leave and forgot to get a picture of the finished product, but we'll post it later. It looks great!

Home Again - By Ellie

We are home! We arrived back in Spokane on Saturday and are now trying to get settled after five weeks at the MAF headquarters in Idaho. Our time there was challenging to say the least, but it was also good in many ways. We made some life-long friendships with the other missionary families and MAF staff and it was incredible to be around people that were going through the exact same thing. We had full days of classes, several hours of homework each day, presentations, sickness, fatigue, and often operated on little sleep because of the baby, but it all proved to remind us of God's amazing grace and strength in our weakness. Somehow He pulled us through and showed us that it is by His strength and not our own that we can do what He has called us to do.

As we were driving home, Matt and I reflected on this truth. It seems that the times we are completely out of our comfort zone, we see God work the most. It takes getting us to a point when we realize that we can't do it on our own and we have to completely depend on Him alone, and He blows us away by His grace and power. Things that seem impossible become possible.

So what's next? In the next several months we will spend our time reconnecting with friends, family, and churches and begin building a partnership team. We plan on visiting California, Seattle, Colorado, and Utah in the near future. I feel a little sad thinking about how little time will be spent at home in this next year, but we are also super excited to see everyone and build new friendships.

Please Pray:

I hurt my lower back right after we got home and have been in a tremendous amount of pain and have had to lie flat for the last 2 days. Please pray for healing!