Pennsylvania Duck Factory

So last week we were in Lititz, Pennsylvania, right above Lancaster. Cullen was very interested in the fountain as you can tell, but also by the...

Ducks!

Ducks are fun close up...


Or even far away...

Cullen's Mom and Uncle Jeff were in on the duck action as you can see. So was I, but I was doing nature photography and had to be candid.



After the downtown duck outing, we had dinner at a great little restaurant. This is Cheryl's family -- Cheryl, Jeff, Mom, Dad, and Cullen. Again, I'm the one behind the camera.

Here are some other quick pics from the ducks' natural habitat...

Their church:

Their ancestors...

And their own train stop. Flying south for the winter is very ecofriendly, but trains are so much more fun!

And this one is for our friends Joel and Elizabeth... Alas! Sorry you were visiting Virginia when we were visiting Pennsylvania!

Cullen Rewind!

Last week we were up in Lancaster, PA with Cheryl's family. It was a nice visit to a nice place with nice people, like Cullen's grandpa...



In case you're wondering what they're looking at, I should tell you that Cullen was very fascinated by the family videos we were playing!



We were watching video from Cullen's first birthday party at the Saber home in 2008!

Incidentally, we were quite interested to notice how in those videos Cullen was very attentive and was performing skills he later lost to the autism spectrum (such as throwing a ball, making good eye contact, attempting speech). We are currently trying to recapture those skills. This kind of normal progress, followed by decline, is why many parents and doctors are suspicious that autism is on the rise due in part to outside factors. Please pray with us as Cullen recovers best as God allows (hopefully a full recovery some day)--ultimately, it's in His good hands.

We have a lot of other great pics to show from the trip! I'll post more in the coming days.

Trick My Trike

Cullen's Lady Friend

This is Cullen's friend Elizabeth. She helps Cullen a few days a week and is a very good friend of his!

And for my next trick...

Walk for your little life!

Thanks to everyone who sponsored Cullen for the Walk for Life! We had a great, sunny day yesterday doing the Walk and enjoying the Norfolk Zoo.

Here's our family...


Cullen and I with our friends Sean and Aidan:


A group of us from church met up... we asked someone to take a picture... they left out the kids... umm, they were kinda important but oh well!


Cullen enjoyed looking at the animals! (Actually, that's blog-speak for, "Cullen was a bit hard to please. He wanted to run around in the dirt. But we coaxed him into looking at some of the animals and tried to teach him that ducks and elephants are not just found in books and puzzles.")


Some of the animals he saw...

The little chicks are pretty important. The speaker at the beginning of the Walk gave the illustration of the way cars will get backed up on Greenbrier Rd because policemen are trying to escort a duck and her chicks across the street (that happens around here). Little babies are just as helpless, especially before they're born. We need to be like those policemen, and help them get safely into the world and to where they're going!