Iowa – my home State

Thursday – After a very long wait for Grandma Linda, we finally made it to my home town of Audubon, IA. She has been waiting since we arrived in Los Angeles to see us. It is great to be home again. We are now going to be here for the next several weeks. Friday night we are meeting with my sister Teresa and her family for dinner. I am going to be baptising her son Noah on May 30th, so it is going to be a wonderful family celebration. We are also looking forward greatly to be able to be a part of my niece Hannah’s confirmation which will be on the 6th June …. So blessed!!!!

Saturday – we travelled up to Lake Okoboji with my Mom to see my grandparents, Emmert and Eleonora Andersen. Grandpa surprised us with some new fishing rods, and took us out to the lake to try them out. Within 2 hours, we had caught 26 fish! The children were so excited to catch fish we could actually eat and Grandpa with his expertise knew exactly where to fish and how to do it!

Sunday – we worshipped with Grandpa and Grandma and then met my Aunt and Uncle, Connie and Ken Quirk and their son Lee and Kim and children for a picnic lunch in the park. This too was a wonderful reunion to catch up with family and spend some time getting re-acquainted.

We had such a great time with Grandpa and Grandma and feel very blessed to be able to spend such quality time with them. We appreciated all the wonderful stories and good memories shared. We are looking forward to more of this. For the next few weeks, we are going to be catching up with family and friends, and spend some time showing the kids where I come from and to meet family members.

On the way back to Mom’s we stopped to see my sister Jamie and her girls, Carley and Payten. Emma was thrilled to finally meet her cousins – Carley is 2 days younger, but the last time they met they were two. They plan on having a sleep-over at Grandma Linda’s!

We look forward to seeing all the amazing blessings that will and have already come our way.

Mark