It's five days past, but Vikki celebrated her 29th birthday on Nov. 10th. We had some friends over, Julie and Aaron Clarke and their 8 mo. old son Elijah as well as our new Chinese friends from Shenandoah University, Peng and Miaomiao. Julie and Aaron were in our birth class with us and we came to find out that we went to the same church! They are getting ready to go on a trip to Morocco this week, where they eventually hope to be missionaries some day. It's kind of cool that they may end up there at the same time as Vikki's sister, Laura!

For Vikki's birthday, we ate dessert Saturday night and played cranium together. In retrospect, it was probably not the best game for our Chinese friends, who weren't familiar with most of the American cultural questions! We had fun though, even Peng and Miaomiao - and it's always fun to see Elijah and Audriana interact. That Sunday night we went to Julie and Aaron's small group Bible study, where they're looking at the book 'Waking the Dead' by John Eldredge. It was the first time I can remember being in one house with so many babies! We had four babies all less than a year old and another child who was less than three! Aaron had a hard time competing for our attention. =)

We're getting ready to go on a trip tomorrow to Boston, where I purchased tickets to a 'Give me Your Poor' concert featuring Natalie Merchant for Vikki's birthday. We're excited about it, will drive up Friday to see the concert and then do some touring in Boston the following morning before heading the eight hours it takes to get back. It will be the longest that Audriana has been away from her mother and that was a concern because she's still nursing. Grammy kept her overnight and a whole day last week in order to do a test run to see if she would make it! They both did, though Grammy had to wake up every half hour or so until 4 a.m. that night! Still, she is supposedly ready to try again! Good luck Grammy...we'll let you know how it goes.