Back at the beginning of July, we had the opportunity to spend a weekend down in St. Louis with Chad's brother and sister-in-law, Kyle & Kelly. We crammed all kinds of activities into a couple short days. Great memories!
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You probably know by now that Chad and I absolutely love being a part of our youth ministry. In addition to events & activities throughout the school year, we have had the opportunity to go on a few summer mission trips with a handful of students. This summer our church is sending two student mission teams. The first team of around 20 just got back from Red Lake Reservation, Minnesota. In three more weeks, Chad and I will be serving on the second team of 15 students and 6 adults in Port Au Prince and Carrefour, Haiti.
A beautiful Quinceañera, indeed! On June 25th, Mariah celebrated her 15th birthday in a big way—a Quince with her family and friends. In addition to being the coolest birthday bash, traditionally, a Quince is also a celebration highlighting a girl's transition from childhood to maturity as well as God, family, friends, music, food, and dance.
It was obvious that Mariah's Quince involved all of those things—what a special display of love, sentiment and excitement from those closest to her! Chad and I were truly honored to witness the occasion and capture the memories for Mariah and her family.
Here are the gorgeous highlights:
According to our blog, it doesn't look like we've been up to anything since May....a slight understatement. We've been super busy, which is actually why there haven't been any updates. :( BUT, to make up for it, here's a long one ;)
Two weekends ago, Chad and I went camping in New Glarus, WI with two of our best friends, Aaron & Nicole. And yes, Sock Monkey came too. He absolutely loved being out in the wilderness. We camped in one of the walk-in camp sites, so we definitely got our exercise. Trails run from the thick wooded campsite areas, through the picturesque prairie section, passed the New Glarus Brewery, and all the way into the little Swiss town square of New Glarus. It's so beautiful and peaceful!
Here are the four aspects of our weekend that made it such a memorable getaway:
Hopefully all the moms out there had a wonderful Mother's Day yesterday. We sent this hibiscus image to our moms, so thought I'd post it here to share. With more than 20 days of precipitation (some of it being snow or freezing rain—yuck) in the month of April, we are very much looking forward to our promised May flowers any time now.
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A couple of weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to show five original, framed photographs in a juried art exhibition called "RED pop-up gallery" in my hometown, Jackson, MI.
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This is a late [quite beefy] post, but I felt it was a pretty big deal and that it should be documented regardless.
On March 23, 2011 I was in a car accident in Michigan.
Here's the long version...
Some of you may recall our recent "it's a jeep thing..." post from a couple weeks ago in which I introduced our new 2005 Jeep Liberty. I ended the post with "Let the new motor chapter begin..." Well—it was a very short chapter to say the least.