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The Long Road Home...

(Isn't Gracie ADORABLE with a missing top tooth?!)

Josh sent me to a Biblical Counseling conference, keeping ALL the kids for me while I attended! What a husband! He camped out at his grandma’s in Illinois and great-grandma got to spend some quality time with Noah – what a blessing for all of us! I drove each day an hour and a half to the conference and we jumped through some hoops to make sure that Noah had enough milk.

(Great-grandma with 6 week old Noah)

The rest of the week we were able to meet with two churches and several individuals about our missionary endeavors and support-raising. The girls loved spending time with family, playing outside in a YARD, and taking family walks. By the weekend, we got busy preparing for our cousin’s wedding which was a delightful event. Ana literally danced the night away, fascinated by the wooden dance floor on the grass in the backyard under an elegant tent. She did not stop running/dancing/hopping around the dance floor for two hours straight and only then because the rest of us needed to go home to bed!

(Ana is on the left dancing with her little adorable cousin, Claire)

(Gracie also LOVED dancing, lasting a few songs herself, punctuating the music with her thrilled yells and screams and giggles!)

Sunday brought the opportunity to meet with two churches – always a great encouragement!

We then got on the road immediately after evening church (but not really leaving till 10pm our time). Josh drove through the night heroically but made the unfortunate mistake of following the GPS and we ended up in Canada without our passports! We passed a “fun” hour being detained at the border as Canada didn’t allow us in and the USA had to go through formalities to let us back in without proof of citizenship for the children (I haven’t even gotten Noah’s birth certificate yet!). We had to get EVERYONE out of the car (3 adults, 3 sleeping kids) and wait and then once cleared, we had to backtrack many hours to resume our journey.

Determined to see Niagara Falls, we still stopped by for a brief half hour in the rain, albeit at 2:30pm rather than 8:00am as previously scheduled! Always an adventure traveling with the Rattins despite best intentions, preparations, and planning!

(The tired, wet Rattin family at Niagara Falls – not pictured is my sister in law who made the road trip with us.)

(Now 7 weeks old, Noah is more adorable every day!)

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