Lorien: Four Years Old!

I'm trying to make it a tradition to take Lorien's birthday photos in the wild Colorado sunflowers every year, since they're usually at their peak in the month following her birthday. (Except for last year, when there weren't many sunflowers, so we went for our favorite park instead.) 

Here's our big four-year-old girl!

Surprise!

If you had told me six months ago—heck, even three months ago—that I'd be making this announcement, I'd have called you crazy. But it's true, we're adding a fifth member to our family! 

Since I know you're thinking it: yes, this was as much a surprise to us as it is to you. Yes, we do know how this happens. 

Now that we're done being shocked, we're excited. (But can I please just have you re-read this post and insert "positive pregnancy test" on June 12, right in the middle of the Black Forest Fire? Ummmm, yeah....)

Baby Keffer #3 is due February 12-ish. Here are Lorien and Josiah showing off our new little one: 

Summer 2013 Graduation

What a jarring transition. Eighteen hours after returning from camp, I found myself sitting at graduation for my 33rd and final Institute class. I'm not gonna lie: I cried all day. 

I didn't really cry for this class. There's always a measure of joy in sending out a new class of students to go where God sends them and do what he asks them to do. There was a special joy in sending out this class because of the way they shared their lives with us and they way they stewarded their (collectively) very difficult stories. 

Family Camp

A first for our family this summer was attending Family Camp at Sonrise Mountain Ranch in Cimmaron, Colorado. It's waaaayyy the heck up this long valley. Seriously, we lost our cell phone service an hour before we got there. No phone. No internet. A whole week to truly unplug.