Our summer flew by much too quickly! In June, we went to the AFLC Annual Conference at a place called the ARC in Wisconsin. We had a great time in our nice hotel room and the kids went to VBS at the conference during the day while Jude spent some time in the nursery and some time with mom and dad. Kirk's parents were there too and of course we saw lots of seminary and other friends and even spent some time with my aunt and uncle who live very close to where the conference was held.
In July, we took the two older kids to the FLY (Free Lutheran Youth) convention in Colorado at the YMCA of the Rockies. I worked in the FLY office and Kirk oversaw the youth group from Larimore. We got to stop at Mount Rushmore on the way there!
Hike taken with the youth group up a small mountain at the YMCA of the Rockies on the 4th of July. No fireworks (due to Colorado law) but at least they got to go "mountain climbing"! I stayed down in our room, which was still 9,000 feet in the air. I got pretty winded throughout the week :) The kids had a blast and were able to do some fun activities that the Y has for younger children throughout the week. We were able to make it to a few of the evening sessions, which was such a blessing to listen to preaching from a variety of speakers.
Looking out on Eagle Cliff from the administration building at the Y.
Kirk's parents stayed with Jude during the time we were at FLY. He loved the one on one attention! They took him to Turtle River State Park and met up with my parents on July 4th and just did a lot of playing at local parks and going on walks. They were working on our roof the week Kirk's parents were there so Jude also got a chance to sit in the loader they were using.
We had a 5th birthday party for Leah on July 8th (when Kirk's parents were still here after we returned from Colorado). Her actually birthday is the 11th. We went to a shelter at Turtle River State Park which was her request and she invited her two best friends :) Thankfully it was a beautiful evening!
Baby girl at 28 weeks!
Larimore Days Parade - the older two kids rode in the parade in a small fire truck.
In early August, our dear friends Andy and Monica and their three kids came and stayed with us for a few days. They are missionaries overseas and were home for furlough. We hadn't seen them in two years! Here are our kids in a photo before they left for their next adventure!
We spent the week at Camp FaHoCha again where Kirk is the dean of the pre-teen camp. We really enjoy our time with the staff there, the kids and the Bible school teams that spend the week as counselors and worship leaders. It was a bit of a cooler week than some of the summer before which was probably a good thing so the kids didn't get too hot!
They got to go out on paddleboats and "boogie boards" and one afternoon the power went out and we were completely cut off from the world (camp is out in the middle of nowhere) for a few hours, which our children thought was so exciting! :)
Jude's vocabulary is expanding every day! He is talking in more complete sentences. This morning he asked me in church "What is that noisy thing?" but he also has cute ways of saying some of his words since he can't pronounce all his letters quite right yet. When we were going through baby clothes the other day he said, "Dat's toot!" meaning that's cute every time I pulled out a baby item.
He loves his Lego Duplo blocks, cars, trucks, Hibups (pickups) and dancing around with his hands in the air and saying "belly button" and giggling like crazy.
Photo of Leah on the way up the Bible Point mountain hike (in Colorado). Leah just started preschool in the mornings and loves her class and teacher. She makes up homework sheets for herself and calls me "Mrs. J" because we do some school stuff at home too. :) She told us her first day of preschool was "fantastic!"
Will is in 2nd grade and still loves to read. He likes to amaze us with facts about random things, like "did you know that the oldest houseplant is 200 years old? Could you grow one like that, Mom?" Sports and watching This Old House are two other favorite things, as is playing with our next door neighbor Wyatt who is in his class at school. He does very well in school and gets along so well with his classmates and still has energy when he comes home even though his days are very busy!
Now we're just waiting for baby #4 to join us around October 2nd!
Here is the link to our Summer 2013 Facebook album if you want to see more photos! (Just copy and paste it into your browser and hit enter.) https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152938808190363.1073741827.783005362&type=1&l=a015a60bd5
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