Becca & Elise were in their annual summer musical production! This year it was Aladdin, Jr! Becca was a "harem girl" and Elise was a "narrator"! They both did a fantastic job...and as I'm typing this I'm realizing there are more pictures on my big camera...so I will have to get those off of there and add them...so maybe July will get THREE posts!
Elise and one of her best buds!
And another best bud...yes, the sister.
Sweet Mrs. Dean - how we love her!
Bethany went on a SERVE project to Grand Rapids the end of June and came home early July. It was an awesome experience for her and she learned SO MUCH. It has been such a matter of earnest prayer that she be able to do mission work, as that is her sincerest heart's desire, and this was an amazing first step towards following that call. We are humbled, grateful, and blessed beyond belief to have watched her grow to this point and to have so much wonderful emotional and prayer support for her.
Over the weekend of the 4th of July, we were invited two different places...once to the bay, which is one of my favorite places on the earth, and once to dear friends' for a bbq and fireworks. Such fun for adults & kids alike! It was a cold 4th, but we had a fire and blankets and warm friendship.
Yes, those are my children holding sparklers. No, I never would have let Sarah & Bethany hold sparklers. It's true, subsequent children have it easier for things like that. I have become my mother, except that my mom probably would have given my baby brother ice cream to eat while he held a sparkler.
Elise FINALLY got to have her birthday party!! Three friends were over for a "camping party" and it was SUPER!
Swimming and crafts and s'mores followed by...
sleeping in the tent in the backyard!
Becca got to have a friend over too - this one's a keeper!
My mom is retiring from teaching preschool and she had a HUGE garage sale...they worked really hard getting ready and had a VERY successful sale! My favorite moment was when one mom bought the old wooden desks...I was feeling rather sad about them being sold, since they had belonged to my brother & I, but I just had no place for them, nor any children who would still be able to use them. A mom of a preschooler came driving up to the sale and was practically dancing from excitement that the desks were still there. She immediately yelled out "I'll take those!" without even LOOKING at the price! She told me as I helped her load up that she has 4 boys, 7 & under, who will use them DAILY for probably the next 7 years. That made my heart happy.
(This picture below is just from last week...but it's going here anyway).
This girl also makes my heart happy. She LOVES working in the berries and comes home filthy and hot, but works hard every day she is on the schedule. Berries just finished for the summer - turned out they had a longer season than expected and she got to work pretty much all of July! The best story is that one day she called me from a friend's phone and says, "Hey, I'm done, can you come pick me up? And also, the dog that lives next to the berry field stole my bag with my phone and my lunch box, so can you help me look for it?" Um....what? So, I go pick her up and we are trying to track her phone on our "Find iPhone" app and trying to make her alarm go off remotely and calling it and wandering around the people's yard that live next to the berry patch (& who happen to go to our church). I was just about to go knock on their door to let them know to be on the lookout when I hear the lady call my name. We turn around and she's holding Bethany's bag! We go running over to her (it's a big yard out in the country) and she says, "I kept hearing these weird noises coming from near my front porch so I went out there and found this bag buried in the flower bed!" :O Wow. Bethany's phone was recovered & still functional, thank goodness, but her lunch box has never been found...
Stayed tuned for the next installment of July, 2016...
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