Dress up

Our little princess loves to dress up. Here is one of her "outfits".

Commissioning

On September 23, we were officially commissioned with the IMB. It honestly felt like graduation day as we were done with classes and were now expected to go out and use what we've learned. We were so glad our parents were able to come for the commissioning service. Currently we are spending time with family in WV and MD and are scheduled to fly out October 7 at 10:00pm.

This is Taylor's wonderful teacher-Ms. Janice. She has the patience of Job to deal with ten 2 year olds at the same time. We definitely saw Taylor's independent ways come out while at school as some days she would not take naps or sit in her chair for lunch, but all in all it was a great experience for her.

Botanical Gardens

During our time in Richmond we got to explore some parks and museums. Here are some photos from our day spent at the Botanical Gardens. Taylor enjoyed the butterfly garden and all of the beautiful flowers. If you're ever looking for something to do in Richmond this is a great spot!!

ILC July 28-September 23, 2009

The last 6 weeks we have been in training in Richmond, VA at a place called ILC (International Learning Center). We are here with about 250 other people being trained on things such as church planting, training others to present the gospel through "training for trainers" and "bible storying" and many many other classes to prepare us for our overseas ventures. It's hard to believe that in less than a month we'll be in Africa. We leave here on September 23 and go to visit with family/friends for a couple weeks and leave for Africa on October 7. Below are a few pictures of our time here at ILC.

Here's the "quad" we have been living in for our 8 1/2 weeks here at ILC. We have a common living area with 4 other families and then each family has there own 2 bedroom/1 bath apartment off of the living room.

Us with our friends Mark and Melynda on a trip to the park. Taylor and their daughter Madylanne have become best friends. They live in our quad and Taylor and Madylanne are in the same class at school. We are so thankful for their friendship...they will be living in Zambia which is not too far from us.

Praise the Lord that Taylor has adjusted very well here. She is loving all of the attention she gets. She is enjoying attending school Monday-Friday from 9-3 and is learning a lot.


We found a horse and donkey a short walk from the place we are staying. Taylor has no fear of them and loves to try to feed them. Even if they are across the pasture, if she yells "come here" they all come running to see her.

We will be sending out our prayer/newsletter here shortly and will try to also post it on the website, but if you would like to be added to our prayer/newsletter email us at bltast@hotmail.com

Getting caught up

Life has been pretty much consumed with travel the last 2 months visiting family and friend, so I hope to catch up a bit with the blog. We've been able to speak at several churches in our journeys and have had a great time. We report to Richmond, VA on July 28 for our training for the next 2 months. We'll keep you posted on everything! For more pictures check out http://theturnerbabies.shutterfly.com/

So where have we been? We spent a little time in Maryland and visited the National Zoo and met up with Aunt Sara at the National Geographic Museum.

Last weekend we were in Raleigh very briefly (not even 24 hours) for a baby shower for one of my closest friend-Dana Babbs. She is due around the first of October and will be an amazing little momma.

We then traveled to WV to speak at Sewell Valley Baptist Church and to see family and friends. We had a great time and even got to do the paddle boat at Babcock State Park.

The great-grandchildren making funny faces at a cook out at my parents house.

Mamaw and Papaw with Jaiden and Taylor in the paddle boats at Babcock State Park.

My beautiful niece, Jaiden, climbing up the stairs of the slide.

Lastly we have been at Lake Anna in Virginia celebrating Brent's Nana's 75th birthday. What a great time hanging out with Brent's side of the family. Happy Birthday, Nana!

Taylor on the boat as her daddy is on the float behind her.

Taylor's 2nd Birthday

Taylor celebrated her 2nd birthday on June 29. We celebrated the day by going to the Dixie Stampede with Grammy and had so much fun. It's hard to believe Taylor is 2 years old. She amazes us with her vocabulary...she can say her ABCs and count to 20. She is such a smart little one and we love her so much. We are so thankful God has allowed us every moment with her.

Taylor got her new best friend "buffy" in the above picture. She's a toy dog that she pulls everywhere, even to the Dixie Stampede.

Happy 2nd birthday, Taylor!

Friends

We had our dear friends Nick and Dana Babbs come to visit us at the beach this weekend. We had a great time hanging out with them. They are expecting their first child "Caleb Nicholas Babbs" in early October and he is so lucky to have such great parents to enter into this world to. Taylor just adores the both of them. Here are a few shots from their visit.

My favorite picture of Dana...such BLISS!

Taylor got to enjoy some early birthday presents from Nick and Dana.

"We're home!"

A phrase that Taylor has been saying quite often these days inspired me to write this posting. As most of you know we sold our house, moved to an apartment for 3 months, and then about 2 weeks ago we left that apartment and have been traveling around living with family. Taylor has done rather well in the transitions and no matter where we pull the car into, whether it is Walmart, McDonald's, Grammy/Grandad's house, or the beach condo, she always says "we're home" as soon as we pull in. She never knows where we will end up at the end of the day, but always knows she's "at home" as long as she gets to get out of the car and mommy and daddy are there.

So where have we been in our journey so far? First we drove up to Damascus, MD to spend some time with Brent's family. We then headed to PA for the wedding of Brent's cousin Merritt and his new bride Liz.

Merritt and Liz getting hitched at the Green Gables in Pennsylvania.

Taylor was the life of the party at the wedding and she had a blast on the dance floor.

Brent's mom and dad (on the left) and all of Brent's dads family.

Back in Maryland, Taylor and Noa having fun in the pool in the backyard.

We then traveled to Little River, SC and were met by Amanda's parents, brother, his wife, and 2 sweet kids. We had a blast hanging out with them!

Taylor loved her dolphin.

We then went to Ripley's Aquarium in Myrtle Beach with Amanda's parents. Taylor was amazed by all of the marine life (and so were we).

Taylor loved the jelly fish. She also got to touch a horseshoe crab and a stingray.

The Ultimate Pack Job

We have loaded our crate. The day started with 2 movers coming to the house and taking all of our stuff in about 2 hours! That's amazing because it took almost a week for Brent to move everything into our apartment, we love the movers! They then took it to a warehouse downtown and built our crates.

So this is what we had to work with. This crate is a 200 cubic foot crate. We got 2 - 200 cubic foot crates and 1 - 100 cubic foot crate for a grand total of 500 cubes. One 200 cubic crate measures only 86 inches long, 84 inches high and 44 inches wide! Just a thought, 1 king mattress is almost 80 inches high, 86 inches long and 10 inches wide, so 2 mattress is 20 inches wide, almost 1/2 of one of our crates!
Here is an idea of how little space 500 cubic feet really was. Our large sofa took up almost 100 cubes and was 2 inches too long. The guys had to close the door with a fork lift, in order to ship it over seas. We packed every inch of our crate, anything that had a hole, had something inside.

We then stayed two more days just finishing up in Raleigh with no sofa's, no beds, and no tvs, however we stayed very entertained by our little girl. She has made the best of every situation and is loving new toys and new adventures.

Goodbye Raleigh!

A lot of goodbye's are soon to come, but our most recent goodbye was to dear friends we have made while living in Raleigh the last 5 years.

Here are a few of our friends who were able to make it to Pullen Park for our little cookout.
Riding the choo-choo train with Nick and Dana
Taylor hanging out with Heather and Zeke