We finally found the camera...

"Moving is hard work!"

We were tempted to put all 98 pictures of Ali on this blog, but we thought you might get bored scrolling through all of them. So we just posted the most embarrassing ones of Ali in hopes that she will learn to deal with suffering when she hits middle school. Here's our lives, in a nutshell:

Jed works all the time.

Anna's big and pregnant (AND BEAUTIFUL!!!)

Ali's almost 2. And a big girl. She wants a ring for her birthday, like Mommy's. But I don't know where the nearest Helzberg Diamonds is, so she'll have to be okay with Toys R Us.

Here's a couple pictures of our new house and Ali's GREEEEEEN room!

We're here!

Sometimes moving sucks. We still haven't found the cord that connects our digital camera with the computer, so we've procrastinated blogging until we found the cord, but for now you're just going to have to imagine with us on this one. We are in our new home, which looks just like the picture a few entries ago. It is still taking lots of work to get ready, but the grass is coming back. I got installed on Sunday, so that was lots of fun, and I already have two funerals this week. Ah, the joys of ministry. Anna is having lots of fun entertaining guests (including Erin Winter aka Painter Extraordinaire, who painted 3 1/2 rooms in the week she was here, and my parents and brother.) We'll be sending out a little more of an update later, but I wanted everyone to know that we're doing well.

Boy

Josiah William.

Perfectly healthy.

Any questions?

PS: pictures coming

Memorial Day Weekend

I found this on Google Earth/Panoramio this evening. This will actually be my drive to work come July. Beautiful.

We had a great Memorial Day weekend. We got to spend a lot of time with friends and I've been mountain biking 3 of the last 5 days. On Sunday Anna and I got to go out with my Elders and their wives from Faith as kind of a going away deal. It was a lot of fun...my face hurt from smiling as we left the restaurant. I've appreciated all the growth I've seen in those men in the time I've been at Faith.

Ali has been pacifier free for three days so far. Tonight was a bit rough, but she's making it. She is definitely a little girl though. She has learned that bursting into tears gets her attention, and she has developed a shoe obsession. The last several days, the first word that came out of her mouth when she gets up is "shoe." The picture below is from a recent trip to Target, when she found a shoe as well as a little chair about her size that she pushed around with her as we shopped through several aisles.

The latest housing news is that the inspection did not turn up any major issues, and the appraisal was favorable, so all things are looking like we'll be moving in to our house in mid-June. I'll be starting officially on July 1, getting installed on July 13th, and my first Sunday preaching will be July 20th.

We appreciate your prayers for us as we close out our ministry in OC. My last Sunday at Faith is June 1, and Anna's last week is the first week in June. And then we move very soon...that still hasn't really hit us yet.

We'll put up a post sometime on Wednesday answering the question you've all been waiting for: "Boy or Girl?"

WOO HOO!!!

Our offer on house #3 has been accepted!!!

Thanks for all your prayers. We'll have more information in the next week or so regarding inspections and when we're moving and when you can come and visit the Maschke abode and all that good stuff.

For your viewing pleasure, here's a picture of #3.
Enjoy!

Baby Boy or Baby Girl?

Find out...May 28th!

Pictures and Houses

Hello all!

Here we are again. All of the Maschke clan is happy and healthy, and we wanted to say hello.

Ali is now 19 months old and is learning new words all the time. She now says "See ya" as well as "bye bye" when we leave. Ali also loves pointing to Mommy's belly and giving baby kisses. She also likes going down slides ("Wheeeeeee!") and climbing, which we fear may lead to further extremes in childproofing.

Baby, a.k.a. Peanut, is doing well. Thursday will mark 16 weeks, which means one more month until we find out if Peanut is as he or a she.

Anna is NOT going to Catalina with her students this year; the trip is just too hard on her pregnant body. Instead I get to stay with the 12 middle school students NOT going on their class trips and watch them work on their assignments.

Jed is finishing up at Faith; his last day there is June 1. His first day at First will be July 1 (that is a lot of firsts).

We are still looking for a house. So far we have submitted offers in on three. Numbers 1 and 3 are still options, but our offer for number 2 was declined. We welcome any prayers offered up for housing, although we are partial to #3. God willing, we will soon have a picture of us in front of our new home!!!

Here are some new pictures of Ali. They were taken at a MOPS fundraiser by the same person who took our Christmas pics. The setting is the Heritage Hill Historical Park, a tranquil batch of historical buildings from the 1800s which marked the initial settlement at El Toro. Ali is standing outside of St. George's Episcopal Mission in the picture below. Enjoy!