Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas to all! This picture taken at the National Art Museum in Washington D.C. is just a small reflection of our travels in the last two weeks. We've been to Charlottesville, VA visiting Katie's family, Williamsburg, Newport News, D.C. and a surprise trip to Salt Lake City after we were bumped from our returning flight home. We're back settling in for a short week until we head off to Hawaii with Brendan's parents before the semester starts up again. Emma is now a champion traveler. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

A Season of Change

Well we are finally re-emerging into the blogging world after a three month hiatus. The real reason for a lack of updates has been a broken camera. It seemed hardly worthwhile to update without picture of Emma, which we know is why you all check in at all! Along with that has been a hectic few months. As some of you all know, we had been wrestling for awhile with the decision of whether or not to stay in Missoula, working with InterVarsity at the University of Montana. We spent a lot of time this summer praying, listening, talking with friends and family, and just waiting for a direction from God. After a particularly meaningful time of praying with friends, we felt the confirming nudge from the Lord to commit to staying on with InterVarsity in Montana. We decided to make the commitment to be here for the next few years. It was a big decision, deciding to continue to fundraise our income (especially with me cutting back big time with my work at our church) and really settle here for the time being. It was such a hard decision because we both would love to live closer to our families. As an outward symbol of an inward commitment, we began to look into buying a house. God began to move and after a chain of miraculous events, we bought a house at the end of September. October was a whirlwind of painting, house improvements, and living between our apartment and our house. My parents came to visit a week after the move into the house. Then followed Brendan's preparations to co-lead a track on prayer at our fall conference. Which leads us up to now. Here we are, exhausted homeowners. We were not prepared for the stress of moving quickly, having a baby who had a hard time adjusting to a new place, a baby who does not sleep well, as well as our own stress in the changes in life. We are finally settling in. Pictures to soon follow.

Emma update: Our little high energy gal is her old happy self at last. She began officially crawling in the middle of September after a month of doing a pilates/inchworm kind of move. She is the proud owner of eight teeth- six on top, and two on the bottom (why that way I have no clue!) She is super busy and zooms around the house destroying tupperware drawers and bookshelves. Packing was insane with her, I would pack a box, and she would unpack it right behind me. She loves to laugh and has the best giggle that sends us all rolling. We needed someone around here to lighten us up! She learned to climb the stairs at an IV retreat in September and we had to get baby gates as soon as we moved into our new place to keep her on one level. She loves being read to and also loves when her daddy plays the guitar for her. I caught her sitting in the guitar case last week while he serenaded her. She loves dogs and eating dirt from one of our plants if I'm not careful. We love this baby who is growing up into a little girl.

We are posting a couple of pics my parents took when they were here a couple weeks ago, that's all we have, unless anyone knows how to get pictures off a camera phone! We had to buy a disposable camera when they were here because I dropped their digital. Bad luck with cameras I guess. Anyways, we'll update with more pictures of Emma and the house soon!

Beach Photos

As promised, our beach pics from the last week. They're mostly of Emma, but I don't hear any complaints about that!

With Great Grandpa and Grandma Adams

With Grandpa on the minigolf course

Learning to play cards with Daddy

Meeting Great Grandma and Tom Rorrer

First time in the ocean- I'm convinced she WILL be a beach lover, it's in her genes,
even if she did cry when the waves reached her toes

On a walk with Daddy

Fairbanks to Charlottesville to Emerald Isle and back!

Whew! It's been a hectic two months since the last post. We have been traveling all over the U.S. to spend time with family. What a rich time it has been though! Last June we traveled to Fairbanks, AK, Brendan's hometown to see the Jamieson side of the family as well as visit some of our friends there. We came back for a few short weeks in which Brendan and his dad went on a backpacking trip to Glacier National Park, we went to a wedding at Flathead Lake, and spent the fourth of July at Big Sky Lake with Brendan's parents, cousin and her family. After that we traveled to Virginia to visit my family and drive down to North Carolina for our annual beach trip. Emma has proven to be a seasoned traveler with 11 flights under her belt. We are currently surviving the weather in Missoula which has been 90+ every day. No air conditioning has forced us to learn the art of keeping a small apartment cool and perfect the iced mint latte on our espresso maker. We leave in a week to travel to Colorado for the InterVaristy Regional Staff Conference. God has been stirring a heart for prayer and stillness in our lives these days. The topic for the conference this year is prayer. I think it will be a great week of sitting with God, spending time with people who are doing the same thing we are and who love college students, and free child care during the day! What a gift that will be. Be in prayer for us as we are at a crossroad, trying to discern what is next for us and hear God's voice in regards to the future.

Emma has been a constant joy and delight to us. It is amazing to see her little personality develop. She is a happy baby who is constantly flashing smiles at anyone who will look her way. She is also a busy little lady who is almost crawling and constantly into anything she can get her hands on. She popped two teeth (the bottom center teeth) at five months which promptly gave way to us feeding her solid foods. She had been mooching for about a month at the point and we figured when you feel guilty eating in front of your child it might be time for solids. Diapers have become a new smelly experience. She still is not a great sleeper but has changed her 3-4 night wakings to 1-2. Praise God for that, I thought we were going to self-combust if we didn't get some sleep.

Here are some pics of the last two months. I will post the Virginia and north Carolina pictures soon. Hope you enjoy!

A Red Socks fan in the making?

Emma after we had taken away her bananas

(You see how much she loves her food!)

Glacier National Park

In Alaska with our friends Geoff and Nicole and their daughter Maddy

Brendan and Geoff's coffee shop concert

Fourth of July with Brendan's parents and cousins

A musican in the making?

Check back for the VA pictures soon!!

May gone already?

Well, this is a rarity. It's Brendan, writing our family blog. I don't get to do this very much, so I'll try and be brief. We've had a pretty full schedule these past few weeks, with Katie's dad coming to visit, and also Katie's friend Heather Chapell. Heather gets the distinction of being Katie's first friend to come and visit us here in Montana! Congratulations Heather. And thank you for coming, because it was great. The following pictures catalog the events of the past weeks. Hope you enjoy them... they almost all have Emma in them somewhere.

Finally, a good family photo



Heather and Katie at the lake (looking beautiful)



Heather with Emma at our house



Emma (with her "what's going on here?" face) and Larry



Our little cute girl looking cute



Emma chilling in a beach chair



Emma playing with water for the first (though not last) time



Emma having a crazy time with dad!


So, this picture gets a story. After school got out, we decided, with our friends Forrest and Francie, to celebrate by having a Mexican food night... ie Fiesta night. We made some great food and spent the evening with our friends. This picture was taken as we walked to get some excellent ice cream at "The Big Dipper" where we all ordered Mexican chocolate dipped in chocolate... Forrest was in a hurry to get there!

Lastly, I failed to mention that we went to the doctor today. Emma now weighs in at 12 pounds 15 ounces, and is 24.5 inches tall. She's growing well, and is a happy baby most of the time...except at night, where she has decided to start waking up 3 or 4 times again. Her poor parents. If you see us, please show some measure of sympathy... or at least empathy... and disregard the dark circles under our eyes. We love being parents, though, and wouldn't trade it for anything. God has been teaching us a lot these past weeks about ourselves, about himself, and about what it means to be filled with grace (and patience) towards one another and our child.

Oh. PS. I (Brendan) am excited because I've begun recording for the release of a new album. It should be done by the end of the summer. More on that as it progresses... or in the words of our friend (and student) Laura - "Be excited!"

A Week in Pictures

We've been busy with lots of visitors this past week and a few more to come! It's been a joy being with the Jamieson side of the family in the gorgeous Montana weather. Summer is on the way! Here is a quick recap:

Emma's first time at Big Sky cabin (and lake!)

Lakehouse dinner with the family friends Pam and John

Learning some new tricks with Gran

Emma meets Aunt Danielle

Emma meets Great-Grandpa Dave

Testing the water

A Goofy Girl

A Weekend with Auntie Rachel

Last weekend was such a great time with Katie's sister Rachel. It was so good to have Emma finally meet her Auntie. We took a lot of walks, went for a picnic by the Blackfoot River, heard about Rachel's trip to India, ate lots of good food and generally just enjoyed each other. It was beautiful 80 degree weather, which was a nice gift before it decided to snow flurry during the week. In Montana, you never know! We miss you already Auntie Rachel!

It’s been awhile since we posted a blog with our visitors, travels to Bozeman and Fort Benton, and the university finishing up the semester, so we thought we’d give you a little Emma update. At just over three months old, Emma is eating and growing well, probably weighing in at around 12.5 lbs. She is sleeping a bit better, we’ve had a few nights where she has slept from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m. but most nights are more like 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. and then she will eat again at 6 a.m. We are slowing emerging from the world of sleep deprivation. Emma rolled over for the first time on April 25th and her favorite activity is standing (while being supported of course). We think she gets cuter by the day. I went to a baby shower this morning and couldn’t believe how much our baby girl has grown in three months after holding a 7 lb newborn! Here are a few pictures of last weekend. We’ll be posting more regularly, we promise!

Our picnic by the river

Emma's other favorite activity, blowing bubbles

Testing out the water with Dad

Mmmm, lunch!

A sleepy baby

The Girls

Emma meet Mr. Catepillar

Have a great weekend everyone!

Keeping Busy

This has been my project over the past few weekend, to rearrange and redecorate the living room. Before Emma was born, Brendan and I were always rushing off somewhere and spent little time at home. Now that we are more confined to home, i felt it was necessary to make it more workable for us with more storage and different space. I've never spent so much time in my own place! It's been wonderful to be "stuck" at home more.

Emma and I survived the week with Brendan gone. My mom came about halfway through and was a lifesaver. It was so fun to have three generations of Adams women together. We took tons of walks, ate lots of yummy food, and just generally enjoyed each others company. Brendan had a great time in Tacoma with the Intervarsity students. We are happy to be a family again though. We'll post more pics soon!