Happy Birthday, Cullen!

Today Cullen turns three years old! He is glad to have his cousin Kelly and Aunt Lisa visiting... here are some pictures from Saturday at the beach (he was still two then, but don't let that confuse you.)

Tale of Two Mowers

Cullen on Ice

So it turns out that Cullen is reeeeally good at ice skating. Or, as we like to call it--Hockey!


Thanks, Deb and Jim, for the "Eat-Sleep-Hockey" shirt--or as we like to call it, his uniform.

Here is Cullen with Elizabeth, his skating teacher--or as we like to call her, his hockey coach.



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Some behind the scenes pictures. Getting ready with Mom...



And, time to go home. Or, as Cullen likes to say: "Ah-dah." (Translation: All done!)



Needless to say, we were quite impressed with Cullen's showing on the ice. And special thanks to Elizabeth!

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.