Baptism

Both girls got baptized this past Sunday which was a special day for our little family.  The girls had adorable matching outfits (didn't really get the best picture of them, stay tuned) and we got to enjoy some family time after the service.

Here's a picture of all of us:

Then Aves getting baptized

And Millie!

We look forward to leading them in their faith and the day that they decide to make their faith their own!

SoCal Trip

As most of you know we took a roadtrip down to LA because Andy's friend/band member from Nexus was getting married.  We both had some time off so we decided to turn it into our very first Koning family vacation and see lots of our friends that we haven't seen since moving up north.  It was a really great trip.  We drove down Monday morning, leaving stormy Northern CA only to arrive in southern CA in 80 degree weather...yuck!  The girls did great, it was quite a long drive so we were all ready to get there but overall the drive was a success:)

Even the drive down was nostalgic...

The girls were very excited to reach our destination and stretch out...plus there were toys waiting for them:)

The first two nights we stayed with a friend and old Professor of Haley's from Biola.  Rachel and her husband Carlo have a 1.5 year old daughter so all the girls had tons of fun together.

The first night that we were there the 2 older girls were having so much fun running around playing that Myla finally showed some interest in crawling and she tried to keep up as well:)

Avery of course loved Rachel and visa-versa:)

On Tuesday we headed to Biola and visited the nursing and music departments.  It was a lot of fun seeing old professors and updating them on our current life.

Before visiting the departments Aves and Daddy enjoyed a drink on campus at "Common Grounds" which was very nastalgic.  We then walked around the bookstore and picked up a few things before continuing on our adventure.

We of course had to have Avery and Myla take a picture with the infamous Jesus mural.

Tuesday night we enjoyed going out to one of our favorite restaurants "Jalepenos" with all the guys from Andy's band (minus Jackson).  It was a fun time of celebrating with Grant and Lindsey would would be married in a couple of days as well as catching up with the other boys.  After staying another night with the oh-so-gracious Rachel and Carlo we got up Wednesday morning and headed to Disneyland!  We were prepared to go for a couple of hours and abort as needed but both girls ended up having such a great time that we stayed until closing (6pm)

We started in CA adventure where we rode a few little kid's ride in the bug's life area and then headed to Car's Land which is what Aves had really been looking forward to.  Avery was just tall enough to ride the new rollarcoaster in Car's Land so her and I waited in line for 2 hours (I must say she did amazingly) and got to ride it, it was worth the wait.  A very fun ride.  We enjoyed an impromptu show while walking to lunch by the "Newsies" and Mickey Mouse which Avery thought was the coolest thing ever.  After lunch we headed over to Disneyland where we spent a good amount of time in toon town playing around  and then hit up some rides like dumbo, snow white, walked around the castle, jungle cruise, pirates of the Caribbean, etc.  Avery was in awe, Myla was entertained:)  We let Avery go into the "bippity boppity boutique" outside the castle full of princess things.  Thankfully I went in with her without a wallet...Avery would run up to something, say "Mommy look!!!  Isn't it the most beatiful thing you've ever seen?"  She was enjoying it so much it made me cry.  We let her pick out one toy which turned out to be a jewelry/music box (the pink one of course) and she couldn't have been happier.  The rest of the afternoon she would run up to strangers, open her box and say, "look at my beautiful princess box!"  Most people just continued walking but she didn't let it get her down, she just kept showing it to people:)  We ended out time watching the parade through Disneyland which Avery thought was amazing.  A link to the pictures is below.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.787185637197.2150366.68602760&type=1&l=a88089d41f

When the park closed we headed to our favorite dinner spot in downtown disney called "Naples" and enjoyed pizza, salad, and beer/wine.  Then we headed over to the New Orleans place to have beignets for dessert, it was a perfect day.  That night we stayed in a hotel near UCI and we all slept in.  The next morning we enjoyed room service and breakfast/pizza in bed:)

Thursday was a very low key day of sleeping in, eating, watching TV, etc.  Then we headed to the Irvine Spectrum to have lunch with our great friend's Ben and Stacey, it was definitely a fun time.

The girls just loved Stacey:)

We ran some errands then headed back to the hotel for nap/play time.

Aves and Daddy couldn't stop wrestling on the bed while little Myla Bea just wanted to play with the remote:)

Once everyone was awake and ready we headed over to Uncle Jusin and Auntie Cake's house for some dinner and low key hang out time.

Aves of course loved hanging out with two of her favorites:)

Friday morning was the wedding!  Celebrating with Grant and Lindsey was very fun and they had a very unique/lovely wedding.  We were very glad we were able to be a part of it.

The wedding was the first time that all of the band Nexus has been together in years, so we of course we took a picture:)

After the wedding we headed over to the Whitsell's house for our last night of vacation.  Avery loved seeing her friends Kaylie and Trey again and it was very great to meet their newest member (only 2 weeks old) Ashley and to introduce them officially to Myla.  It was chaotic as you can imagine with 5 kids running around but it was perfect.  Kaitlyn, Justin, and Melissa came over for dinner that night and we enjoyed eachother's company...it was just like we still lived there!  (pictures are on the link above:)  We woke up to an amazing breakfast made by Jennie Saturday morning and then hit the road for another long but good car trip.  We dropped the girls off at mom and dad's so that we could unpack and dinner at my parents with other family and friends was the perfect ending to a truly great vacation.  

Unfortunately reality hit hard at 0520 the next morning...but we won't go into that:)

Halloween pictures are also in the link above...we headed over to my parent's street where we went trick-or-treating with the Hiroto's as well.  Then Mom cooked us all a big pot of chili and we enjoyed dinner together, a very fun night!

Pumpkin Patch 2012

Going to the pumpkin patch with little ones really seems to be more of a chore than anything else, especially when the weather recently decided to act like summer again:(  BUT as parents you do what you gotta do and you power through cause like I kept telling Andy today, "we're making memories"  Today was pretty much the only day we could go between our work schedules and heading to LA next week so despite the fact that it's 90something degrees outside we went for it!  Enjoy.

Daddy and Myla posing as piggies

Aves posing as a piggie

those two making the same face:)

trying to take advantage of a photo-op

they're pretty cute

just can't get them both to look at the camera!

i think that's the best one we got

kiss sister kiss!

millie playing in the hay while sister and dad climb up the big slide

myla loves saying "hi!"...this is what it looks like:)

the big slide

aves at the end, she didn't look too thrilled and said "no!" when we asked if she wanted to go on it again...

me and my girls

miller-town

avester

being a big girl and riding the train all by herself

she got a little serious there for a moment

the slide from a different angle

millie and the pumpkins

daddy telling avery how to pull the wagon

teamwork

aves decided to do it on her own

millie just liked being pulled:)

and then she was all alone:(

We had a good time despite the sweating...Happy Halloween month!

16% Party

I don't think I've ever anticipated a party quite like this one...not because I over did it and had a ton of decorations (like Avery's 2nd birthday party), and not because of the number of people or anything, but solely because of what the party meant.  This party meant my dear husband had become what we now coined "the 16%".  For those that still don't understand where the 16% comes from, when someone has relapsed metastatic melanoma (like Andy) they have a 16% chance of surviving 5 years.  We are now included in the 16% and we couldn't be more excited!  The party was a good time getting together with friends, old and new, and celebrating life.  We didn't make a big deal of Andy because I knew he wouldn't like that, but we did get together right before we ate and I said how grateful I was not only for Andy's life but for all of those that supported us through this journey and some of us cried:)  Then we prayed, ate, and played some more.  Both Andy and I agreed after that part of why it was so special was because of the people that came.  We definitely missed those that couldn't come BUT having people there that were with us from the beginning (family, the Farmers, Hibbs'/Hiroto's, Redemers, the Meyer's etc) to people that we just met 1-2 years ago (almost the whole small group, the Scale's, the Pearson's etc) but have become really important to us was great.  We love you all, really appreciate you all, and we're grateful for every one of you.  Thank you for making the day a great celebration.

 

I decided last minute to make t-shirts for all of us...definitely not my best work but fun from afar:)  The first one is Myla's, the 2nd one is Avery's.

I had little sunscreen "party favors" as people came in the door with a welcome sign.

Friends that have been throughout the whole process, Kellen, Becca, and Yami Hiroto!

Church/small group girls, love them!

Andy trying to get the wi to work for the boys to play...

Malachi, Levi and Dawson wishing they were playing!

Just chattin' it up!

Uncle Dave and Meg:)

Myla was so excited her friend Evan was there.

The Koning family.

Hanging out and meeting new people

Probably one of the best things about the party...we turned some cement in our backyard into a four-square court and we had way too much fun playing:)

Circle time for some words and then prayer.

So great to have all the people gather together.

Trying to squish more people into the circle

I said a few words about Andy and how we were grateful for everyone there

Then Andy (from small group) prayed for us.

I love the fact that everyone came together whether they knew eachother or not:)

This was the group that congregated in our bedroom to watch the Stealers game (you can guess who instigated this:)

Yep there he is

Eating all the delicious food that people brought...

 

So grateful to have these people in our lives (our small group:)

Mr. and Mrs. Dan and Annie Meyer, I think they traveled the furthest and have definitely journeyed with us throughout this entire process.  Thanks so much for coming guys, it meant SO SO SO much to us!

Michael and Avery (twin stars:)

And don't forget Dawson!

These 3 are T-R-O-U-B-L-E:)

Me and little Millie.

Family shot!

The party is winding down...

Grandpa Koning and Evan (he loves babies!)

And the person that's been around for Andy even longer than me...his sister Meg!

Myla was ready to cuddle after everyone left the party:)

Again thank you thank you thank you for all of those that have loved us, supported us, and most importantly prayed for us throughout this melanoma journey!  We love you!