John David is growing up. He is now over 21 lbs. (The pictures linked above are several weeks old, but they still look like him.) He is his usual playful, charming self. This has been a big week for him. On Monday, Leslie finally felt his first sharp tooth above the gum. He has been teething for at least four months, on everything, including Mommy's jaw and ribs. On Tuesday, his little arms and legs rallied, and he is now crawling. Although he stops often to observe and play, he has already picked up speed. He can also stand, better than he realizes. He sits or pulls up to a stand in his crib even in the wee hours of the night before he is fully awake. It delights us to watch him try new things out. He is extremely curious about everything and will stretch, pounce, or launch to get his hands on what his eyes find intriguing. With other children around, though, he is often content to observe and study. He has been in the pool at the YMCA and seems to love the water (as long as Mommy is in close range). We really have to make an effort to keep him from drinking the water, which is somewhat of a surprise to us considering how much chlorine they put into it. He is eating some solid food, but in tiny amounts just for fun. He still has a strong gag reflex and has crumpled his face over bananas, avocados, apples, pears, carrots. He likes sweet potatoes and flaxseed oil.

Rafter, our cat, and John David have met on a more formal basis, John David grabbing some fistfuls of fur (which attention-starved Rafter doesn’t seem to mind). John David likes to watch whatever the cat is doing, but Rafter still seems to be uninterested in playing. :) It won’t be too long until John David will be able to chase him around. It should be pretty fun. We’ll try to get some pictures.

Leslie and I decided that this year it would be better if we did not lead a Sunday night small group. We have joined a couples’ small group with five other couples. As a church, we are going through Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Life. Leslie and I are both excited about what the Lord is going to teach us through this book. Whether a new Christian or an old one, one of the greatest items that we share is that upon salvation life immediately has meaning, but what I have struggled with over seven or so years has to do with the topic of Purpose. Well, I won’t say too much more about that, but I am really excited about delving into this topic from a Christian perspective.

Dewey, Renee, Caleb, Joshua and the newest member of the Gidcumb family, Mia Hayley came to visit us a couple of months ago. We had a really nice time and were able to experience the excitement of Caleb’s and Joshua’s first visit to an aquarium. It was also fun to watch the kids play in the water that is located outside the aquarium. Dewey brought us some honey that he harvested from his beehives. Leslie and I use more honey than the average Joe and were thankful to be able to get some pure raw honey.

Ever since Leslie and I went to Germany, I have had this itch to learn German. For the last two years, I have spent some of my free time trying to learn German on the Internet. DeutscheWelle has a free online course that I used in addition to an online German radio station. I was able to learn a lot of words, but when it came to putting sentences together or pronouncing the words correctly, I believe I did more harm than good. This being the case, I finally decided to break down and take a class. I am glad that I did, though it has added a dimension of busyness that I had not anticipated. So far one of the neatest things to come out of the class is that I bumped into a fellow Torchbearer. I attended Ravencrest back in 93. He attended Bodenseehof in Germany last year.