Gathering Summer Moments

Summer 2022  was a busy, event-filled summer.

For us, "summer" began a little early this year (in May), when Bekah finished classes, Maddie graduated from high school, and we took our trip south to visit Kati and family. 

It was a summer of change (or "James") as we prepared for Ryan and Sarah to move to a new state at the end of summer, and we started being greedy for time with them. 

It was the summer of the new sunroom. 

This summer held opportunities for Bekah to gather with other young adults from our church. 

Of course, summer is always birthdays, as we have twelve summer birthdays in our family. 

It was also a summer of illness and treatments and struggle for several dear friends and relatives and those things are never far from our hearts and our prayers. 

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June was filled with moments with the local grands, including our Annual Grand Summer Sleepover. It was also Father's Day and homemade ice cream and house hunting (Ryan and Sarah) and home inspections (Ryan and Ron). 

From the faraway family: Kati's family flew down to visit Andrew's parents in June. All four got Covid and had to extend their stay. Ellie celebrated her first birthday while they were there! 

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July was Sunday gatherings (x 5) and a little trip with Maddie and Bekah. And more house hunting and home inspections. And more homemade ice cream. It was hanging out with grands, playing games. The annual Summer Birthday Celebration was the month's finale. 

A little peek at the faraway grands . . . 

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August was a whirlwind!

Antiquing with Bekah and then with Barbara. (I'm planning a separate post to tell you about some special finds!)  Adoption Day, at long last! A Grand Game Night. Seven birthdays. Three anniversaries. A move. Ryan and family spending about a week with us between the movers packing up their old house and settlement on their new one. (What a gift that week was!) And then to finish off a crazy month, Covid came to our house. 

A few more precious moments from Adoption Day:

As I said, the week that Ryan, Sarah, and children spent with us was such a gift.
It was a precious time of transition between them being just a few minutes away 
and being a few hours away.
Ron worked at the office. Ryan worked from our house. We ate, played games, drank iced coffee (Sarah brought her homemade concentrate . . . mmmmm), went to the playground, and listened to music. We sang/kissed/hugged babies to bed, had a family shrimp feast, and the cousins created a music video. We celebrated a couple of birthdays, had an afternoon of our own music, singing and playing instruments, drank coffee and tea, talked and talked and laughed and told stories and gave Bekah life advice. 

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Celebrations are low key when there is sickness in the house. 

Poor Bekah was pretty miserable, but there are many reasons to be grateful.

1) She did not get sick while Ryan and family were here.
2) Her scratchy throat began just before she was going to visit Gammy for her birthday, so she played it safe and did not go.
3) She was sick before her college classes began.
4) Both Ron and I stayed well.

I thank the Lord for all of those things!

An August peek at the faraway grands . . .
I grin every time I see this picture that Kati sent me.
She said they had been in those cubbies for several minutes! 
Oh, the cuteness of those four chubby little baby legs!

I am going to close this (very long) post with a quote by Elisabeth Elliot.

It has been on my mind lately and has brought great comfort and stillness to my soul.