Happy 1st Birthday Miracle Girl!

All children are God’s precious miracles and today, our own little “Miracle Girl” officially turns one year old.

Regardless of the advances in modern medicine, we recognize that our Little Miss and I almost didn’t make it one year ago. Hubby and I still can’t entirely grasp how God literally worked miracle after miracle during that time. Some may believe in just “coincidences” but that can’t come close to explaining our experience last Fall.

It’s hard to imagine that our “little” girl weighed only 2 lbs 8 oz when she was born. Now she’s over 20 lbs! They say most babies triple their birth weight in the first year. Obviously Little Miss doesn’t like to merely meet a milestone, she has to excel.
While we recognize that there may still be small bridges to cross as a result of our little girl's prematurity, Jesus has proven beyond a doubt that He has us in His hands. No matter what, as Pastor Chuck Smith says, “God’s past faithfulness demands that we put our trust in Him”. How true that is. The trials we went through a year ago have been more than worth the blessing of our daughter.

“The angel of the LORD encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him.” (Psalm 34:7)

(For those of you wanting to give a birthday gift, how about considering a small donation to the March of Dimes instead? They are key to research related to premature babies. We would be so blessed by a donation in her honor).

Note: The picture of our Little Miss shortly after she was born was taken by our friend Jessica Harris.

One Special Lady

September is sure the month of birthdays and today is a very special lady’s big day. It's Cara Lynn's 60th birthday!



Cara Lynn has been a mom, mentor, best friend, counselor and Truth speaker to many college-aged women (and young men seeking advice about those same young women!). One thing that I so appreciate about Cara Lynn is that she is a faithful friend. She doesn’t just invest in young people for a short time and then leave them to go their way. Instead, she is a friend who invests for a lifetime.

For me personally, Cara Lynn has been like both a second mom and a best friend. She’s also spent time with Hubby sharing about the "ins and outs" of a woman’s psyche. Now she's another "grandma" for our Little Miss which has been such a blessing.

Cara Lynn and I have a standing tradition for celebrating each of our birthdays; we take the other out to dinner. We try to go to a restaurant that neither of us has been to. We have shared our first bowls of miso soup (faux pas: we asked the waitress if she forgot to bring us spoons when actually, yes, you were supposed to just slurp it), have tried ostrich (Cara Lynn was the brave one to order that. It was actually quite good and tasted nothing like chicken). We’ve gone to an “all organic” restaurant, a French restaurant (no escargot for us), the list goes on. Hmmm, I’m already hungry for this year.

Last year we missed getting to celebrate Cara Lynn’s birthday. I did call and she said that all she wanted was for me NOT to have a baby that day. Little Miss and I came through and gave Cara Lynn her wish…by a day.

One of my favorite things

Hubby will tell you, I have a lot of “favorites”. I tend to overuse the word but can’t seem to help myself. I have several favorite restaurants, favorite activities, favorite foods, favorite books…the list goes on and on.

A favorite of mine lately has been the bike path that is close to our house. I think it's my “favorite” thing about living where we do. The path goes right along the river, past a beautiful park, and with the exception of a very short detour, all the way into downtown.

Most evenings you can find us taking our Little Miss for a stroll down this path. Other times I’ll take her for a run and usually by the end she’s fast asleep (don't let her fool you by the picture below, she was completely out right before I took this!).

It’s fun to watch people walking their dogs (except for the occasional “off leash” pit bull. What are their owners thinking??). There are yummy blackberries to eat and enough trees to give you the sense of being out in the woods. Yep, this path is my favorite.

Weeds, weeds and more weeds

As many of you know, even though we will officially have been in our home for 2 years this coming October, we have yet to have landscaped our backyard. Oh, it’s not that we haven’t meant well. The rains were starting and the yard was muddy when we moved in so we thought we’d target the following summer. Then, our Little Miss made an early appearance and we were understandably distracted. This past spring we decided that A/C was a MUST HAVE so we made that a priority and again, the yard waited. You know you’re procrastinating though when your neighbor asks, “Are you ever going to do anything with your yard?” Now, Fall is around the corner and this is what we have to face.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. We are hoping to have the weeds cleared within the next week or two. We aren’t sure how much more we’ll get done before winter sets in but are wanting to at least get the sod down. Of course, we have another excuse and will continue to take it slow; Hubby's still recovering from back surgery. Plus, I am admittedly not the best at “dirty” work and am not known for having a green thumb (despite the fact that my mom has an amazing talent for growing beautiful flowers as did my grandma. The genes must have skipped a generation).

Speaking of not having a green thumb, I was telling my dear, sweet husband the other day that I really, really, really want some nice hanging flower baskets next year. With as much kindness and tact as possible he replied, “Maybe we should start with cheap ones to see how you do?”

That's OK, don’t gasp in disbelief that he would actually SAY such a thing. I couldn’t exactly argue considering that my mom had just gotten me a nice dahlia plant for our porch. It lasted exactly a week before it joined the other potted plants I effectively killed this summer (sorry Mom!). Did I mention the red geraniums that I was so excited to plant in our front window flowerbox last summer? I decided to save the time (and money!) and didn't even attempt them this year.

Well, off to work on the weeds. At least it’s good when I kill them. We’ll keep you posted with our backyard progress. Just don’t have too high of expectations to see a beautiful “after” picture anytime soon. Maybe NEXT summer. In the meantime, I have a lot of research to do (please let me know if you have any good gardening websites, books or hints to share!).

Summer Oh Summer, Where Have You Gone?

As we sat outside in the new outdoor amphitheater at church this morning I realized, it’s official, summer is on the way out. You know it’s chilly when Hubby (the one who likes to wear shorts year-round) even has a fleece jacket on.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love all the seasons of the year. I appreciate the uniqueness that God gave each quarter. Autumn colors are my favorite and I love the beauty of snow-covered mountains and trees in the Winter. Every Spring I enjoy looking for the first flowers to bloom and listening to the birds chirp outside (though most who know me well are aware that I’m also a little afraid of birds. It’s something about the fear of being pecked and ummm…pooped on).

Summer however holds some of my favorite memories from childhood. Summer reminds me of spending endless hours at the stable riding my horse and hanging out with the other barn kids. We would literally ride all day long getting ready for the county and state fairs. Once at fair, we would spend all week at the fairgrounds showing our horses and eating the “let’s see how your intestines ‘fair’ food”. Summers also remind me of water-skiing (next to riding, my favorite sport!) and camping at the lake.


For Hubby, Summer reminds him of riding bikes, building forts, driving tractors, family picnics and picking berries.

OK, so the last one is not such a good memory. Both Hubby and his brother refuse to pick berries to this day as a result. Thankfully Hubby gives me the go ahead to pay a little extra for the “they-pick" blueberries that we now hoard each summer!

Ah, Summer. We can’t wait for the Summers to come when we get to help create fun memories for Little Miss. Teaching her to swim, ride a bike and horse, fish (Daddy is going to have to bait the hook), play catch, raft, BBQ’s with family and friends…oh, the fun times to come!

Bekah's first camping trip

I know, it's only the second day and already, a new post. This won't be the norm but of course, I am a little over-zealous having just started this new site. I was reading my good friend Joani's blog this morning and was excited to see her post on our recent camping trip. Click on the link to read Joani's description and see some more pics of our Little Miss. We had a really fun time with the Curtis couple, as well as the Booths & Bronsons. Little Miss was the only kiddo but it will be just a matter of time!

Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep in our tent (a.k.a., "The Lodge"). It was cold and even with the layers and thick blankets, our little girl couldn't sleep unless she was in our bed. Of course, then Hubby and I couldn't sleep! We probably got no more than 2 hours of quality rest but it was still well worth the trip. We had a beautiful view right next to the river, great company and just loved being outdoors.

The cold couldn't scare us from going again. We're hoping to make camping a yearly tradition with these couples and their future families. Our last trip together as couples was to Alaska for Mark & Joani's wedding. They didn't seem to want to stay with all of us in our cabin after the wedding but the rest of us had a great time!

Welcome to our new blog!

The “West Coast Wagners” are giving into contemporary culture. We are finally starting a family blog! The funny thing is that we didn’t even know what a “blog” was until the past couple of months. Thankfully we are comforted in knowing that we aren’t the last people on earth to learn about this trend…we’re certain that our parents (on both sides!) will first hear of the word when we send them this link!

OK, so really it’s me (Jodi) who has gotten into blogging recently. I admit I’m somewhat addicted to reading the blogs of several of my friends. I have enjoyed finding out what’s been going on in their families, looking at recent pictures, contemplating thought-provoking insights that people write about and learning more about what God’s been doing in and through others. All that to say, while many people have been caught up reading about Harry Potter, I’ve been caught up in blogs!

Our goal for this blog is to try to stay better connected with friends and family across the country (and world). Phone calls are great however being restricted to verbal communication makes it a little difficult to convey “life” as it occurs. E-mails are nice but it can be hard to remember who you shared what with.

Let’s just say upfront that it will most frequently be me (again, Jodi) who is the author of this family blog (after all, everyone knows that I’m the “wordy” one in this family!). Not to say that Hubby won’t add his two cents once in awhile (no pressure Honey).

I for one am excited about this new “project”. I’ve been looking for a creative outlet. I don’t sew (I wish I could quilt!), I’m too impatient to scrapbook (I still haven’t put our wedding pictures in albums let alone all the pictures of our baby girl!), I’m not crafty by any sense of the word. The one creative sort of hobby I do enjoy is to cook but I could certainly stand to avoid the extra calories that passion comes with!

We haven’t decided how frequently we’ll post and will leave that open ended. We want to keep this active and interesting yet don’t want to be consumed by this site. We’ll target a weekly update but will make no promises. Warning if you do start reading this: We are offering no guarantees about the quality of this blog and can’t say how long it will last but for now, we’ll give it a try! Let the blogging begin!