Summer's Almost Gone!

Dear friends and family,

For those of you who keep up with my blog, I’m SO sorry for the lapse in updates.  Things have been quite busy since I moved back in.  Let me try to quickly summarize for you and bring you up to date on my goings on this summer.

Well, to start it all off, as you know I moved back into my little green house in the back corner of the EFF property.  Then Judy and Paul went home to take care of some legal stuff and pack up/get ready to move down to Mexico.   It was a long 3 weeks without them, but we managed to keep our heads above water until they got back.

Right before they got back, I went home to go with my mom and sister on our annual vacation to visit our family in Kentucky.  There we spent lots of time with family, met Q (our uncle and aunt’s exchange student from Thailand), went to the Louisville Sluggard factory for the first time, drove down to Bowling Green to meet up with our cousin, Aleigha, from my dad’s side of the family, who moved to Tennessee, went to my mom’s family reunion, and celebrated my grandpa’s birthday. 

I went back to Mexico only to quickly come up again to the states for Father’s day, 2 of my sisters’ graduations (Julie graduated jr. high and Sarah graduated high school) and to spend time with my sister, Jenny, and police brother-in-law, Richard, who were visiting from Texas.  I’m SO glad the Lord worked that all out :]  The thing I miss most about being down here is my family.

Then once again, I returned to Mexico.  As groups came and went this summer it was fun getting to know them as usual :]  One group in particular that I really grew fond of was Vickie Millhouse’s group from Washington.  They came down to do a Vacation Bible School at my favorite outreach church, La Gloria.  I went with them all week and honestly I think I had more fun than some of the kids did.  We had 100+ kids almost every day!  (If you know how tiny that church is, you’ll know to be even more impressed).  We had our EFF school bus drive around the surrounding neighborhoods to pick up the kids.  The group sang songs with them, taught them lessons, played games with them, did crafts with them, and gave them snacks.  It was so fun :]

The grand finale to that week was my BIRTHDAY!  The group had already planned to bring a pi ata for the end of VBS and for our outreach at Rancho San Francisco, but I pretended like they were for my birthday :-P  My dad and Elissa came down to visit me from Thursday to Saturday and were able to go with me for the last day of VBS and some of the outreaches.  My mom, Melody, Norm, and Tim came down on Friday (my actual birthday) and I invited a bunch of my local friends over for a BBQ at our new BBQ pit in the center of the foundation (where the old campers used to be).  Honestly it was the best birthday I can ever remember!  Thank you Lord!

This past weekend, I went (yet again!) up to the states, but this time for a wedding.  My friend, Danielle Pearson, who I met in Mexico, moved up to northern California about a year ago and announced to us this spring that she was getting married!  WOOHOO!  So, Hannah Koppers, Tani Manzano, and I drove up to Chico (about 2 hours above Sacramento) to be with our amazing friend on this wonderful day.  On the way up we stopped in Auberry for a night to visit Arjuna and Kesh.  We continued on to Lodi to visit the Manzanos’ grandparents and where Hope Manzano met up with us after driving out from Reno and joined the roadtrip.  We made it to Chico by Thursday evening, treated ourselves with some Olive Garden, met up with Danielle, and headed to our accommodations (David’s grandpa’s cabin in Paradise).  Thanks David!  It was such an enjoyable weekend of many laughs, meeting new friends like Jen Buckner, and bonding moments with some of the greatest people.  By Sunday morning it was time to pack up, drop Jen Buckner off in Sacramento, and head back to Mexico. 

Another reason this weekend was so special to me was that it was a special bonding time with my good friend Hannah Koppers.  Just yesterday she moved to San Diego after living in Mexico for the past 6 years.  I am happy for her because she is really excited to be going back to college, living in her super cute new apartment, and because she lives right next to the border where we can all stop in and say hi or spend the night on our way through.  I’m so glad she did not move FAR, far away, but I will still miss her a lot.  I can’t wait to come visit you Hannah! 

Well, that catches me up to now.  I would have to say, that’s a pretty sufficient summary of my summer so far.  At least for now.  God bless and thanks for keeping up with my life!  :]