New Website

Hello! Thanks for checking back at this blog...we appreciate your interest in what our little family is up to. We have now moved our information to a website for, what we hope will be, easier viewing/navigating and easier posting (which means, in theory, I should be able to keep it updated better). The website is: http://www.freewebs.com/jkperickson. The new website will pick up where this one left off, so if you haven't been here for a while, you may still want to look around. Hope you enjoy it!

~Jason, Keri & Patrick

Quick Update

Hello! We are back in Minnesota. Thank you for your prayers for safety and fun on our trip home--it was a very enjoyable time and the car is still running well. :) We got back on the afternoon of June 27, and have not stopped since we got back. If you're in the area and want to get together, please give us a call...it may take a while for us to get through our list of people to get in touch with. And, if your church may be willing to let us come share what we're doing, please let us know who to contact. Our "full time" project right now is to share our mission and find people who want to partner with us through prayers, finances and encouragement. Thanks for checking back here, and I'll try to update it again soon. We are also trying to start a website that will be easier to navigate than a blog, but that is just in the early stages.

More babies

It is so fun to watch baby animals in the spring. Here is a video of a family of cardinals in the tree by our garage.

Garden Update

Our garden is growing like crazy. Here are some pictures of our soon-to-be delicious veggies.

I planted corn in between some shrubs along the house. Now they are growing really tall and look a little funny. In reality, we'll be lucky to get any ears off of them, but it's fun anyway.

Our tomato plant is starting to look more like a tree!

This is our biggest green pepper so far

The cucumber is taking over the garden. It's growing over a row of carrots, so we may get less of those, but I'm quite impressed with my first cuc plant.

Jason and I were given two tickets to a NASCAR race at the Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, NC. We went with another orientee named Zach and our friend Matthew. It was fun to do something different and we enjoyed a night out.

The biggest frog we've ever seen!

Check this out! Jason found this snake at the pond/lake at the JAARS Center...the video is really neat too! (those who are terrified of snakes or are really fond of frogs should probably be forewarned that the content of this post may make your stomach churn; for everybody else, this is so cool!!) :)

Wildlife again

I can't imagine what fun it will be to get overseas considering how much fun it is to see wildlife in the Carolinas! Seems like every day I'm running outside with my camera to capture a photo of the latest creature flying, scurrying, or slithering around our yard!

Can I come in? Please?

Might we have pictures of bluebird babies soon??

Jason found this little guy on the wheelchair ramp that leads up to the porch...what a cutie!!

Yum Yum!

Last Saturday (May 3) we went strawberry picking at a local farm. What a great time! Patrick really enjoyed sqooshing strawberries as he tried to pull them off the plant, and then jamming them as hard as possible into the plastic bags we had...needless to say, we have many strawberries that are only suitable for smoothies! It was such fun we ended up picking 17 pounds of berries, but none were wasted because that afternoon we each ate probably 4 pounds, and gave some to friends around JAARS. :)

Growing a Garden

Patrick and I planted a garden last week for something to keep us busy between now and when we go back to Minnesota. We planted 3 green pepper plants, a tomato plant, a cucumber plant, carrot seeds, corn seeds and bean seeds. We are already getting to watch the plants come up and the tomato plant has flowers on it! Here are some pictures of my li'l farmer...

helping momma weed the garden

Patrick was so excited to get the plants in the ground.

covering the seeds up with dirt~and the little boy got quite covered in dirt as well!

one of our many corn plants

one of the many bean plants...yummy!

Hiking around the area

We had the pleasure of going hiking on Saturday with our friends Matthew & Tabitha (with their daughters Tekoa & Kaylyn), Tabitha's two youngest brothers, and Charles & Anna (with their sons Samuel and Benjamin). We canoed across the river to a dried up creek bed that looked similar to the North Shore of Minnesota with the big rocks to jump on. What a great way to spend the morning!

Jason launched us off...it took two canoe-fulls plus a chaser in a kayak to get all of us across

We had a picnic lunch out on the rocks, avoiding the poison ivy as best we could...

We also got to go hiking with our friends James and Natalie behind the JAARS Center one evening after work. It's so pretty back there with many trails to chose from.

*Might I make an endorsement for Shout spray & wash...that stuff is amazing, and makes having a little boy so much easier!! :)

Bell

No idea who this kid is, but his face sure rings a bell.

Easter Vacation

Since we had a three day weekend and no family to spend it with, we decided to make the 8 hour drive up to Washington, D.C. with a small stop in Richmond, VA to see the capitol and cross another one off Keri's list. We're posting this in the middle of the trip, and it has been a blast so far. Jason has been here many times and this is Keri's third time, but everything is new to Patrick because the last time he was here he was en utero.

Patrick is such a big kid...until you compare him to the Washington Monument!!

Patrick liked walking around the walls of the fountain at the Navy Memorial.




We hoped the cherry blossoms would be blooming more...this tree was but it was the best one. Most of them are still buds.

Air & Space Museum....a little boy's (and his daddy's!) dream come true!!

Orientation

Jason is in the midst of orientation at JAARS. Here are his co-orientees left to right: Ahn, Clive, James, Jason, Courtney, Zack. These are all awesome guys with great families!!

We have started to get to know Jason's co-orientee James and his wife Natalie really well. They are here from Australia, so we have a lot of fun learning about each other's cultures (here we are eating chocolates that they brought from Australia...yummy!)

More wildlife from the Carolinas

Last year we enjoyed all the different animals at the JAARS Center. Now we live 6 miles off center and have seen three new types of lizards...two in the front yard and the salamaders on the garage door. It is so neat to share our space with these awesome creatures!!

Personal Hygiene

Sorry it's been so long...no internet where we live and so much to do on it when we have the computer at JAARS to use the wi-fi. Anyway, here's the latest video of Patrick being adorable. Enjoy!

The newest member of the family...

As some of you have already heard, we have married off our son during our time in Orlando. Yes, arranged marriages are not common in this country, but this seems to be a special case....and he seems to have chosen her first. :) We'd like to introduce you to Miss Sage. She is the beautiful daughter of Chad & Leah, who are part of our Wycliffe Training Camp group. She is 7 months younger than Patrick. They have a great time together--at school and out of school when "the parents" want to spend time together. They are looking to become youth leaders at the center in Papua New Guinea, which means there's a good chance we'll either be at the same center or, at least, on the same island as them when we all go to help Bible translation in our various ways.

Sage is a "rough and tumble" kind of gal--I think she liked going in the mud more than Patrick!

"Run, Patrick, Run!"

Patrick at "School"

While Momma and Daddy are learning, Patrick is busy learning about Creation and playing with his new friends. Here are a few pictures that have been taken by the instructors who walk the halls/classrooms taking pictures of us all day.

BUBBLES!! Playing with Anna and Daniel...

Nice hair!

As some of you know, Patrick has found himself a lady-friend named Sage while we've been here. They are quite inseparable and give each other a reason to get out of bed each day. Here they are playing dress-up during class. More pictures of the two of them together will be coming in another post. It has been great fun getting to know Sage and her parents.

Wycliffe Center in Orlando, FL

Last night, after 9 hours of driving, we arrived at the Wycliffe Bible Translators campus in Orlando. We enjoyed our time coming down here. Here are some pictures of our apartment here--our "home" for the next two weeks. We have internet access in our apartment, so now is a great time for you to email us! *hint hint* :) We're not sure what the next two weeks have in store for us down here--it sounds like long days of class for us and "school" for Patrick. Please be in prayer for all three of us as we completed this portion of our training.

We had dinner at Subway on our way here. We ordered Patrick a pizza since he never likes the goodies we get on our subs. Here he is "trying" to use a knife to cut his pizza into pieces.

This was actually just outside the Subway, but we were excited that this was Patrick's first time on Florida soil. He has now been in 12 states in the last 10 months!

This is the view walking into our apartment. There is a tiled entryway and a large, walk-in entry closet. You can see our living room, kitchen and dining area.

Here's another picture of our kitchen and dining area. We won't use them much, though, because our "tuition" for training camp includes three meals a day.

This is Patrick's room--he has two twin beds and a pack 'n' play, dresser, nightstand, chair....very roomy and nice.

This is Patrick's bathroom and walk-in closet!! What a lucky li'l man.

This is our bedroom, complete with a desk, dresser, walk-out patio, adjoining bathroom with a walk-in closet.

Here's Jason enjoying a nice tall glass of fresh squeezed orange juice---look closely. Haha. But we do hope to find an orange grove nearby to visit and get some real Florida oranges!! Yum!