September already?

Happy September!!! Some of you reading this are enjoying fall weather. Please send some to North Carolina!!! We are tired of the heat :) I'm ready to bundle the girls up for cold weather. We will get a glimpse of that when we visit family in Washington state on the 17th...please pray for this trip! We are going without Daddy...I'm going to need some serious R&R after this for sure. It will be worth it though...we love visiting Washington!

Update on Catharine...we went to UNC's ER on Tuesday. We were able to see a familiar face from the NICU, Dr. Lisa White was working in the ER that day. She actually discharged Catharine from the hospital and was one of her primary doctors while she was there. A very good doctor. The doctors at UNC think Catharine could have acid reflux and that it could be causing the coughing, wheezing and reactive airway disease. Sounds a little complicated, I know. We will be seeing a pulminologist next Tuesday (lung specialist) and hopefully will get some more answers. We'll keep you posted.

Madelyn has really started pretending. She carries a pink bear around whom she has named "Meow." She takes care of "Meow" like I take care of Catharine. It is so sweet. She is talking so much...too much at times ;) She loves to wear bandaids, take her vitamin, jump on the couch, drink chocolate milk, eat craisens, and watch BOZ, Dora, and Backyardigans. She is such a lively little girl. FULL of energy and always making laugh.

Africa update...

We met with Herman Russell yesterday. He is the head of the 2+3/ISC missionaries. We got some good information from him. On a humorous note, we can only take our SUITCASES to Africa!! We will put all of our belongings in storage somewhere. The 2+2 process is that you fill our phases of paperwork. We are in phase 3, which is the last and lengthiest. Once that is done we wait for an invitation to a conference in January. That conference is in Richmond, VA and lasts 3 days (without kids). The next event is next August, we attend an 8 week training in VA at MLC (Missionary Learning Center) with the kids. This will be a time of extensive training for the whole family. It will be LOTS of fun!!! We are so excited. After the training we will leave the U.S. in early October. Still unsure of where we want to go. We are going to meet with a missionary from Africa who served there for 35 years to ask him about needs in various locations. We think it would be neat to go to Namibia, where I went in 2001.

Continue to pray for us in this process. It is very exciting but a little scary too. This will be our last Thanksgiving and Christmas in the States, which is hard to believe.