The Erickson household is buzzing with excitement about next week. It is one of the highlights of our year and it is only a couple of days away. It is the week we get to spend with almost 400 like minded Christians, just enjoying each others company and gleaning from the years of experience and wisdom. This is home school camp out. I am thrilled about my cabin mates this year and especially about the fact that Wayne will get to join us the whole week. I'm still anticipating the need for my daily nap (this pregnancy is taking its toll), but this week it just may be around a campfire. Sounds nice.

I still need to update about our Yosemite trip, but maybe I will just update about both weeks at the same time. Suffice it to say, for now, that Yosemite is one of the most beautiful places on earth and I pray everyone has the opportunity to see it some time in their life. What an adventure. I feel so blessed that I had the opportunity.

Well, yesterday I had the privilege of listening in on our baby's world and heard that precious little heart beat. Today I am pretty sure I felt one of the first movements. So exciting and some of my favorite parts about being pregnant. We will probably get to see the baby via ultrasound sometime next month. Isn't technology amazing?

On the 12th Wayne and I leave for a backpacking trip in Yosemite. I am sure it will be a very different trip for me now than what I envisioned when we bought the tickets and made the plans, but I am also sure that it will be a wonderful experience that I am blessed to be a part of. The doctor gave me his blessing, just said he was jealous. I am instructed to move TONS during travel and to take hydration to an extreme. Someone else will have to put my pack on my back but he said I can carry it. I am sure with 4 males around, getting someone to lift my pack for me will not be a problem. Please keep us in your prayers regarding our travel and the pregnancy.

Because of the impending trip I have been walking every day this week. (I should have started months ago, but oh well.) I have walked every day for the past 5 days and have really enjoyed it. Three times I have walked with Wayne, once with a friend and today by myself. I walked behind Mom's house up and down the hills in the woods and saw two deer. Very peaceful walk and great exercise. Hoping to keep this up.

We leave for Rend Lake tomorrow for the Labor Day camping bash with several other families that we travel to every year. Should be lots of fun. I better get packing though :) Goodnight!

The school year has begun in the Erickson household. Caleb is a 1st grader and Hannah is a pre-schooler/kindergartener. Hannah is loving it and is a very eager student. Caleb will take some more coaxing to latch on to the love of learning, but he is doing well also. We did our beginning of the school year photo shoot and I thought I would share those pictures here for those of my friends not on FB. Enjoy, we sure did.

Back in April Wayne and I turned another area of our life entirely over to God- the size of our family. We wanted to look at children as more of a blessing and not a burden that we needed to limit. So, Lord willing, we will be blessed with another little Erickson by the end of March. We are about 6 weeks along, and I know that is earlier than some choose to share this kind of news, but the 7 week mark is a rather stressful one in our pregnancies and we wanted the prayers. So please pray for us and our little one as we approach that mark and throughout our pregnancy. The kids are excited and have decided we should call it Bob. So for now we are lovingly referring to our blessing as Bob. All four of us think that twins would be fun :)

Whew! I am home, but what a weekend. I left Friday for Lexington to pick up the kids from Camp Hooray (aka cousins camp at Nana and Papa's). Saturday we left KY at 9am in time to get home, load up a cake and Wayne and head to Pittsboro for a birthday party. We carried in sleeping children to their beds Saturday night and packed for Dayton. After morning worship we headed straight to Dayton.

We got started working on the house at around 3pm and Wayne soon left to go pick up a friend's mower. Thankfully he had the foresight to leave me with a vehicle because at approximately 4:30p I heard blood curdling screams from the creek on our property, where the kids were playing. I don't think I have ever run faster in my life. I got there to find Caleb dancing around screaming that he was bleeding. He sure was. He fell on a piece of glass and it punctured and cut his right hand in the fleshy part between his thumb and forefinger. I ran him to the house with his bloody hand and tried to assess the injury, washing it off with our jug of water (we still do not have the water turned on there). I quickly realized that I was going to need running water and possibly medical attention and help to keep from fainting myself (momma's not good with blood). Thankfully our best friends are less than a mile down the road so we went there. They are good with this stuff and told me we needed to get somewhere to have it taken care of. My friend, Stacey jumped in the van with me and drove us to Children's Urgent Care. They thankfully got Caleb back quickly and then the real pain and screaming began. His initial screaming was due to the blood (a little like his momma) but the pain hit when they started touching it and moving it. I was so proud of my little boy though, he was SO polite. At one point he said, "Please stop, I might accidentally kick you." and then, "Please don't pull it open anymore". He had to get several shots to numb it and they force irrigated it due to the fact he was playing in a dirty creek. I did okay until I glanced over once while they were working on it. I had to take some pretty deep breaths and I guess I turned pretty white. He ended up with 10 stitches, 2 on the inside and 8 on the outside.

So for the next 2 weeks we will be babying a hand and keeping stitches clean. He has been on a pretty steady four hour schedule, alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen and hasn't complained too much unless it gets bumped. He did take a longer time between meds today though, so maybe we will back off some tomorrow. We haven't broken it to him yet that he won't be able to play baseball. That's gonna be tough, because he was SO bummed Friday night when I told him we couldn't make it home in time for his Saturday game. Well, I guess I need to be thankful that this is the first time we have had a medical emergency with our little boy. Hopefully we will have an even longer stent before the next time. We arrived home today and now have the task of getting back into a semblance of routine.

One more note about some amazing friends and their wonderful hospitality and generosity. Not only did they provide us with the accommodations of the guest house, but Stacey also fed us, complete with to go orders and everything. I usually pack food for our work weekends and it takes some time and planning. Stacey knew that we were going to be having a quick, work packed weekend and that I had had a crazy week already, and she asked me to let her do food for us this time. What a wonderful blessing, and it became even more so after the added twist of the incident above. And to add to her amazingness, she was a major help with caring for Caleb. I am sure I would have gotten us lost while my adrenaline was pumping and may have passed out in the room. But she was there for me in so many ways. I am so thankful for her and her friendship. And I would be remiss if I left out mentioning her helpful husband. He also was the extender of hospitality and resources. He carefully assessed Caleb's wound and did not ridicule me for my squeamishness, but stepped in ready to help. He allowed his wife to come to my rescue and kept my little girl while we were taking care of Caleb. I don't think she would have handled hearing her brother scream very well. So thank you both; words are not enough.