Julia's first road trip...

This past weekend, Julia joined us for a long weekend in Lancaster, her first non-medically-induced overnight away from home. The original motivation for the trip was an opportunity for me to preach at CBC, my parents' church and the only church that I attended until college. I was able to schedule a number of interviews with pastors in the Lancaster area on Thursday and Friday for a seminary class, so we decided to make a family excursion out of it.

Highlights included Julia meeting her great-grandmother, Anna Mary Oberholtzer:


her great-grandfather, Lloyd Miller (he just coming out of a nap, she just entering a nap, hence both sets of eyes partially closed):


and the first time for the entire family on my dad's side to get together since Julia's arrival: Family members include my mom and dad, my aunt Mary Ann, my grandmother, my sister, her husband, their two girls, in addition to Kate, Julia, and me. Would anyone like to guess how many times we took this picture before we were all in the frame and the majority of the faces were pointed towards the camera? Professional photographers who take large family portraits for a living, my imaginary hat is off to you!!


Overall, it was a great weekend. It was lots of fun for Julia to meet a bunch of her extended family members, including a number of folks from my mom's side at church. It was probably more fun for them to meet her (since I think we're all still pretty much pinkish, amorphous blobs to her undeveloped eyes). It was thrilling to learn that Julia seems to be able to handle a two-hour car ride, at least at this point, as she slept for 100% of our trip to Lancaster and 98.3% of our trip back home. It was an amazing blessing and quite a bit of fun to preach at the church where I was raised. And I think it went well enough that my parents are still willing to admit that I'm their son.