HI! I'm back, but not for long. Emma and I were in Pennsylvania visiting Michael's extended family over Memorial Day weekend- we had such a great time- we mostly just sat around and laughed at all of Emma's funny facial expressions. We traveled up with Mom & Dad Whitcomb and flew back Tuesday morning. I just finished unpacking my suitcase this morning (my suitcase didn't make it back to the airport the same time as us). We are leaving for a visit to Greenville next Wednesday after church- hopefully Emma will sleep most of the way there! My sweet friend Lai is in Greenville from California, so we are going to get to see her and meet her 2nd girl -Autumn-who was born in CA. Lai hasn't met Emma yet, either- we are so excited to see eachother. My sister Liz is driving from Indiana to meet us there, too- then following us back up to VA Beach. She is living with Erica & Steven for several weeks this summer, so I'm sure that I'll be taking a few weekend trips to hang out with my sisters :)

Many of you have asked about how Michael is doing with his Crohn's Disease. We are thankful to the Lord for his progress in regaining strength. He stopped taking meds in January- the side effects from the medication wasn't worth it. He is taking about 10 different vitamins daily- this has been very helpful for him. We (meaning mostly me, since I do the shopping/cooking) have been experimenting with different organic/ natural foods and that has also made a huge difference. It is a process, and I know that there is so much more that I can do to help him, but we are just taking it little by little to see what works and what he likes. He has been able to keep up with his business and hasn't had an episode for a couple months. Thank you all for your prayers and helpful advice.

Emma is about 9 1/2 months already! She has 2 top & 2 bottom teeth and smiles a lot. We love to hear her jabber and can make out a few random words. One word she is really good at is "more". When we were traveling up to PA, we stopped at Wendy's to eat. Grandma gave her some of her food and Emma liked it so much that she YELLED "more" until Grandma gave her more. Now we are trying to teach her to ask quietly, and to say "please". She also loves to wave at people- even complete strangers. I found this out when we were walking through the airport. She tries to get people's attention by saying "AHH"!. If they don't respond, the AHH gets louder and a little bit longer. On our last flight, she was standing on the seat beside me looking toward the back of the plane and doing this for a little while. As she seemed to be getting frustrated, I turned around and noticed that everyone behind us was sleeping. Emma was not going to stop until they woke up and acknoleged her. What a ham.

Dad took some great pictures while we were in PA. Unfortunately I don't have any new ones of Emma to post yet. I did finally get a hair cut. This is a lousy picture, but kinda shows my new hairdo.