Sept 09/Labor Day Weekend

We spent part of Labor Day weekend with friends the Turners, Rooneys and Rob, and celebrated the August & September birthday babies together (Sabrina's bday is not until November, but wanted to be in the picture anyway!).

The next day, the Dixit and Cruz families came in for some time at the lake, a campfire, sleepover and a very long walk on Labor Day that in the words of Deepa Cruz, made them feel like the children of Isreal searching for the promised land!

Sept. 09/ Labor Day Weekend - Celebrating 16 years together!

For our 16th anniversary on Labor Day Weekend, the Jacobs watched our kids and Dave & I tried out a restaurant in Frederick called VOLT that we had been wanting to check out. You know I love fancy food, and this place was the bomb! Really unusual combinations like peanut butter mousse with coconut cream pillows and cilantro...ravioli with morrel mushrooms and creme fraiche foam...some really neat things. The portions were a bit small but by the time they brought out a few surprises (like the skinny dessert plate I'm holding, which was not ordered or charged for) we were stuffed, and they sent us home with fresh muffins as well. I later learned that the chef from this restaurant has been on the show "TOP CHEF". Oh, of course our anniversary was not all about the food, but after 16 years, my husband sure does know that the way to my heart is through my stomach!

August 09/Big Hunting Creek & Cunningham Falls

We spent the last Sunday in August enjoying the gorgeous weather at Big Hunting Creek in Thurmont, a fishing spot Dave has been wanting to try out while the kids climbed the rocks and looked for various creatures (and saw fish, a snake and some crawfish). Then we took a little bike ride at Cunningham Falls, played at the tire playground, stopped by the orchard for some fresh corn and roasted hot dogs over the campfire when we got home. It was a perfect day!

August 09/Summer is over!

The kids got one more pool date after school started before the pool closed Labor Day weekend. As you can see from the girls' expression, they were none too thrilled about summer being over. They drowned their sorrows by playing ROCK BAND on the wii at the Jacobs' house.

August 09/Haiti Mission Trip Reunion

In August, we hosted a little get together/reunion for those that went on the mission trip to Haiti in May. We shared pictures, visited, ate and had a group discussion with Charles, the director of the Eden Garden orphanage. We have decided to make Haiti an on-going international focus of our missions ministry and we are planning another trip for January 2010. Raising $10,000 for the drilling of 2 new water wells is our first project, to replace the current well which is contaminated and making all of the kids sick.