The Lord Provides Rest and Fun!

Josh, Isaac and I really enjoyed our time at the staff conference. It was just what we needed. For the past few months many strange circumstances have kept me from sleeping. It started off with Isaac getting sick, then Josh got really sick, then Isaac started teething, I got flea bites in Nelson and couldn't stop itching...it is a long story, but the end result was that I was exhausted. All of this to say that I wasn't exactly pumped to go to a 1 week conference where the three of us would be squeezed into one room. Thankfully the Lord intervened. We were able to put Isaac to bed each night in the room across the hall, a few friends prayed for me and I finally started to sleep through the night again, and Isaac slept well too! The best part was the fun that God provided for us at the conference. Some of our teammates offered to watch Isaac, which allowed Josh and I to go kayaking, play soccer, join in on the team building activities, run, and take a few trips down the wildest water slide ever! It was so fun and we both really enjoyed ourselves. Here are some fun pictures that we took with Isaac during one of the days at our Conference.

Nice crazy hair Isaac
Isaac is so ticklish, which he gets from his mom. Josh loves to tickle him, zurburt him, whatever...

 

Isaac's First Experience with Grass!

I just wrote about Isaac's first experience with grass in my last post, but I had to add these photos in a larger version so that you all could see the progression of Isaac's reaction to the grass...check out the look on his face...priceless! First picture: JOY and CONTENTMENT.
Second picture: Woah dad, I am not too sure about this...
Third picture: This feels awful! Get me off of this stuff!
Last Picture: Whew! Safe on the blanket. What the heck was that? I much perfer the soft feel of the blanket on my toes to that yucky, cold stuff.

Road Trip to Matamata

Josh, Isaac and I just returned home from our National New Zealand Student Life Staff Conference in Matamata (that was a mouthful). We road tripped 8 hours to our special location in Matamata, a stones throw from Hobbiton, which was extra special for Josh. We stopped at a park on the way and Isaac and I went for a little ride on the swings. Isaac also had his first experience with grass! By the look on his face you can tell that it wasn't the most pleasant of experiences for the little guy...I guess he takes after his cousin Paul who use to pull his feet up off the ground when his little piggies touched the cold blades of grass. Must be a Felix thing.

So much energy!

God has definitely blessed us with a little boy FULL of energy. I just finished giving Isaac a bath and he was having the time of his life. He got to splashing in his little ducky tub and he splashed most of the water out of his tub and onto mommy! I had to grab a towel from the towel rack and drape it across my body. I kept a close eye on him as he choked on a big whalopping splash...funny is he didn't seem to mind. He had water all over his face. BIG drops running off his eye lashes and nose. Then when I put him on his changing table to lather him up with lotion, and put his nappies on, I could barely get him to lay still. He is so curious right now and he wants to touch and play with EVERYTHING! He is such a bundle of energy and such a nosey parker.

The End Celebration!

Here are a few pictures from our final banquet during the last night of project. Isaac is in his pajamas as we knew that he would be tired after all of his socializing with the students and he would crash when he got home. He is talking so much! I had to get up and talk about my girls and hand out certificates to each of them. The whole time I was presenting Isaac was in the back with Josh jabbering away. The students on project nick-named Isaac "Mini Gantore", which morphed from our Wellington team nick-naming Josh "Gantore". Josh is pretty tall, I will give them that. By the end of project they started to call me "Mommy Gantore." It always amazes me how people come up with nick-names.
Here are the women I discipled on project. From left to right: Jen, Nancy, me, Jade, and Shareena.
Here is my friend Joelle. She was actually the first student I met and discipled while I was in Christchurch in 2002. She is on staff now with Student Life (which is Campus Crusade here) at the University of Canterbury. It was so fun to see her this summer and to hang out with her again. She brought 8 women with her from Canterbury, which was so encouraging to me. God quadrupled my efforts in Canterbury and I am not even there.
Here is Josh and the band hamming it up.  

Sand Castle Building Contest

One of the coolest outreaches that we did this summer on our beach project was a sand castle building contest. I am not sure why we called it a "sand castle" building contest, as people could build whatever they felt inclined to build. We had 300 people show up for the main event. People were pretty competitive as the stakes were high. First place received $300, second place received vouchers for Starbucks and coffee, third place got a few water bottles or something like that, and we had a few other prizes as well. This one group of 12 year old's built a couch, a group of guys just dug a hole....hmmm, one group added a chachi stick in the middle of their castle just so that they could win the tallest castle (nice try). Here are a few pictures from the day. The neatly sculpted alligator one first prize. After the awards were given out Justin O'Malley shared the Gospel, which worked well as he is a kiwi.

Date Night on Project

We had 36 students from across New Zealand on our beach project in Nelson. I discipled and lead a bible study for four women (Shareena from the Solomon Islands, Jen from NZ, Jade from NZ, and Nancy from Thailand). I loved meeting with these women every other day on project! Isaac was teething and he had a runny nose, so he was not the happiest of little chaps. I really looked forward to spending time with these girls, studying 1 Thessalonians- which I absolutely loved- and talking about God. Josh and I both gave a talk on project, which was fun....especially after it was done. I get so nervous....the night after I felt so relieved that I felt like I had just finished finals. he he. Josh was in charge of the band and he also trained a few staff on project. Here are a few pictures from our date night on project. One of the guys bible studies asked out my bible study and they took us to a yummy pizza place.

 

Favorite Isaac Pics from Nelson

This first picture has got to be one of my all time favorites! Look at those chubby cheeks and that face...I think I could stare at it all day and still smile. Isaac is about 7 1/2 months old now. He has two teeth on the bottom and two that are almost in on the top. I think he just went through a growth spurt as he has been eating non-stop and he has almost out-grown his beloved car seat. He still loves his johnny jump up and his saucer, and he is 99% sitting up on his own. Just yesterday I walked in to the living room and I noticed that Isaac was leaning forward in his saucer and he seemed to be looking at something. He would lean forward, look for a few seconds, then lean back and pause for a bit to think. Then he would lean forward again and go through the same process. As I peered around his saucer to get a closer look I realized that Isaac had discovered the mirror! He was looking at himself and trying to figure out who the baby looking back at him was. It was so cute! He loves his exersaucer...man, he gets going and he can sure make some noise.

Here is Isaac passed out during one of his naps. I love how he sleeps like a little frog. We stayed in a little one bedroom house while we were in Nelson. Isaac had the bedroom to himself and Josh and I pulled the mattress into the living room and slept on the floor each night. We tried sleeping in the same room with Isaac, but he is quite the mover and shaker. Lets just say that we didn't sleep too soundly with Mr. Scuttles in our room. I enjoyed sleeping on the floor in the living room. I told Josh that it made me feel like we were having a slumber party each night.
 

Josh and I bought Isaac this silly orange lizard from a popular outdoor store in Nelson called, "Khatmandu". It actually looks more like an orange worm with legs, but I thought that it was cute. Josh, being the creative guy that he is, decided that Isaac needed to ride the lizard. Isaac also enjoys drooling on him.


This is usually how Isaac ends up on my lap during each feeding... for some reason he really enjoys taking a break in the middle of eating-one of his arms is usually thrown back, and he makes gurgling noises with the milk that is still in his mouth, or he will just sit there and talk while mom patiently waits for him to get back to business. He is such a ham.