Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Fabulous Fresh Family

Rippling Brook Drive, Sewickley (the Fresh's house is the one with our Rv in the drive!)


We have just spent 6 days living with our friends Jim & Stephanie, Aaron & Jeremy Fresh in Sewickley, Pittsburgh, PA. They lived in Shellharbour for 5 years (from 2004 til 2009) while Jim worked at Bluescope in Wollongong. Steph, Aaron and Jeremy came along to Toddler Time at our church and that’s where we met. When I told Steph of our travel plans (back in 2009), she invited us to come and visit them.

Michael had a conference in DC at Capitol Hill Baptist Church from Thursday 17th March to Monday 21st March. We drove to Pittsburgh on Wednesday 16th then Mike flew to DC on Thursday while the boys and I stayed with the Fresh’s.

They welcomed us with open arms! They were so generous to us. Luke, Max, Ethan and Aidan loved having some other boys (and Bertie the weimaraner puppy) to play with.

Some highlights of the things we did while staying with them:

- when we arrived they had a birthday cake and gift for Ethan


all the boys and the awesome icecream cake


- lots of homework (much to our boys’ disgust!)


- a day at the Carnegie Science Centre – a fun, interactive place. Our faves were the robotics floor and the real submarine in the river that we went in

Max playing air hockey against a robot


in the submarine



- we went to their church with them – an amazing experience – 2000 people attend each week, the facilities are amazing (including a rock climbing wall in the kid’s church room!), a fully robed choir sang at the service we went to – and the bible was taught well – engaging and challenging

- dinner out at a restaurant with an amazing view down over Pittsburgh to where 3 rivers meet


dinner, high above Pittsburgh

- walked Bertie, played with Bertie, fell in love with Bertie

- Steph took me shopping to the most amazing craft shop I have ever seen – in 3 hours there I only saw 1/3 of the shop!

- the boys all had a movie night and sleepover in the toyroom

- Max, Ethan and Aidan went to a lego club Steph runs at the local community centre

- a cub scout hike and baseball game

- played basketball, bikes, cricket, rollerblades and scooters outside each afternoon with all the neighbourhood kids

l > r Aidan, Bertie, Jeremy, Aaron, Ethan, Max, Luke

- played Wii

- heaps of eating! Stephanie is a fantastic cook!


- Steph and I did heaps of chatting, remembering, crying, encouraging and catching up – a very special time.


Also, Max and Ethan went to school one day with the Fresh boys… but I’ll let Max tell you all about that.

And, when Michael finally returned on Monday night (after his plane was delayed many times), Jim and Steph looked after our boys so we could go out to dinner – an early birthday dinner for Mike – and possibly (probably!) our only child free time in 14 weeks! We went to The Cheesecake Factory and tried to eat typical American foods – deep fried mac and cheese balls, bbq’d salmon with corn succotash, Salisbury steak and banana cream cheesecake with hot fudge. A great night.

We are so thankful to God for the respite and normality we had for those 6 days. Feeling recharged and ready for the next stage of this odyssey!

Karen



1 comment:

  1. Sounds like a perfect visit. Lovely to hear about and see pics of the Fresh family.
    And now I am craving that banana cream cheesecake.

    ReplyDelete