Guess what we heard?!?!?!

Today Daniel and I went to see my midwife. Yes, midwife...we're having a baby!! And today, for the very first time, we heard baby Audi's heartbeat. I'm 12 weeks and 4 days today. The little one is due November 3.

You may also know that we are traveling to Nepal in a few weeks. And, yes, we are still going. My midwife has given me the green light and we've also gotten the green light from an American doctor who is friends with the folks we know in Nepal. She knows exactly what we'll be doing on our trek in the Himalayas and has lived and practiced medicine in the country for several years.

This baby already has such a blessing over his/her life. The doctors have not only said it will be okay for me and the baby to be in the Himalayas at 15, 16, and 17 weeks of pregnancy, they've actually said the timing is PERFECT! I love that about God - His perfect timing. He knew that this trip was planned. And He knew that little baby would be conceived at the perfect time to allow for us to go on this last trip together overseas before our family expands. Sure, we'll continue to travel after the expansion, but this will be our last trip for a while, just the two of us (technically speaking ;-))

Another amazing thing about baby Audi. Six people have had dreams about the baby, three of them being refugees that I tutor. I'll start with the one that came last summer - almost a year ago.

-I was tutoring Marian Omar and she said to me, "Miss," (they all call me and all other women 'Miss' rather than 'Mrs.') Anyhow, she said, "Miss, I dream about you last night. You have 2 babies. What do you call that? Twins?" "Yes!" I told her, but told her we weren't pregnant and definintely I wasn't having twins. :-)

The next three dreams were shared with us during the week before baby Audi was conceived.

-I called Habiba Omar, Marian's sister, to say hello. I don't tutor her anymore. As soon as she heard it was my voice on the other end of the phone, she said, "Miss, are you calling from the hospital? I dream you have baby girl and call me from the hospital. You say, 'Come, Habiba, see my baby girl!'" I told her we weren't pregnant and kind of laughed. However, I saw my small group leader, Nikki, the following night and she told me she had something to tell me.

-Nikki told me that she had three dreams about me in one night...and it was Friday night, the same night that Habiba dreamed I was pregnant. In all three dreams, she dreamed that I was pregnant!

-That same week, I was at Catholic Charities and a co-worker of mine and Daniel's came up to me and said, "Kim, I had this dream about you this week and you were pregnant. You had this cute little pregnant belly!"

We thought it was interesting that three people had dreams about me being pregnant, all in the same week, but we actually thought it was the Lord just encouraging me. I tend to be a hypochondriac and would occasionally say that maybe I couldn't get pregnant. And I was sad about the 'what if'. So, I believed God was just saying through those people's dreams that I would be able to bear children. End of story.

Well, 5 weeks later, I took a pregnancy test and....the results were:


After we began telling friends about the baby, we heard of two other dreams people had about the baby.

-Sakina, a Congolese refugee who is a strong believer and is one of my students, replied to my telling her that we are having a baby with, "Miss, I know. I dream you born baby boy."

-Izehi, a dear friend who now lives in Turkey, upon hearing our news told me that before she moved to Turkey over a year ago, she had a dream that Daniel and I would, in fact, not be moving to Turkey with her and our other friends who moved there, and she also dreamed that we were expecting a baby!

It's really so sweet to hear that the Lord is speaking to dear friends and sweet refugee students about our child. We are humbled and encouraged. We believe the Lord has divine plans for this child!

baby Audi at 6 weeks, 4 days

When we return from Nepal, we'll have another sonogram and find out if baby Audi will be a 'he' or a 'she'!

Tour de Cafe

Three years ago at Catholic Charities' annual 'Tour de Cafe' I had just started volunteering with an ESL class and walked up the stairs with two little African children from the ESL class in either hand. Little beknownst to me, I would meet the man who would become my husband that night, and his initial attraction to me would be my apparent love for internationals. You can read here for the rest of this story under the "How We Met" section of our "KNOT" page.

The 'Tour de Cafe' has been a special event for the past two years because of that. However, not only is it special because it's the place where I met Daniel, it's special because it's the night when we at Catholic Charities celebrate refugees by having a coffee, tea, and treat tasting of food from all over the world as well as music and art presented by the refugees. This man is a former ESL student of mine and I currently tutor his son. Daniel is his employment case manager. He is from Burma and of the Karen people group. He is a phenomenal artist. Here are some samples of his paintings.I also tutor four of the kids in the this family. The father, grandmother, and baby stayed home this night. There are 10 people living in a four bedroom apartment - grandmother, parents, and seven children. Can you imagine? They are such a sweet family with hearts that love the Lord. During Christmas Catholic Charities gives Christmas gifts to our families through Toys for Tots and private donors. I was teaching ESL to these parents at the time and got to deliver their Christmas gifts. The oldest daughter wrote me the sweetest letter thanking me for the gifts and speaking blessing over me from a passage in Psalm 12. So sweet!

Easter Sunday at the Audi household

He is risen! Hallelujah, Jesus Christ is risen indeed! We celebrate His victory over death and His coming forth from the grave. And what better way to celebrate life than to sow new life into the ground!

Daniel and I spent Easter Sunday afternoon together planting flowers in the front bed at our house. We planted gerbers and petunias and after weeding the flower bed we saw that some of the gladialas we planted last year were peeking through the soil again, ready to grow into beautiful blooms again this year.

Have you ever thought about the miracle of growth - human life? trees? plants? flowers? We transplanted some of the flowers, but we also planted seeds for morning glories and moon flowers and zinnias. I said to Daniel, "Isn't it amazing that water and good soil will make this seed sprout and a beautiful flower will come fort from the dirt?" Amazing. God's design and order are absolutely amazing!

purple petunias

pink gerbers

the front flower bed

Easter traditions

I think I've reverted back to being a child...or, maybe I never grew out of being one. Either way, I still enjoy painting Easter eggs and going on Easter egg hunts and all of the fun traditions of Easter weekend. Of course, I know the weeekend is really about celebrating Jesus. And we also did that!

Traditionally my family has a big get-together in Ruston on Easter weekend, but Daniel and I had decided that we'd done enough traveling from January to the beginning of March that we didn't think returning to Ruston for Easter would prove to be restful for us. So, we forfeited the Easter egg hunt and picnic at Uncle Sidney's and enjoyed a long, relaxing 4-day weekend here in Fort Worth. Part of that weekend included having a co-worker and her husband over for lunch on Saturday.


Daniel and I had been wanting to invite Khadra and her husband over for a while and finally got around to making the time to do it. It just so happened to be Easter weekend. We had never met Khadra's husband before and were looking forward to meeting him. He is Somali but grew up in Iraq and also lived in Germany for quite some time. Boy did he have stories to tell. Khadra had told me that he loves traditions and cultures, so we thought that we'd celebrate some Easter traditions with them during their visit.


After our picnic on the blanket outside Khadra and I came inside to prepare the eggs for dying, and the boys stayed outside and Daniel learned much about Mahmoud as he told him stories of his life in Iraq and in Germany. Then, we took turns coloring the eggs with a clear crayon and dying them. Mahmoud suggested to put them back in the carton in the shape of a cross since we were celebrating Easter - nice cross, huh? Then Mahmoud suggested that we hide the eggs for each other and have a mini-egg hunt. So Daniel and I hid some eggs and Khadra and Mahmoud found them. Then, they returned the favor for us. Don't we know how to have fun!?!?!!?

Mom and Dad Audi's visit

I know. I know. I've been tardy on my updates lately. I'll do my best to get somewhat caught up tonight.

Daniel's folks came for a visit several weeks ago. Daniel's dad is Arab which means he comes from a family that loves to be hospitable. And hospitable he was! We went out to eat at the steakhouse and had pizza and barbecue and... I mean, aren't we the hosts/hostesses supposed to be the hospitable ones? We of course didn't complain! We had a great time with them and with Josh and Elizabeth.

We took them down to the Stockyards, the place out-of-towners 'must see' in Fort Worth. Mom Audi even got on the back of the longhorn!

Then we took them to the Water Gardens in downtown Fort Worth. I had never been before - here we are, after having walked down maybe 50 steps to be in the center of water falling down the rocks that surrounded us and flowing into a drainage system at the bottom.

This was their first time to come down for a visit other than coming down for Josh and Elizabeth's wedding. We think we enticed them to do it more often, though.

Happy Birthday to Me - belated posts...

I turned 29 on March 2 and we've been going full throttle since about February 2, so this is my first chance to post anything. We've either been out of town or had company in our home for the past 6 weekends, with one weekend in the middle that we had a breather. So, I'll try to catch you up in the next few blogs.

bowling, childhood camp games, and snow

The day after my birthday several friends got together at Main Event for a night of bowling. We had reports that day that there could be snow in the air that evening.

And snow there was. Small white flakes fell from the sky and landed on my black coat as we walked into Main Event. And when we walked out 2 hours later, we saw this:





Meanwhile in the bowling alley, 11 of us played a mean hour of bowling. I was the winner on my team with a big score of 89 points!!

Josh, me, Elizabeth, Callie, and Daniel.


And Brendon led on his team with a grand total of 117 points. Nikki came in 2nd with 99. Needless to say, I ended up on a good team - afterall, aren't you supposed to win on your own birthday!?!?!!? I couldn't have hung with this team!

Jen, Nikki, Charity, Brendon, Sandy, and Amanda.


Following bowling was birthday cake. My sweet husband got a cake made for me with Arabic written on it, literally saying, "Every year and you are kind," which is the Arabic saying for birthdays and holidays alike.




Then we played a few rounds of "Down by the banks of the hanky-panky where the bullfrog jumps from bank-to-banky singing A, E, I, O, U bam-boooom!" (If you don't know this song, then just don't ask...I learned it at a camp somewhere and thankfully I wasn't the only one who had heard of it!)





And our last game of the night was "gossip" or "telephone" or whatever you choose to call it. Daniel started a round with a Turkish phrase and I started a round with an Arabic phrase, and of course there were a few English phrases. Needless to say, we were rolling with laughter during both games as we all enjoyed a bit of immaturity! :-)





Thanks, friends, for a fun birthday night at Main Event!

sunday at granny's

Four generations...



We were in Ruston the weekend of my birthday. We had a scavenger hunt on Saturday and all of us were at Granny's for lunch on Sunday - the weather was so nice so we enjoyed some time in the backyard - cousins and the 3 babies, swings, & the trampoline!


Meredith was ecstatic about the trampoline!


Annie and Allie didn't have quite the same expressiveness.

birthday for two

Mom and I celebrate our birthdays in March, and for the first time ever, we had a joint birthday celebrations!

If you remember, last year we had a scavenger hunt with my family for my birthday (see archived blog here)Well, since we had a small turnout last year, we decided to have 'take two' this year, complete with new clues, new teams, and new winners! It was actually quite amusing to watch my parents, grandparents, sister, brother-in-law, cousins, and friends compete for first place! The clues were hidden inside and outside both my parents' house and my granny's house. We live on about 100+ acres of land between the 2 families, so people were driving cars back and forth between houses and clues. Some ways the competition got a bit 'heated' was

-by hiding clues a little harder than they originally found them
-stealing keys from a running car
-locking the door to granny's house behind them to make sure the next person had to use the key to get inside!


Laura and Annie running to find the next clue:

the grandfather clock clue:


Heather, Hannah, and Jenny looking in granny's mailbox for a clue:



And the winners are... Laura, Mamaw, Annie, and Mom:

After the scavenger hunt we had birthday cake and ice cream. Mom turns 56 on March 14 and I turned 29 on March 2, so we had a joint birthday weekend - complete with blowing out candles together!


Annie and Hannah enjoyed dessert the most I think!



And after dessert, we made dinner for everyone - well, mostly Brian made dinner for everyone. He and Jenny brought ready-made kabobs, both chicken and steak, to grill for dinner. And they were mmm...mmmm....good!

Rachie's visit, part trois

And here we are, after church, and after our speed re-match of Settlers on Sunday afternoon.


Rachie, we had a great weekend with you! We're so glad you came down to visit!

We love you!