Catch up time

We are back from our Families on Mission trip with the North American Mission Board (NAMB) and we had an amazing time together! I will spend the next few days sharing photos and memories from this week. We are still processing and praying over new opportunities that have been offered to us...so I'll start with a few events that I missed posting about before we left! Remember, this is serving as my scrapbook now...so I don't want to miss a thing!

Awana awards was a great night for us. We were so proud of how the girls have hidden God's Word in their hearts this year! Anli did so well in her book in her first year as a TNT kid. Virginia finished her Sparks book and did great also!

Virginia and Caleb won the Sparks award for the entire Kindergarten class. It was a huge honor to have her represent what a Sparks kid is all about...attitude, learning, etc. I had no idea and almost missed the announcement! Anli and her best friend Ravenn won awesome water bottles for their hard work this year. As her first year in TNT, we are seeing that it is much more challenging than her years in Sparks. We are so proud of all Anli and Virginia have worked to memorize and apply this year!

We finished the year of climbing at Escalade for Anli. She has been climbing now for about 4 years and is getting better all the time. She amazed me constantly with her strength, endurance, and reasoning on the wall. We are so very proud of our climbing girl...and it is something very special that she and Jay do together!

She loves it and is built to be a climber! We have been blessed to be at Escalade...but it is super expensive and only Anli can climb. So, we have a new home for our family fun...

It opens tomorrow and we have already joined along with lots of our friends! It's going to be amazing and tons of fun. They have a climbing wall, indoor and outdoor pools, spa, hair salon, child center (for older kids all the time...which was one main reason we joined)...and more amenities than I could name! We have been counting the days until it opens and tomorrow we will be there for our meeting with the personal trainer to get started! And it's about the same price as Escalade was for just Anli...so now we ALL get to enjoy fitness together!

We celebrated my friend Becky's 30th birthday before we left on our trip. It was so much fun to see friends and visit with those we haven't see in a while. It was a surprise party, so I think she was really surprised...since it was about a week or so after her birthday!

Rhonda, Ginger and I have a blast catching up! Though we all still live close by...it's hard to get together with such busy lives and families. It was fun to eat dinner together and chat.

We also celebrated our friend Curtis' 9th birthday at Monkey Joe's. It was a blast and great fun out of the heat! The kids loved every minute of it!

Curtis got to sit in the huge inflatable throne and the kids waited for yummy cake! They had so much fun getting together and playing.

Virginia, Jordan, and Elijah hang out with the jungle animals!

I'm getting my photos and videos together for a week's worth of posting on our mission trip. It was truly such an amazing time with God, my family, and the teams. I can't wait to share!