Sigh...

My sister-in-law, Lara, has posted two amazing blogs about the Bierma family reunion in Iowa. The earlier one is a video of pictures of the great-grandkids and some others with a beautiful song, and the newest describes the reunion weekend and our time at the cabin with more photos. PLEASE check out her blog and leave her a comment if you do. She did such a wonderful job describing the reunion and I share many of her sentiments! Go to: www.baasandco.blogspot.com.

Last weekend we camped two nights at Ridgway State Park. On Friday and Saturday, Brad and 6 other church members took four 4WD trails/roads over mountain passes in the area. Unfortunately he didn't take any pictures - he said he wants me to see it in person! So you will have to wait, too.

We borrowed a pop-up camper trailer from the Chandler family at church. I think this has become the next item on our "big-ticket wish list". It sure was nice after tent camping all the time, although we do have a nice set up with our little tent. Cora and I hung out at the campground all day - nursing and napping aren't real conducive to 4 wheel driving.

Ridgway is about 20 miles south of Montrose, near Ouray. The state park was very nice and would make a great place for the next family reunion! Hint, hint, anyone???There is a huge reservoir (the West's version of a lake) with a swimming area, beach, fishing, and boating. Unfortunately we didn't take advantage of the water while we were there. Next time. We had a nice time camping with friends from church and getting to know each other better.
Here's the view from our campsite:

And another view - one that got a lot more attention:

Cora's favorite syllable is a very long, drawn out, spitty "thb":

Home again, or maybe not.

We're back! We had an amazing trip to MI, IA and the cabin. It was more than wonderful to be able to see so many family members and renew our relationships. Cora traveled so well - it was honestly an answer to prayer. We traveled 3500 miles together and were amazed at how flexible Cora was through it all. She was joyful and had her eyes glued on her little cousins every minute they were around.

Michigan was pure hangout time. We hung out at the beach, at the pool, at the park, in the backyard, on Uncle Bud's boat, and other various places. Anneke and Gideon played so nicely with Cora and Anneke loved feeding Cora her fruits and veggies. She did a great job! Gideon learned how to tackle Uncle Brad...and get tackled back.




Iowa was more hangout time but a little more structured. We had almost all of Brad's large extended family together for the weekend. Some of the girls made duct tape purses, the kids rode horses at the farm, we swam at the pool, heard stories of the uncles' and aunts' younger days, and so on. It was wonderful to meet and get to know some more of Brad's family and for meeting the new additions and seeing Grandma who will be 90 this fall!

Our time at the cabin was more relaxed again and we enjoyed the antics of the children and watched some half a million bats fly out to of the big hole to the valley to catch bugs. I know my dad told me a hundred times growing up that bats are good because they eat bugs (like spiders) but I've only recently begun to appreciate that.

After another day home we returned to Montrose for another day to spend more time with the fam. When you only see each other every couple years every minute together is precious. Josh, Anna and Aleya are so full of life and all interacted sweetly with Cora. I think Anna was the most stricken with her of the three. She constantly asked to hold her, help feed her and play peek-a-boo. Cora seemed to thrive on such attention. Even Alec, as a teenaged boy, was so intuned with her that she watched him intently and smiled at his antics.

So now we're home but leaving again tomorrow for a couple days on a church 4-wheel-drive trip. More to come about that later. We'll catch our breath some day...

no news is good news...

Well, I don't feel like I have much to write about these days. Brad is at Camp Redcloud this week with the middle schoolers from church. (He also has our camera.) We are looking forward to next week when we will leave for our "big trip." We will first drive to MI (I think that's about a 24 hour trip) and spend about 6 days there with my family. This is especially exciting because we haven't seen my brother and his family for almost three years! Isn't that crazy? Circumstances just have not allowed us to get together since we lived in CA and they were in Loma Linda for Anneke's heart transplant. So it's going to be absolutely wonderful to be able to spend time together and get to know my niece, Anneke, and nephew, Gideon.

After our time in MI we will drive to Sioux Center, IA, for a Bierma family reunion. This is going to be a blast, too! Brad's siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. will be together for the weekend. The aunts putting it together have been planning some great activities and I think it's going to be a phenomenal weekend.

Finally we will drive back to Colorado and spend some time with Brad's parents, siblings, nephews and nieces at the cabin and probably some time in Montrose at the parents' house. So I believe that within the span of about 10 days we will have seen the majority of both our extended families! Wow!

I will definitely have pictures to post after that trip, but till then I'm not sure if I'll have time or anything to write about!

For now you can enjoy Cora's 6 month pictures we had taken last week. She wasn't so sure about the big camera the photographer kept putting in front of her face so her smile faded each time a picture was snapped. They're still cute, but we didn't capture any of Cora's true smiles. Maybe next time. To view the pictures go to http://www.smilesbywire.com, enter "Kristin Bierma" as the customer name, and enter "LTPP0620103678JCP" as the access code.

6 months!

New stats on Cora:
Weight: 15 lbs 6 oz (41%)
Height: 27 inches (88%)

Cora LOVES Jack, our dog. You can see in this picture that she rolled over towards him and is reaching as far as she can to try to touch him! Jack is very tolerant of her and patient, though he generally doesn't like to have his feet touched.

Jack got up and moved a few feet away, probably trying to state his preference for not being touched on his foot. Cora loves watching him walk around so she was delighted!


Peek-aboo!

Teeth and more

I can't believe how fast time has been going! Brad was gone with some of our high school youth group for a Serve Project in Los Angeles last week. We're thankful for the safety they had while traveling and for the opportunities for growth in the students. Brad said it was an all-around great week.
Cora has two teeth already! The first one (bottom front right) popped through last week Wednesday - June 27. This morning we could feel the tooth next to it coming up, also (the front left inscisor). It's pretty amazing! For the first one we didn't really notice much change in her dimeanor. Last night she seemed to have a harder time falling asleep and we wondered if it was another tooth since we could feel a bulge in her gums. I guess it was!
We gave Cora her first taste of vegetables this week: carrots. She seemed to really like them for the first 10 bites or so, and then all of a sudden she started pulling these horrible facial expressions and looked like she was gagging (she wasn't). It really was hilarious to see. The rest of the day and today she's been gobbling up every bite of carrots we give her, though.

Grandpa Bierma arrived today. He and Grandma are moving to Montrose this week so Grandpa drove out a load of stuff that the moving company won't take. Then he'll come back on Friday with Grandma! We're so excited to be near to them and for them to get to know Cora. We look forward to spending time together.

Click HERE for more pictures of Cora - there's a few great ones of when she rolled herself partly under the couch! She no longer stays in one place, even though she's not crawling yet. Watch out world!
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