Asleep at the wheel

So far Maeve, at about 6 1/2 months, is sitting up reasonably, rolling over, testing her vocal cords, doing push-ups, moving around, and often puts herself to sleep by bouncing.

Evelyn didn't really enjoy the jumper but Maeve sure does. She wears herself out jumping about once a day.

China and other news

As most of you know we recently returned from a week long trip to China. Gabe was invited, along with some other businessmen, to give ethics lectures at several universities in China. He spoke on medical ethics. When Gabe was first asked to go, he agreed only to do so if he could bring the whole family. We really didn't think they would want children along but to our surprise they welcomed us all.

I spent weeks preparing and packing us up. However, nothing can really prepare you for a 13 hour flight with a 2 year old and a 5 month old. Praise God and thanks to all those who were praying for us, the flights were not bad at all. Their ears bothered them but not too bad. Gabe and I managed to get a few hours of sleep and the girls a few hours more. And we had a few meltdowns from the girls but they didn't last long.

It's hard to sum up all that we experienced in that week but I think we both walked away feeling blessed and encouraged. God opened some doors for us for future work in China as well as allowed us to get a glimpse of what He is doing among his people there. Evelyn had a blast. We spent part of the time staying with friends which was encouraging for us and hopefully for them. : ) Our friends had 2 kids the same ages as Evelyn and Maeve and Evelyn loved having someone to play with.

The flight back was again long (no way getting around that) but we made it through and were very happy to be home. Below are a few photos. I may post more later.

Family photo outside of a very Western mall.
(Much better than any malls we have around here.)

Maeve enjoying some lunch of dumplings and sweet potato

Countryside view on the train ride

Evelyn checking out the other apartments

On a more difficult note, while we were in China we got news that my dad has been diagnosed with acute myloid (sp) leukemia and has growing melanoma. He as had several cancers in the past so this was not a surprise but it was shocking when they told us he had about 2 weeks to live. If the treatment he is taking works then he could have several more months. He is to go home from the hospital today, Monday. He will continue treatments but as an out-patient. We are enjoying as much time with him as we can. Processing all of this has been hard but praise God that our hope lies with him. My father will either be healed here on earth or have a new body in heaven.

A few new pictures

This year we dressed Evelyn up as a pumpkin and Maeve as a chili pepper. Once Evelyn figured out that you got candy each time you went to a new house she had a blast. It didn't take long for her to want to carry her own bag for fear of loosing all the candy she had acquired. Her favorite piece, the sucker. We were all sticky by the end of the night.

We told her to smile and say cheese. It looks like she is praying...maybe for lots of candy.

Last year we went to the fire station and I couldn't keep her out of the fire truck. This year just standing in front of the fire truck evoked tears and crying.

Maeve and Evelyn sharing a sweet moment. They were laughing at each other.

Customer Service

I recently had such a wonderful experience with a store here in town that I just had to share. About 4 months ago I purchased a Born, leather bag from Browns Shoe's here in town. As some of you may know I have been carrying it around as a diaper bag. Last week I picked up the bag and to my surprise the leather around the handle was torn. I was shocked and sad. The bag was not cheap and I expected better quality from Born. I contacted Born, thinking "It's been 4 months I'm sure there is nothing that Brown's can do for me." I spoke with a very nice lady at Born who said they have stopped making bags and to contact the store I purchased it from to see if they could help me. So I took it into Browns, they took a look at it and said they would see if it could be fixed. They also said if it couldn't be fixed they would either give me another bag (they didn't have any more bags like mine) or give me store credit.

Well yesterday they called to say the bag was ready. I picked it up and it looked as good as new. The store clerk said that if I was satisfied then they would cover the cost of having it fixed. (They use a guy here in town who repairs shoes)

How often do you have a store that takes care of a defect in another company's product? Way to go Brown's!

I Love My Husband

For no reason at all he bought me something that I mentioned I wanted for Christmas and gave it to me a few days ago. He had a sweet card to go with it and he even had it wrapped in a stylish bag.

He does many other things to show his love for me some being changing the dirty diapers and cleaning up after dinner. Oh how I get tired of changing diapers.

Pumpkin Patch and Other Adventures

The past week has been busy around the Neal household. It began last Wednesday with Gabe and I driving to Houston to the U2 concert. The 3 hour drive in traffic was long but we were excited about seeing U2. The 20 minute walk from a parking lot wasn't bad. It could have been further and we were almost there. Getting to the gate and realizing we only had 1 ticket for 2 people was heart sinking. Conversation as follows:

Gabe: Ok, I've got my ticket, do you have yours?
Stacy: (Shocked) I gave you both tickets. Are you joking with me?
Gabe: You only gave me 1 ticket.
Stacy: (panicked) No, I gave you both tickets when we got out of the car.

We start emptying our pockets, hoping to magically find the ticket but no such luck.

Stacy: (upset, all most in tears and trying not to curse at myself for loosing a U2 ticket that my brother-in-law gave me) We'll have to go back to the car. Maybe it's in my purse.

In an almost sprint we got back to the car in record time and greatly relieved and excited to find the other ticket still in my purse.

Oddly enough after being almost an hour late to the opening band we were still able to get floor spots about 50 ft away from the outer stage. We had a great view of U2!

Stacy's lesson learned: Gabe should always ask if I gave him both tickets.
Gabe's lesson learned: Stacy should always give me both tickets.

Well Maeve is protesting with tears and crying that it is time to eat so I'll cut this short.

Other happenings: on Thursday we had a house guest move in. An intern with the Navigators on campus. On Friday my parents came in for the weekend. On Saturday we had a garage sale and made way more than I expected. On Sunday we drove to Austin for a team meeting for our up coming trip to East Asia.

Pictures at the Pumpkin Patch

Evelyn blessing Maeve or casting a spell on her with the piece of straw she found at the Pumpkin Patch.

Maeve staring off into the distant wishing she were somewhere else.

Evelyn likes to pick objects up, put it next to her ear, and pretend she is talking on the phone. She couldn't pick up the pumpkin so she leaned over and started talking.

Evelyn with shampoo in her hair, on her hands, on her clothes, on my couch. She was having a good time rubbing shampoo on the sofa.

New photos of Maeve

I finally was able to take some more photos of Maeve. I just don't have the free time like I did with Evelyn. Below are some from my impromptu photo shoot. I even got a few of her laughing.

Maeve about the same age and pose as the picture of Evelyn below.

Funny Face

Showing some leg

No more pictures!

Zoo Pictures

I thought there were more pictures of us at the zoo but I guess we took more video. Here are a few good ones.

We had a wonderful weekend with Gabe's parents who drove down to see the girls and celebrate Evie's birthday. Evelyn had a blast playing with the their two dogs and loved the attention from GiGi and Poppy.

Evelyn brushing the goats.

So Maeve is laughing and smiling now, she just stops when I pull out the camera. I captured a little smile here.

Evelyn and GiGi walking the dogs.

Evie's 2nd Birthday

Video from Evie's birthday and our trip to the zoo. It's about 10 minutes long. And yes she is crying in the first clip. She stuck her finger in the candle as soon as I put it in front of her. We got off to a rough start on her big day. Pictures to come soon.

Sweet Moments

Our neighbors were so kind as to give us a camera they were not using so below is my first attempt at taking a video of Maeve. It is almost 2 minutes and she really doesn't do much. It is mainly for the grandparents. I know they want to see how she has grown.



It makes me so happy when Evelyn actually does something nice out of her own free will. This morning after I gave her a cup of milk that she was asking for she said "Thank you mommy" and smiled. I didn't even have to prompt her.

A Few Random Pictures

This was sometime in May or whenever it started to get hot. We spent at least one day a week with friends playing in the water. None of them knew how to use the slip' n slide but they had fun getting wet.

Evelyn preferred to drink the water from the slip'n slide

For about a month we went to the park every morning to play before it got too hot. She fell asleep while I was pushing her.

First day of Gymnastics-She was supposed to run around the circle and sit down. Once she finally understood what to do she didn't want to sit down and ran around a few more times. That's her at the top of the picture standing with her teacher telling her to sit.

They're Back

So we've lived here about 3 years now and I should know better than to go to the grocery store the Sunday before school starts, but against my best judgment I went anyway. I will never make that mistake again. I did go with the expectation that things would be crazy so that helped. And I normally don't like to take kids shopping with me but this time Evelyn helped me score the "Parent with child" parking spot. HEB was swarming with people. I felt like I had to wait in line just to get some milk. Not only did you have to navigate through packed aisles, but you also had to work your way around the workers who were re-stocking the shelves. It wasn't even the end of the day and they were already running out of things. Many of you know all this and stayed away from the stores this weekend...in the future I will too.



More pics to come of the kids soon.

My Wife is Awesome

Dear Friends,

Aren't the pictures that Stacy takes great!?! My children are fed and clothed; our house is pleasure to come home to, and I eat like a king when she cooks. Among the many other incredible things my wife is and does let me just say...my wife is awesome.

Gabe

August

So not a lot going on since our trip. We recently celebrated 4 years of marriage, rearranged the furniture in our living room, and I sprained my wrist shoveling dirt in our flower bed. Gabe spends time in the evenings working on his papers. Maeve is starting to surprise us with sleeping through the night. It's not all night or even every night but I'll take it when it comes. Evelyn is surprising us daily with her 2-3 word sentences. I can't believe she will be 2 in a month. I'm feeling better about life with 2 kids. It's amazing how a good night's sleep changes your outlook on the day.

Getting pics of the girls has not been easy but I've taken a few recently.

Enjoy.

Maeve thinking about smiling

Not much of a smile but the only one I've been able to capture.
She is not smiling a whole lot yet.

Wide awake

Head shot

"This bow is doing nothing for me. I demand it to be removed!"


"I'll tolerate the flower but I'm not smiling."

Evelyn taking a bite out of her chalk in her playhouse.
I do feed her food.

My art project for the girls room.

My Favorite Restaurant

Ok, so I completely forgot to write about what I considered the highlight of our trip. A 4 hour, 23 course meal at my favorite restaurant. If humans have the ability and creativity to prepare meals that look and taste as fantastic as these, then I can't wait to have dinner in heaven.

Yes, I realize it may be a little weird to take pictures of your food and then blog about it but I don't care. Don't worry I didn't post a picture of them all, just some of our favorites.

This dish was called RHUBARB with goat milk and onion, on a pillow filled with lavender infused air which slowly leaked out

WATERMELLON with lime and nasturgium. You inhaled it all in one sweet bite.

We called this "Carney Food." On the left is a mustard sorbe with passionfruit and allspice. Doesn't taste weird at all. In the middle was a smoldering cinnamon stick with a fried sweet potato on the end. On the left was bacon cooked in butterscotch, apple and thyme.

SOFT SHELL CRAB with carrot, five spice, and duck

PIGEONNEAU a la Saint Clair (a famous french dish made from the original early 1900 recipe) mazing, and not surprising since Chef Achatz worked at the French Laundry.

Home Again

We are back from Chicago. We got smart on the way back and instead of driving the entire 15 hours in one day we broke up our drive and spent the night in St. Louis visiting some very good friends. The visit was all too short but refreshing.

Our last day in Chicago was spent doing some tourist things. We took an architectural boat tour along the river that runs through the city. We learned a lot about the city's buildings and history. Highly recommend it. A tour with no walking is always nice. Then we went to Millennium Park and walked around some.

The break was nice but we are glad to be home and together again as a family.

Some building from the tour. I've already forgotten but I like the reflection the of other buildings from across the river in this building.

The "Bean" in Millennium park

A flower garden in the park

View of downtown buildings from across the street at the park

Chicago

While in Chicago I thought I would get caught up on some reading and hit the hotel gym everyday. Neither of those have happened but I have scored some great deals while shopping and covered many miles walking up and down Michigan Ave. We've eaten at our favorite restaurant and even took a short trip to South Bend, IN to hang out with some close friends. It has been so nice to have a bit of a break from "normal life." Thanks mom, dad and Marcus for helping to take care of Evelyn.

More pics to come later.

Us at Notre Dame

Maeve sleeping

Maeve in her cute hat that a friend made