Chillin' in Costa Rica

Matt just returned this week from his travels in Costa Rica over the last two weeks. During the first week, he was on vacation with his dad, Pastor Ron and Ron's family. They surfed, fished, relaxed at the beach and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine and delicious seafood. The next week, they led a group of college students from MWay on a trip to the Nicoya region where they connected with a local church and helped with many of the ministries and outreach in the local community.

Here are pics of Matt catching some big fish with Ron, Brett and Papa John. The water and scenery in Costa are amazing. And the people are so friendly and welcoming. The people at the church where they worked are so kind. It's obvious how much they love the Lord and are really trying to reach their community with His love.

While Matt was gone, Walker certainly became more and more active! Jamie went to GA/Acteens camp in central Florida for a week to teach the girls about Ethiopia. Camp was a blast! During that time, Walker started kicking even more. Now we can feel little body parts sticking out in my belly. Sometimes it feels like there's a foot or an arm poking me...it's so funny and cute!

We are gearing up since we have only eight weeks left. It's so exciting! We have a few showers coming in in the next several weeks and we can't wait to see what fun items we get for Walker. We are also working on finishing his room, so we'll post more photos soon once we've done a little more.

St. Augustine Escape

This week we traveled to St. Augustine for an overnight stay on the beach to celebrate our six-year anniversary. It's really hard to believe it's been six years...not to mention the fact that our 10-year high school reunion is coming up next month.

It was so much fun getting to go on a short trip where we swam and walked on the beach, ate delicious seafood and saw two new movies. It was also shocking to walk on the beach on a day that wasn't unbearably hot and look down to see my hands huge and swollen...gross! Matt called my fingers sausages. Isn't that sweet?

Pregnancy in the summer in Florida is really all about water retention and swelling of certain body parts, like hands and feet. Currently, my right foot stays swollen most of the time. So cute, I know!

I just look at myself some days and can hardly believe the size of my tummy! It's such a science experiment. It's so much fun, though. I just have to laugh when I hear people call it a beach ball or when people tell me Walker is going to be a football player when he comes out (you know Matt would prefer he were tall like a basketball player). All I know is that we are so excited...we can't wait to meet the little guy!

Belly at Bible Club

Last week we helped host a Bible Club at some local apartments with our church. It was so fun getting to hang out with the kids and meet the families there. We thought we would include this photo with Pastor Ron, Matt and Jamie to show the ever growing belly and just a fun photo of us hanging out and sweating profusely during the Club. Now we are officially at week 28 (7 months!)...so it's only going to get bigger each week!!

Working on Walker's Room

We finally started working on Walker's room this past weekend! It was so fun painting and putting together the crib and dresser (well, maybe the dresser took a little longer than usual, but Granddaddy was there to help!). We had lots of help from our family as we were cleaning out the "guest room" and turning it into Walker's room.

While Matt and our families worked on the room (Aunt Julie, Aunt Ashley and Uncle Kyle helped prep for painting, and Matt and Papa John painted the room together), Jamie took the opportunity to take a nap and prop up her swollen feet. Yes, the heat of summer in Florida is definitely setting in and becoming apparent in all kinds of lovely swelling. I guess Belle and Mei-mei also wanted to nap on the couch while everyone else worked.

These are just a few preliminary photos of the baby room...there's still so much work to do, but we wanted to give a sneak preview. We can't wait to finish it. Jamie's sister, Wendi, is coming over this week to work on adding waves to the walls between the two blues (like the ocean and the sky) and a mural over the crib. We are also going to add some cute "beachy" things to the walls like small surfboards and fishing rods.

We took the "Walkman" photo because Aunt Julie and Aunt Ashley came up with that as Walker's nickname. So Matt painted on the khaki wall before we painted it blue. Now he can be either WOW or Walkman. :)

Hanging with the Kids

We got to visit Jamie's sisters, Beverly and Kristy, and her niece and nephews, Tyler, Kaylie, Noah and Connor a few weekends ago. We thought it was funny to see Aunt Jamie with Kaylie and Connor back in January and then a photo of all of us together in the last month. There's definitely a slight difference...and it's certainly growing bigger every day! We had a great time getting to visit our family in Deland and Deltona...everyone is so excited about little Walker coming soon!