What we do in our free time :)

That's a tough post to follow, but here's our best effort.
So what number are we on for Mathews apples anyway? 'Cause, unless anyone else has news they are keeping secret, Stacy and I have dibs on the next one. Yes, we're having a baby! Lord willing. We think she'll be due in November or December, but we'll keep you all posted when we find out more details.
Love you all.
the California (for now) Mathews apples,
Josh and Stacy

This is what James and I do in our free time...

Doug & Sue say "HI" to Ya'll

Greeting from Doug & Sue Mathews in South Carolina,

We are looking forward SO much to coming out to beautiful Washington state in 10 days. It will be nice to spend a few days with Mom (Virginia) and all of the bro's and spouses. Hopefully we'll be able to see some of you nieces and nephews too, and some of your kids as well.

What I great idea this blog is!! It's been fun reading all of your posts and looking at pictures of family members we haven't seen in a long time. I'm attaching (hopefully I can do it right) a couple of pictures of us with our 6 grand kids (Anna 17, Julia 15, Emma 11, Drew 11, Ben 9, and Zach 7). These pictures are few months old.

Sara and the girls flew down to SC from NH a couple of weeks ago, so that Anna could compete in the American Association of Christian Schools (AACS) National Fine Arts competition at Bob Jones University. So the entire East Coast Mathews (and Whitehouse) family were able to be together for almost a week, except for Peter who had to stay home and hold down the fort. It was a great time.

After Sue and I return from Seattle to SC on May 14th, we'll be taking about a week to prepare for our annual trek north to New Hampshire to spend June through October. We'll be arriving up there on about May 23rd, and will be experiencing our second Spring season this year... and pollen season too :)

Can't wait to see all of you soon!!!

Doug & Sue

Hi from Jim & Carol, we just returned from spending a wonderful 10 days with Hank & Sharon in Cathedral City where we got lots of work done on the condo. We painted just about everything inside, replaced a stove & microwave and played a few days of golf as well. Hank introduced us to the Blog while there and I'm excited about keeping in touch-Thankyou Heidi & Grace for setting us up. We are looking forward to being at Hood Canal in two weeks together with Doug & Sue and all the rest of the NW Mathews-we're getting warmed up in Rook, Tic and Quirkle. Hey, how about those Nuggets!!! We get to play the Lakers in the 1st round-we may not win but we'll definitly bring home the trophy for the most tatoos. Hope to see alot of you real soon. Love, Jim & Carol

Hey, From Dave and Bev

Howdy all from beautiful Hood Canal, WA.
We are doing fine and enjoying the spring?? weather. Thanks Heidi and Grace for setting this up for all of us. It's a great way to see and read about our wonderful family. It's nice it even has spell check for writers like me.
We are good here and have enjoyed going to Jonah and BJ's baseball games along with many church related activities. We stay busy most of the time but still have time for reading, shrimping and crabbing.
Mark and Kelly are well but we'll let them tell you about all they are doing. Jeff and Tracy are in Israel right now for 10 days or so. We'll let them tell you all about that too.
We just had our buoy and attachments all checked out so we are ready for the season to start.
Hope we have figured this blog stuff out so you all can read this OK.
We love you all.
Dave and Bev

The southern Mathews

Thanks Heidi and Grace, what a wonderful idea. We are doing well and just had a great week visiting with Sara and the girls. They were down here for a week because Anna was competing in the National Christian Schools competition at Bob Jones. We had a lot of fun together. The boys are in full swing with baseball and soccer which keeps us very busy. Zach had his first coaches pitch game of the season with his daddy as coach and they won. Ben had a big soccer tournament and they won their U10 division, Drew had the weekend off. I loved reading about what is going on with everyone. What a great way to show our boys all of the relatives that we don't get to see very often.

Love,

Dan, Brenda, Drew, Ben and Zach

Pierce Isaac Mathews has arrived!!!!!

Pierce Isaac Mathews joined the family on Saturday, April 12, 2008, at 3:15 pm. He weighed 8lbs 3oz, he is 21 inches tall, has dark brown hair and brown eyes. We are a happy family. Some day we will tell him about his sweet brother Griffin.
We will send more close ups and without a hat soon.

I am so glad this is working out! I just thought I would hop on expecting that no one had checked it out and I was very pleasantly surprised! 

WELCOME HOME, SARA! I hope we will get to see you soon. We are excited you are back and are looking forward to hearing more about your time from the last few years. 

Colin and I are doing well. For those of you who might not know yet, we are expecting another child coming in early September. This one came as a quite a surprise to us, but we know it is such a blessing. Elias (or Eli), as I think my mom posted, is 8 months old now and just in the last few days learned how to crawl. This is bitter sweet for us. Without giving any details, lets just say there have been some close calls that have now resulted in using the baby gate that Dan and Heidi gave to us. ;) It's a whole new ball game that we are having to learn very quickly! Anyway, I am looking forward to hearing more from all of you! Thanks to those of you who have already taken the time to contribute. 

From Hank, I'm not as hi tech as some of you so don't know how to do pictures. It is great to see pix! and read about you all. We ( Jim, Carol, Sharon And I ) are still in Cathedral City painting. Today is the last paint day ( hopefully). Love to youj all. Hank

Thanks Grace & Heidi!

Mike and I are just sitting here enjoying reading this blog. What a great idea! We're doing fine -- enjoying the busyness and variety of this stage of life. It was so WONDERFUL to get to welcome Sara home and get to spend time with our family a couple weeks ago. We got to spend part of spring break with James & Lori and kids -- they'll have to teach you all the game of "Crud".

Luke just started t-ball and we're getting to freeze as we cheer him on in his endeavors. Ben is excited to possibly hunt bear with Mike this spring. Schoolwork keeps Elizabeth busy and she's looking forward to going to high school next fall. Adri loves all the animals at our house and around the neighborhood.

Hope you all are doing well. We look forward to hearing from everyone.

~Mike & Anne

Josh and Stacy Chiming in

Thanks for doing this you guys. It has already been so fun to see the pictures and to be getting in touch. We'll be looking on here regularly now for sure. We have a blog too that we try to update every week or two, just to let people know what we're up to. We'll put a link to it on here if anyone wants to check it out. We love you all.

Here's us at the beach on Easter weekend

Elias Samuel Jones ~ 8 months old

It's Dan, Heidi, Ava and Anders

Hi family, it was so fun to see this transform. We are looking forward to seeing more pictures and hear what you are all up to. Keep it up. We love to hear from family.

Steve and Loie checking in

We are really looking forward to hearing from and seeing many(all!) of you on this site. Sure appreciate Heidi and Grace getting it started.

Here in Gresham we are thankful for spring days - even though many of them are cold and wet - (love those daffodills, tulips, plum blossoms and others) and especially for having Sara around. The week she arrived Mike and Anne's family was here, as well as the Amadios. We celebrated Nathan's 6th birthday and Elizabeth's 14th along with celebrating Sara. It was quite a party!!

Now Steve and I are "doing Atkins" - losing some weight and hoping to get in shape for an active retirement. He plans to retire this summer. I plan to keep working my two days a week at the PRC as long as I can, because I love ministering there and I have quite a bit of flexibility.

We two and Sara drove up and spent the day with Mom last Saturday. She was happy and healthy and we had a good visit.

Loie

Thanks Grace and Heidi. This is so great! Here's a picture of the wonderful welcome I received a couple weeks ago when I returned from Burundi (after a short layover with Josh and Stacy in San Francisco). I look forward to seeing all of you Mathews! ~Sara

This is a great idea! Here's the James Mathews kids. :)

Thanks Heidi and Grace! What a great idea. here is a pic of me Sam and Britnee. I hope i am doing this right.
Jon