First Day of School

Audrey started Kindergarden today.

 I can't believe we've started school already. Where has the time gone?

Sunday Ice Cream Cones and fun food

Bittersweet Chocolate Mousse with huckleberries

Three-Cheese Fondue with Champagne with moose backstrap, bread and apples 

My wonderful new birthday gift

www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Three-Cheese-Fondue-with-Champagne

Red High Heals

Cora came out from having her nap and this was how she was dressed!

Then Audrey had to dress-up the same way.

Trying to fill mommy's shoe! They both love wearing my high heals.

Black Gold!

The treasure we picked as a family. 21 quart bags filled for the winter!! This was our second picking, the first picking we got 15 quart bags. I love being able to go and pick our own fruit. Now on to  huckleberries.

I've never posted a picture of our new flag pole.

Pool time at Papa & Gaga's

In July we took a vacation to California to visit the family there. Pool time was the big hit with all the cousins, which is the first time all the cousins were together. It was such a blast watching the kiddos play. They had so much fun together.

Cora chilling

Jordan

Gabe

Jordan

Cora

Noah

Gabe, Jake & Evan

Jake, Evan & Gabe

the boys

Lizzie

Sam

Noah takes a splash

the boys love playing with Lucas

Noah

More pictures to come.

Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death

This past weekend has been the valley of death for our family and friends. Saturday started out like any other day. Doing laundry, playing with the girls, getting ready to have a couple of friends over off a refreshing blueberry-lemonade-mint slush. Lucas was working the evening fishermen, so it was girl time for me. My friend Kelly and I were just enjoying outside and good fellowship, with the girls running around us, spilling drinks and having fun. When the mosquitoes came out to feed on us, we thought it was a great time to head inside and feed the girls dinner.

So there we were talking and the girls were eating their dinner, I felt a sudden rush of fluid, (for those of you who don't know I was almost 12 weeks pregnant) so I knew it wasn't a good thing. I excused myself and went into the bathroom and noticed all of the blood in my pants and then a tide wave of blood hit. Shocked. Stunned. Frozen. I just knew I had just lost my precious baby. I cleaned myself up and headed out to tell Kelly and to call dispatch to get a hold of Lucas. Kelly was so helpful she gave the girls a bath, got them all ready for bed, picked up their bedroom and was just a comfort to me. The 25 minutes it took for Lucas to get home was pure agony. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to tell someone, telling Lucas that I had lost our precious little baby. In the middle of the night I woke up and all I could think about was a few short words from a worship song that I love.  "He gives and takes away. He gives and takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." I knew that was God wrapping His arms around me and comforting my soul.

Sunday, we all stayed home from church and had a leisure breakfast, listen to a R.C. Sproul sermon and then went to the river so the girls and Lucas could go swimming. During this whole time I was crying off and on just trying to grasp the fact that our baby was gone. We hadn't gone to the hospital because I was already scheduled to see my doctor on Tuesday. I can't tell you what a blessing it was talking to my family and friends who just let me cry with them.

Monday, Lucas had to be gone over night for work so a Faith from church came up and spent the day with me and was a great encouragement to me.

Tuesday morning, Kelly came with me to my doctor's appointment. When I got to the office and was sitting in the waiting room, another woman came in who was somewhere around 7-8 months pregnant and I started to cry knowing that I wouldn't get there with this baby. Kelly held my hand and just kept telling me to be strong. I was crying out to God to be my strength. The nurse called me back and after taking my blood pressure asked me how I was doing, I broke down and told her that I had lost my baby on Saturday. She just wrapped her arms around me and held me as I cried, then she went and got my doctor. Dr Harvey came in and told me how sorry he was and wanted to get right in there and find out what was going on. As the screen came up he said, "Nicola your baby is right there and the heart is beating strong". All I could do was cry out, "thank you Lord Jesus". As if just to give me more confirmation the baby started kicking the wall over and over. I felt like my baby was back from the grave. So baby Swanson is growing strong and is now over 12 weeks old!

The next few days were fill with so much joy as we shared the great news! Thank you Lord Jesus for keeping our baby safe and strong in the womb.

July 4 Celebration

I'm finally getting around to posting on the 4 of July BBQ we went to. We had a great food BBQ pork, potato salad, fruit salad and dessert, with our closest neighbors and enjoyed good fellowship.

mini cream filled pies

all American Apple pie

And what would the 4 of July be without dressing up?

I have know idea!

Even Lucas!

The girls enjoying sparklers. Because we live in the National Forest we aren't allowed to have real fireworks. We didn't get into town to watch any, since we left for California at 4:30 the next morning.

We had a great celebration.

Next to come our trip to California...