Summer coming to an end...

We've had a very slow summer and it's been wonderful!  We didn't go anywhere big on vacation this year.  This year we stayed home and tied up loose ends, like building a new house and James finishing up one job and starting a new job.

We played at the park a lot this summer.

Farrah loved swimming lessons this year!  She can swim all my herself!  She thinks she's big enough to not wear a life jacket but I'm not quite ready for that part just yet....maybe next summer.

Some friends and I went to the Coach Kingsberry coaching clinic for women and we had a BLAST!!

We even enjoyed some much needed rain here in Lubbock!

Uncle Lance took Farrah on a turtle hunt....there are a lot of turtles in their back yard.

We're building a new house!!!

I took Farrah on her very first ropes course and she LOVED it!

We did LOTS of swimming.

We enjoyed music and a movie in the park.

We had the pleasure of going to see Meme.

But my favorite part of the summer was learning to slow down and enjoy the sunsets!

Another great summer and I can't believe my baby is going to Pre-K!!!

New beginnings....

It's been a wonderful, crazy summer for the Fortner's!  We've spent a lot of time at the pool and with family.  It's also been a season of change for our family.

As of today, James started a new job with Chevron.  He is so excited to be working outside again.  He's loved working at Church on the Rock but his heart is outdoors.  The last couple of weeks for James have been crazy.  He's worked a lot of late nights trying to get everything ready for the new person.  He wanted it to be an easy transition for her.  

There were a lot of mixed emotions with leaving the church.  Excitement of course but heartache at the same time.  James and I have been blessed with an incredible church family.  We were taught so many things and have such a deeper love and relationship with God because of COTR.  We discovered a love for God's people and the world that we didn't have before COTR.  We have traveled the world and met so many incredible people through missions and COTR. 

The most important thing for me is the friendships we've had at COTR.  With all our struggles with infertility and then the joy of bringing home Farrah....our friends and COTR family have been there every step of the way.  We were blessed that James got a job where we can stay in Lubbock for about another year so we can still attend COTR.  

The hardest part was telling James' assistant bye.  Sharon has been such an incredible support to James.  She has stood behind him in so many ways and supported his decisions.  Sharon has prayed for our family from the day James started working at COTR.  She has prayed for Farrah before she was even born and everyday since.  Farrah loves going to her office and sitting and talking with Sharon.  Sharon has heard some really good and funny stories from Farrah.  Sharon always has Farrah's favorite candy in her desk....just for her.  We love and will miss seeing Sharon!

Here's a little funny story.  We were cleaning James' office out and James had a few dead animals in there.  Farrah wanted to pet them so badly but was scared of them.  I asked her if she wanted to touch them and she asked "Will they bite me??"  No, honey...they're dead!

Another exciting thing for us is we're building a house and we will be moving in a couple of weeks....Praise the Lord!!  Once we're in the house I'll post more pictures.

Now that summer is coming to an end....I'll do a blog about all we did this summer.