5Crawfords

We've moved on to our next stop in Glendora at my sister Tr aci's family, but what a great week we had in San Diego with A lisha's brother's family and her parents at her brother's house. Her brother has 3 boys too (TJ 10, Tyler 8 & Jake 5) so there was much chaos with dirt bikes, trampoline wars and dart gun fights, but we all had just a great time visiting. We went Sea World, walked the tidepools with the seals in La Jolla, had a grea t Christmas opening a house full of gifts and capped it off with a trip to Legoland on the last day. The boys were in 7th heaven - I think they'd l ive at Uncle Brian and Auntie Shannon's house if they had their choice - it is the perfect setup for boys. We thought Graysen may have slightly fractured his lower left leg after a gnarly fall on the trampoline Christmas Eve, but he seems to be limping around on it ok n ow. Otherwise, we enjoyed the mid-60's weather - a far cry from the 20's and 30's and snow we se...

Thanks to Alisha's brother Brian for laying out our new blog banner! He's the master at Photoshop. This is a picture of Brian and Graysen at Legoland yesterday! ***1 month from today we fly out of SFO for Uganda!! Getting excited.***

This is out of order, but we wanted to include some of the pictures from Brodie, Jonah & Graysen's last day of school. Graysen & Jonah's classes had a singing presentation up front in the main sanctuary at First Presbyterian in downtown Medford. For some reason, Graysen felt embarrassed to be up in front of 50 people even though he was anything but just 4 days earlier up in front of nearly 1000 people at church - 3 times! So he stood up there looking scared most of the time. Jonah held true to form and belted out every last word during his performance, with a confidence that definitely exceeded his talent level! His showmanship was top notch though, and we were as proud as could be of our little wailer. We were sad to say goodbye to their teachers as well - Mrs. Mayfield and Mrs. Fort who hold a special place in the boys' hearts. Brodie's last day was very special as well. In the morning, Mrs. Staff's class did a lesson on Christmas in Africa. In the aftern...

Well, I suppose sounds doesn't really apply. But we're on the road finally after 6 weeks of moving out of our house, scarce sleep and dry and splitting hands. It was a very sad goodbye to Medford and our treasured friends there. Our last night was memorable as we stayed up until 2am hanging out with the Sampsons and playing Karaoke (yep, they actually got Alisha to sing!). We are really going to miss the people we've met and grown to love in our adopted hometown of Medford. God-willing, we'll be back someday! We love Oregon and we love Medford. But for now, we've begun our trek into California to visit family and friends down here. We just finished 4 days in Davis staying at our longtime friends from college the DeJong's house and v isiting with family as well. We went to basketball games - my brother Bret's KU Pelicans took 3rd place in the Dixon tournament, which pitted my dad's alma mater (Dixon, '57) vs. my mom's alma mater (KU, '57) in t...

Well, the house is down to about 99% packed up and we're preparing to head out of town on Thursday. My last day of work was on Nov. 30th, and since then it's been a mad rush to get the house packed and into storage in time, while trying to spend as much time with friends and family here as possible. Thursday we said goodbye to our bible study ("link group"), then Friday night we had a going away dinner with Mark & Barbara from my office. Today was kind of a sad day, as in the morning we said goodbye to our wonderful church family. They brought us up in front of the congregation to officially 'send us off' and pray for us. The boys shared in all 3 services about what we will be doing in Africa. There is not a shy bone in any of their 3 little bodies. They raced to see who could get up on stage first, and then fought for "mic-time"! Both Pastor Ron and Pastor Tom prayed for us at the 3 main services. It was so nice and comforting for us to be sent ...