July '19: VBS, Hills Alive, hiking, YG tubing

Evie was technically too old for VBS (I think? or it was her final year) but she went all the same.

I believe the kids raised money to support a Nebraskan church that was flooded out during the wet spring. They also worked toward taping Zeb and Moses to the wall. 

I love that look they're sharing. 😂

One day while the kids were at the church Terry and I drove down to visit Paul and Jana. Love them! 

There's always hail in summer but there aren't always dahlias that are behind in their growth. Terry was so kind as to run out there and cover them all up. 

I loved him running around under that umbrella for me. 💚

The following weekend, July 21, was Hills Alive. It had been a while since we'd gone but For King and Country drew us out. 

Evie with Sarah and Naomi.

Evie dancing with Grace.

Samuel and Ezra already look so much smaller here to me (it's February while I write this though).

It's always a huge crowd. 

Happy girls. 

Bouncing girls.

I did a more professional haircut for Luna since I finally figured out how to use the guards. 

David took Noah and Moses out a few times for hiking. 

He's the best! 

Beautiful. 

Creeper Noah 😂

Terry still does youth group in the summers when he's not on a trip. This particular event had been already been rescheduled to this night, July 24, due to rain and lightning. But even still it was cloudy and cold! 

Terry and Steven constructed a huge waterslide!

The littles had so much fun. So did everyone else!

The fall was very quickly approaching and I had to get my school stuff in order. I spent hours and hours planning and shopping. 

That kitty is so chill. 

The littles helping me water my dahlias. 

Haircut time for Evie. 

Our very good friends from Nebraska, Shawn and Becki, visited us on July 27 while they were here for their anniversary. 

2013 Hills Alive

This year for Hill Alive we kind of did our own thing. It was so nice not to have to be stuck there all day. And the weather was (mostly) gorgeous. Usually Hills Alive is 100 degrees and terrible. This year was unseasonably cool with upper 70s and lower 80s. Beautiful. And that was fortunate since even baby 7 week old Ezra came along.

After we watched For King and Country (we really enjoyed them), we spent a couple hours at the bouncy castles for the kids. Then we went to get some balloon animals. The workers were talking about a big hail storm coming. Terry was not about to get out of line and listen to the kids whiny annoying complaints. So they got their balloon animals and we had just enough time to run for shelter under a big cottonwood tree. Thankfully, the people in the tent next to the tree pulled us under with them. Just in time too because Evie got smoked on the shoulder with a hail stone. She didn't even end up with a bruise, but she freaked out. The storm started out with just marble size hail but it grew in size...

Our view of the storm from under the tent.

When the storm was almost over, the clouds started dropping some wallops. I'd never seen golf ball size hail before. They looked like they'd been frozen twice. Scary stuff. We joked that someone on stage said something blasphemous so God sent the hail. 

In the parking lot, our van received very little damage. Just some dings to the roof that are kinda hard to see. When we got home a half hour after the storm passed, our lawn still had a ton of hail on it.

These were some of the larger hailstones we could find. And this was after they'd melted a while!

The big stones even left divots in the lawn. Most impressive.

Hills Alive 2012

It's been an entire month since Hills Alive took place, but there's no way I want to forgot the good times we had when some Gburg students and friends came to visit us.

Last year, we brought a crew from Gburg up to Hills Alive and it was a lot of fun. So this summer it definitely felt a little strange not to have to travel to go to the music festival and that there were no Gburg peeps to take along. We were therefore very pleased that several friends decided to come up and visit us. Here is Carlie, Kelsey and Rebecca! YAY!!!

Laurie and Shelli also made the drive up. The good thing about my grampa's house (where we rented for three months before buying our new place) was that it was huge and great for housing a lot of people - and the covered porch was a great place to hang out.

I just had to throw this one in there. Check out Noah sucking away on that tea cup. HA!

So the girls got to our place Saturday at lunch and left on Sunday evening since they still had lives in Gburg and all. We were so happy to have them here however long they could stay.

When I got up Sunday morning and saw this (below) I ran for the camera before they could wake up and move. I was surprised they could all fit! I love having people over so our huge couches ability to sleep three full grown students is just another reason why I am glad we chose it. That and it's wonderful for having movie nights with students like we did last night - there were 9 of us sitting comfortably while we watched The Hunger Games.

So even though it was really hot (like always) and it's hard taking 3 young kids to a loud music festival, we had a lot of fun. We were so happy to have able to see our girls again. Love them!

hills alive '11

In mid-July Terry brought 16 students up to SD for the Christian music festival Hills Alive. Me and the kids went too, though he couldn't drive me. I drove my 3 kids and 2-3 girls also.

Here's Samuel on the way up. He did well for that part of the drive. But on the way home, he did horribly. He cried loud for most of the 7 hour drive. He hates his car seat like he hates sleeping on his back.

On our second stop we found this poor little guy stuck to my headlight. No wonder there was a feather stuck on my wipers.

It was hot, hot, hot, as it always is. Here is our camp the first day. Those 3 smiling girls were in my van.

That pop felt so good on my face. And doesn't "Mountain Drops" sound like something Terry would make up?

Before church on Sunday, Terry took the students to the cave that he prints t-shirts for - Sitting Bull Crystal Cave.

We attended our old, home church - where we met, were married, were involved in a super small group and where we even had Noah dedicated. It was so good to see old friends. Jon held Samuel for a while.

This is what Daniel got everyone calling Terry: Teryl.