St. Louis

This summer my family was able to serve at the St. Louis mission trip. The past couple of summers we have been fortunate to serve in Denver and this year was our first time to minister in St. Louis. We go with Global Encounter Ministries and serve with dear friends the Caldwell family. We also join Donna, Matt & Lindsay and Matt and Mallory. Just a few family members shy of having our entire family on mission together.

This summer Lindsay and I helped Donna on the administrative end of the trip, Todd was lodging site coordinator for the Ferguson site in which about 300 students and leaders stayed for the week, Matt and Matt and the rest of the Springhill band led worship and Mallory was the trip photographer.

It was an incredible week of worship, ministering and catching up with friends on the mission field with us. Between the 2 lodging sites, First Ferguson and First Arnold, we had over 600 people on the field, with 18 ministry sites and ministered to about 1,200 children. We witnessed students and children making the decision to become followers of Jesus.

We also found some time to do some family time while in St. Louis. We were able to take the kids to the zoo.

I love this picture. Jadon is reading so well and enjoys reading everything. It was fun to watch him walk through and read about all the animals.

Some of their favorite animals we saw.

Pictures from the Arch. I am so glad we did this. I wasn't sure if we really needed to go up in it with the kids. I wondered if they would enjoy and appreciate it, but I am so glad we did. They loved it and thought is was amazing to look out the windows and see how far up we were.

Haven fell asleep on our way to the Arch.

I had never been to the City Museum. I loved it and if I could I have would have gone back the next day. The kids loved it as well. I don't have pictures of this part, but after we spent a couple hours inside we went outside to climb around and at one point we climbed up to the highest point to an airplane. We then climbed through a little wire circular thing to a tall slide to go down. When you are walking through this thing you can see the ground below and you are up very high. I was so proud of Haven and Jadon. Jadon went through no problems, Haven said a couple of times she didn't think she could do it, but kept going. When she made it across she was so proud. It was good watching her struggle with being frightened and working through it.

This was at the skateless skate park at the City Museum. We all had fun trying to run up the ramps and sliding down them. Here the kids (and Matt K.) are sliding down one of the tall ramps. Haven learned a lesson here, it is not a good idea to slide down concrete on your belly. She ended up with a concrete burn all down her stomach.

And finally Grant's Farm. We loved it and went at a perfect time, about 2 hours before closing. We didn't have the huge lines and the crowds around everything we wanted to do and see. The best part of the day for us and the kids was bottle feeding the goats and seeing the Clydesdale's.

The Fourth and My Birthday

One of my most favorite holidays is the the Fourth of July. I love celebrating my country that I love so much and it is also the time I celebrate my birthday. I have such fond memories of my entire family all gathering together on July 4. We would spend the afternoon having birthday cake and homemade ice cream, then have a cook-out and after the cook-out and it got dark we would shoot off fireworks. While the men in the family were the pyrotechnics the rest of us would ooh and ahh and grandma and I would polish off and entire watermelon, just the two of us. I was very proud of that feat growing up, that we could eat an entire watermelon. I cherish those memories and want to make sure that my kids have a tradition that they look back on as a time they loved.

My birthday started off with a special birthday breakfast. My mom and dad bought chickens in the spring and have been waiting for them to get big enough to provide eggs. The day before my birthday their first chicken laid its first egg. My dad was so proud and his first thought was of me and my birthday and insisted it be my birthday egg. I love my daddy! So mom brought it over that day to make sure I had it in time for breakfast.

It was such a cute little egg. Can you guess which one was from my dad's chicken? They do get bigger as the chickens grow.

On the Fourth, as we have done the last several years, both sides of our families came over and we enjoyed homemade ice cream, pizza and watermelon. Then we enjoyed the fireworks everyone brought to share.

While the boys were setting off smoke bombs the highlight for Haven was finding a frog.

The best thing ever invented in the eyes of Jadon Wallace. He hates loud noises so having ear plugs was an incredible thing for him. All the kids wore them while the fireworks were being shot off.

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