Waiting for Rainbows

Sunday, September 3, 2023

July - August 2023

The fourth of July is a fun mid-year holiday. This year we designated the day as family day and we all got to pick something we wanted to do. It was a wonderful day full of baking, games, eating, and watching fireworks. We enjoy going to Independence Park each year for the 4th of July celebration and watching the great fireworks show. I love making memories with our family.

In July Grammy and Poppy came for a visit. We celebrated Christmas in July which was fun. The girls both requested a special item in their room. For Aubrey it was an aerial scarf and for Avery it was a swinging chair hanging from the ceiling. Other gifts mostly revolved around face care products - they are preteens for sure! We enjoyed the visit including an escape room, mini golfing, back to school shopping, celebrating Poppy's birthday, and lots of meals and games. It was good to have the time together.

Mid July we had Isaiah House Lemonade weekend. In Brazoria County, we had 49 lemonade stands and raised over $17,000. It was a lot of work to prepare for, but such a blessing to see it all come together. I am honored to serve as the lemonade committee chair for the second year in a row. The girls participate in lemonade stands since it is a family friendly serve - it is hard not to donate money when they are such cute kids right?! On July 22nd, we had groundbreaking for Brazoria County's Isaiah House. It was a special evening as we commemorated the land where the future home will be built. I can't wait to see all God has in store.

Next up was our vacation to Myrtle Beach. We had an ocean front property which was super convenient and had a whole week to do all things such as mini golf, escape room, a pirate dinner show, Grand prix, 2 museums, and lots and lots of ice cream! One of the highlights was meeting our best friends Liz, Ron, Ellie and Kate. It is always special when we get to hang out and it was a fun way to spend vacation having half the time with friends and half the time with just us. I was super excited to go back to the vacation spot that we went every year during our childhood and had so many good memories. Hopefully the kids made good memories there too.

August ramped up with birthday celebrations - fun! We had a relaxing bday and tried a new restaurant and the following weekend the family took me on a scavenger hunt which led you to different restaurants to have parts of your meal. It was supposed to end in a picnic at a park but it was so crazy hot so we had to eat in the restaurants instead. It was such a neat idea and we had so much fun. Lastly, we celebrated by doing a mother/daughter celebration with the kids friends and we learned how to decorate cakes and then followed it up with Gringos. The kids had a good time decorating their own cake and we all definitely learned something new. Overall, my bday was awesome! Also, in August, Aubrey led a 2hr serve project with her friend Chelsea at the animal shelter. There they made cat and dog toys, and helped walk and bathe dogs and play with cats. They did a great job organizing a service project for their AHG troop.

August 15th rolled around quickly. Here we are at another school year! The kids are entering 6th grade at Sablatura Middle School. I hope they will both have great years with awesome teachers. Avery has 3 teachers and Aubrey has 4 teachers. Avery will be in math club and Future Problem Solvers of America clubs. Aubrey will be doing chamber choir this year. Avery has art as her elective and Aubrey has choir.

August 20th was a day we were waiting for literally all year: Pearland Schools Prayer Walk. We had 33 schools included and 37 churches/organizations that participated. We kicked off the event with a prayer rally and then we as the big C church prayed on school campuses. It was God sized -- over 600 people attended. God really brought our community together to pray and serve. I can't wait to see what God has planned next.

July and August were pretty great. We are so blessed to have great memories as a family and feel like we are walking in areas that God is calling us into. We have so much to be thankful for.

Visit with Poppy and Grammy and Christmas in July and Poppy's Bday Celebation:

Isaiah 117 House Groundbreaking Event:

Vacation to Myrtle Beach:

First day of school: 6th grade!

Pearland School Prayer Walk 2023:

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

May - June 2023

Another school year coming to a close. Hard to believe they completed their first year of middle school, 5th grade. It was a great year for both. The girls earned straight As in all four quarters and were noted to have exceptional work habits and conduct in the classroom. We are so proud of them. For Avery, she does a TPSP project which was a paper on women's rights and then completed a quilt to represent ideas in the paper. She worked long and hard on both, and we are all happy that it came to an end! The kids finished off the year with a pool party at their best friend's house with all their close friends. They are so lucky to have such a great group of girlfriends.

The family treated me to the best mother's day ever. We had church and then we came home and I got to spend time with both kids making two different cakes. Avery picked making an angel food cake from scratch with me and Aubrey picked making a homemade marble cake (marble is my favorite!) for me, with a little help from dad. All in all they both made delicious cakes that we got to enjoy later the evening. We went on a long walk and got poured on (whoops!) and then went out to an enjoyable Italian dinner. All in all, it was absolutely perfect. Their homemade cards were icing on the cake.

The kid's ended the school year with a bang. First a pool party. Then they did a triple header sleepover with friends. The next day, we left for a trip to PA to visit Nana, Grandpa, Uncle Joel, Aunt Leah, Phoenix and Isabella. There we had great times in a museum, escape room, dinners together, going to the pool, playing tennis/pickleball, seeing the theatrical production Moses, and meeting up with my UD friends and their kids. We celebrated Nana's 70th birthday and Uncle Joel's 40th birthday -- whooo hooo!

In June, the kids had two overnight camps, one with Crosspoint Student Ministry and one at Victory Camp. The girls were really looking forward to both camps, most especially Aubrey who has been talking about Victory Camp since the start of the year. The kids loved both camps and had the best time. They played hard, fell more in love with Jesus and made friends. I love that they got this experience as it was one of my most favorite summer experiences as a kid growing up.

We also had a great time celebrating Father's Day. Jay was lucky enough to get two Father's days since I worked the weekend. The weekend before we celebrated together by going to a new fancy put-put golf course, going to St. Arnold's Brewery, and having dinner out and ice cream to polish off the evening. The weekend of Father's day, he had a full weekend of spending one on one time with the girls with no commitments. They played games, got sno cones, saw a movie, went mini golfing (a second time), and got to live their best life with daddy. Aubrey and Avery are so lucky to have the best dad in the world. In late June, we also enjoyed a visit with Aunt Dee and Uncle Mike. It was good to see them. We enjoyed having a Tex Mex dinner, a dinner at home, and the kids enjoyed going to the movies and doing a new painting project.

We finished up the year with a date night and the kids seeing the theater production Wicked. It is fun to get all dressed up and fancy every now and then. Last but not least, Avery completed her Ida Scudder leveling project for AHG on the last day of the month. She led 13 girls in a two hour event on the basics of sewing, how to use a sewing machine, and how to create a pillow from scratch. She worked so very hard and it was a great project from beginning to end. Aubrey will complete her Ida Scudder award in August....more to come on that one!