Brandon is Home, Our Washington Trip, and Life over that last 10 days

Praise the Lord!!!!  Brandon is finally home from his Annual Training.  Last year, his AT was in June, and that was the start of our wonderful love story.  This year, waaaaaaay harder to be without him.  We were without each other for 25 days.  This may not seem long to some of you, but it seemed like it lasted years!  Asa and I couldn't wait for him to be home, and I'm pretty sure our friends wanted him home, too =).  He said that his AT this year was very productive and informative, and that he got to use some new equipment that they've been training on for a couple months.  I can't express enough how grateful we are that the Lord brought him home, and that he has not been called up for deployment yet.  Bonus: His mom, Janelle (Grandma Nellie), and two of his aunts, brought him home from the airport for me.  It was great to see them all again, and spend a little bit of time with them before they drove all the back to Dyersville.  What a blessing that they picked him up from the airport, too!  (Originally, he was scheduled to land in the Quad Cities @ 830pm, that changed the night before to 130pm, and I couldn't get off work to drive and get him.  They stepped up, and brought him home!)
That was Tuesday.
Wednesday, we got up really early.. and got on a plane to go to Washington.  I have a brother, sister-in-law, and new baby nephew out there.  My brother lives north of Seattle on a small island in a town called Anancortes.  This is probably the most beautiful area of the country that I've seen.  There's a few look-out points in the town, and from one of them you can see islands, and beautiful blue water, and mountains.  It's breathtaking!  Here are some pictures from the trip!

Having fun on the Airplane!

A good napper =)

Grandma Linda had left a birthday present at Uncle Jon's for Asa to enjoy!

Sorry some of these were sideways!  I told you it was beautiful there!

We took a walk up to the Park to have some fun, below is a picture of Asa... not soo pumped to leave.

This is a picture from the top of the cliff that sits in their back yard, SOOOO Pretty!

Isn't he sooooooooooo cute!!!!

Asa did such a great job!  He's going to be a good big brother!

Thank Jonathan and Shawna (and Maxon!) for such a wonderful time!  We really enjoyed our time there!

Asa has officially turned 3!  I swear that there was an overnight change in him.  Just even looking at him, he just seems so much older.  He's into different things all of a sudden.  Like, he used to LOVE Elmo.  Now, it's all monsters, and aliens, and Super Heros, and BOY STUFF!  He's so smart, too!  I got him some puzzles for his birthday, and he just breezes through them!  So, we got him a harder one at the zoo (I think it's for 5 and up), and he can put it together by himself (takes a little longer, but he does it)!  And he's all about coloring now, too!  I can barely keep up with him.  The great part about all of this is, he really wants me to participate.  It's nice to know that even though he can do everything by himself, he still wants me to join =)  He's such a sweetheart.  A few times while Brandon was gone, he would come into my room before my alarm would go off, and ask "mommy?  can we 'nuggle?"  It's just melts my heart!
Also, we've started the daunting task of potty training.  We've been encouraging him for quite a while to start, but he's only been moderately interested until lately.  He does a pretty good job right when we get up in the morning, before bath time, and before bed.  But throughout the day, it's hard to keep him from having accidents.  It's easy to keep a good attitude about it, because he's so darn cute.  When he has an accident he gets so sad and says he's sorry.  I can't help but hug him and let him know that we'll get it some day =)  (Hopefully BEFORE baby #2 gets here!)
Also, I was encouraged to add prayer to Asa's bedtime routine by another friends blog posts.  He took to it so well!  It's a pretty simple prayer, but he loves to do it.  That keeps me encouraged that he really is learning and picking things up.  For the most part the prayer consists of Thanking God for family members and a great day.  We include "bless our dreams" because Asa and both seem to have nightmares here and there, but we haven't had them since we started praying together at night (very encouraging that God listens even to my little man).  Then we Thank Jesus, and say Amen.  It's so cute!  I mean, when I pray it's always seem to be an emotional task, lol, but when he prays, it's the most beautiful, precious thing I've ever seen!

Brandon and I could use some prayer when it comes to finances/house hunting.  We've been looking, slowly, at houses to move into, but nothing has really struck our fancy.  Which is fine... considering that we just got handed some pretty expensive and unexpected bills, and we're trying to save up for the baby.  Our realtor has been so patient with us, and we're very thankful for that.  Our prayer is that the Lord will help us find something slightly cheaper than what we were looking at, or that he would give us peace of mind to stay in our apartment for a while longer.  Our apartment is a good size, 3 bedrooms and plenty of storage, but it's on the 3rd floor, and is starting to get a little harder to walk up as I get farther along.  God is so good, though.  He's blessed us with a new landlord (Paul Williamson and Nick Bal), and wonderful new neighbors (all 23 of them are from the Drake ministry).  So, I know, no matter what, we're in good hands.

PS!!! Super great Praise report before I end this.  At my prenatal appointment last week, my midwives gave me a thumbs up!  I HAVE FINALLY GAINED WEIGHT!  I don't know if you all know, but I've been steadily losing weight since April, and no ones been able to explain it.  They've done a few ultrasounds to make sure the baby is healthy, and he is (Thank God!), but they've been keeping a close eye on my weight.  Well, I'm happy to report that instead of being -20lbs I'm at -16lbs!  Making progress!  The baby is measuring big at the same time, too!  It's so great! 

Okay, sorry this is so long!  Next time, I'll try not to go 2 weeks between posts!