Happy Friday, friends! This week, we battled sickness (again), ate some divine vegan chocolate cake with new friends (thank you, Matt and Callen!), and said goodbye!! to the snow (hopefully until the fall).

We are on the final countdown to Togo: T-5 days to take off! We have a pile of stuff by our bedroom door to pack for our teammates, some projects to get done (like taking off our snow tires, hopefully without incident), and we are picking up my parents from the airport tonight!

Whew.

Last Saturday, we took the Easter Train from Anchorage to Indian and back. Ruth loves “The Polar Express” so we knew she’d like riding a train, too. We also knew that being on a train would force the girls to sit still and rest more than they would at home. So even though they were under the weather, we boarded the train and were off!

They had tons of activities for the kids: coloring books, a balloon animal maker, games, and candy. We got cocoa (and coffee) from the snack car and just enjoyed the ride. Allen and I rode that train when we went back East last March for New Missionary Orientation and I think it’s one of my favorite ways to travel now.

Sunday, we stayed home and rested in lieu of attending Sunday School, but enjoyed the church service at Fairview Loop. We always sing “Awesome God” at the end of the Easter Service and I love hearing our Pastor lead the congregation in declaring just how awesome our Lord is.

This is the best family photo we got on Sunday in our nice Easter clothes:

But we did get these pictures from the morning:

The children’s ministry leader at church gave us a big bag of plastic eggs (since we didn’t stay for the afternoon festivities with sick kids). So Allen hid them in our living room and the girls went to town collecting them in their strollers.

We also had some moose visitors in our backyard again! Clara spotted them first and kept pointing at them and saying “Moo! Moo!” There was a mama moose and two calves. So cute!

Hannah and I have been friends since second grade (over 20 years!) and it was so good to see her for a little bit this week. Our girls are about the same age but between having young kids, work, and living an hour away from one another, we don’t get together often enough. But Hannah is one of those friends who, even if I don’t see her for a while, it’s like no time has passed when we are together again and I love that.

The rest of the week was spent with doctors appointments, dosing out prescriptions, and trying to sanitize our house. I’m pretty sure the people who work in Target’s pharmacy know us by name after this last week. I’m not kidding when I say we were there FOUR TIMES this week alone.

Please continue to pray with us for healing for our family. I always have terrible ear pain when I fly, so the idea of being congested and having an ear infection on international flights sounds literally torturous.

Be on the lookout for our April newsletter this weekend, too… we promise we didn’t forget about it!

And thank you to everyone who has recently partnered with us. We are so thankful for the team God is building for ministry in Togo. Your friendship, support, and prayers are such a blessing to us.

Have a great weekend!