July wrap up

 

    "The path of righteousness is like the morning sun,                                                                                 shining ever brighter till the full light of day."                                                                                                                              Proverbs 4:18

"Begin the day with God!  He is your Sun and Day!  He is the radiance of your dawn, to Him address your day."   Morning hymn by Horatius Bonar

"You display Your splendour in the heavens.  The skies scream out Your existence in an inaudible voice."  

I love this!  I cannot recall where I read that quote, but I wrote it down because it really speaks to me.  I believe it is a paraphrase of Romans 1:20.

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Technically, the story below happened on June 30, but since it has to do with our Nation's birthday on July 4, I added it to this month's post.  We went to the historic Fox Theatre in Hutchinson for the 250th year of America Commemorative Concert performed by the Reno County choral and the Hutchinson Municipal band.

My friend Jan and her her 2 friends came and so did Al's brother, Sid.

Our sister-in-law, Gayle, was singing in the choral.

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The audience was invited to sing along at times.

This building is so beautiful!  Allen and I used to come to the movies here back in the 1970s.

They played the anthems for each of the armed forces and when they did, the men and women who had served in them stood to the applause of the crowd.

Kaia on the 4th of July.  

Our city hasn't had fireworks for some time, but this year brought them back!  I am so happy about that!  They had these on the 3rd.

The Crossmen Drum and Bugle Corps comprised of 160 kids, trained at Bethel College for several weeks and gave a performance for our city on the 4th, before heading off to perform in 20 cities across the U.S.

One afternoon, I got a call from my daughter in Wisconsin.  She was frantic, curled up between the seats of her van, away from the windows of her van.  Baseball size hail was raining down on her.  She said it felt like bombs going off.  Think of the Egyptians that were killed by them (Exodus 9).

Then here at the end of this month on the 27th, Jill called again, quite frightened, as the tornado sirens were going off.  Appleton and Menasha had been hit by a tornado and it was headed over the lake toward them.  Luckily, it dissipated over the water.  There is much damage, but luckily, our son-in-law's parents and brother didn't have damage.

And I am sad to see that Kumamoto had such damage from the 7.1 earthquake.  Kumamoto is about 91 miles air miles from where I grew up.  My parents had friends there back then.  We've visited the castle that had damage.

Old homes are not earthquake proof.

The first Saturday of the month is the bird walk in our town.  I am not always able to go, being out of town or not willing to go due to weather.  I do love to go and almost always learn new things about birds!

This is the first year I've seen a white-winged dove in our area! We've had mourning doves and European ring collared doves for years.

Our purple martin babies have hatched!

I have never seen so many bunnies as I have this summer!  We have several in our yard and one day on a walk around the lake I counted 9 more.

I'd prefer bunnies to the rattlers in my daughter's home in Colorado!

Our granddaughter, Claire, is taking care of a horse named Penny.  Penny is Secretariat's granddaughter!  

Our grandson, Eli, gave a devotional on-line for his youth group.  His grandpa Pete, who was a pastor and missionary would be so happy.

Our granddaughter Sophia is going to need surgery on her vocal chords.  Prayers appreciated!  Especially that insurance would cover it!

Hannah has been doing an internship this summer in Chicago.  Here is a picture of her and her fiance, Nehemiah.  They'll be married next summer!

Our granddaughter Emeri, was able to go hiking with kids from her new school in California.  She used to fuss about hiking when she was little, so we found this humourous.

Our son went hiking also with a friend, in Colorado.

I have helped to teach 3-5 year olds during 1st service for part of the summer.  They were just delightful!  Each Sunday has been different as families are on vacations or they might just be coming to 2nd service.  We had visitors too, who were visiting family members.  Ruth came to do music.  The pastor did a series on the Fruit of the Spirit and the Sunday school lessons were called Fruitful.

I was thinking about the Fruit of the Spirit and got to wondering what my "fruit" would be if it wasn't from Him.  

Instead of love or joy, etc., do I exhibit ugly fruit?  Did you know there is such a thing as Ugli fruit?  Never have tasted it.  It is from Jamaica and I hear that it is delightful.

I was asked to help make a promotion video for women's Bible studies for the fall, along with 3 other ladies.  I think it will air soon.  Bible studies begin in September.

I visited Crust & Crumb at their new location on Main Street for the first time with some friends.  I highly recommend it!

We had a watercolour class one evening at our church.

We celebrated our 51st wedding anniversary.

We painted our garage doors.

Not so easy for these oldies who aren't in the best of health!  We did it in stages.

We went to our home town rodeo in Pretty Prairie with our friends, Loren and Lynn.

This past week our grandkids from Colorado came, but that will be another post.  

July ended back in Hutchinson, listening to the community band once again.  My friend Kaori and I went together, as she was introducing me to a Japanese girl who recently began work at her company.  She moved to America in March and happens to play with the community band!

They played several marches and also the theme from StarWars, where the conductor used a light saber as the baton!  

There were many other songs including one that included rubber chickens!

Sachiko's husband treated us all to Braum's!

July was a full, yet relaxing month.  It's been a good summer.  August will mean getting back into the schedule of things.  School buses will begin their rounds. Allen will begin teaching Sunday School and I'll be teaching the little ones in Awana. I'll need to begin preparing for my Bible studies that start in September.  Am I ready for that?  I really have enjoyed the slower pace of things.

"He made the moon to mark the seasons; and the sun knows when to go down.  You bring darkness, it becomes night, and all the beasts of the forest prowl."

Psalm 104:19-20

1,758 miles of new roads

June has passed and now we are in the sweltering heat of July!  A recap of June:

We were in Wisconsin on June 1 for Sophia's high school graduation.  In the fall we will have 3 granddaughters in college!

On the 2nd, we left Wisconsin and our daughter's family.  But we'd see them in just a few days at the beach in Florida!

We drove down to Kentucky.  Emeri was our chauffer much of the way.

We took in the Ark Encounter.

and Cumberland Falls.

We arrived in Florida and met up with all the family!  Josh's had driven from Arkansas, Mindy's family had flown in from Colorado and Jill's from Wisconsin.  I blogged about that so won't go over it again.

After a delightful family time together for several days, the families all left to go back home. Josh's and us drove together as far as Memphis.  

We made some rather interesting rest room breaks.

We stopped for the night just south of Memphis and went out to eat.  I ordered tea.  It was SWEET southern tea!  The waitress did not even ask if I wanted sweet or unsweetened.  I think it is a given here!

The next morning, we said our good-byes.

We could have driven along with them as far as the turn off for Fayetteville, just a little before Fort Smith, but we've been on those roads already.  So we took a different route to Kansas, trying out new roads.

We stopped at Mammoth Springs, the largest spring in Arkansas.

It is known for trout fishing.

Wheat harvest was going on when we got home.

After unpacking the car, I looked up at the sky.  Oh wow! Look at how these mammatus clouds in the sky!

We had highlighted all our routes in yellow and guess how many new roads we were able to highlight on this trip to Wisconsin, Kentucky, Florida and back home?  

We gave a challenge to our kids to guess.  We told them we would have a prize for the winner.  Jill guessed the closest, at 1750.  She was only 8 miles off!  Here was the prize we sent her.

June had lots of storms.  We had the wettest June since 1928!  There was a tornado just 6 1/2 miles south of us that picked up a house and killed a man.  So sad.  That was the night before Father's Day.

For Father's Day, I fixed Al pot roast, mashed potatoes and carrots.  His favorite.  Well, he likes green beans better than carrots, but I cooked carrots.  Our children sent sweet notes to their Dad/Papa.

I got a picture of a partial rainbow, but my friend Courtney, got this one from her back porch!  So beautiful!

My flowers are happy!

The creek by our family farm in Pretty Prairie is really full!

Our son and his friend stopped by on their way to hike in Colorado.

Our Community Life Group went to the Loewen's new home.

The part that their daughter's family will live in is still under construction.

We girls also got together to celebrate summer birthdays.  

We are just days apart, end of June and beginning of July.

The other 3 (Lynn was gone this day) have November birthdays.

Two of our granddaughters also had June birthdays.  We had celebrated at Destin too, which was special!

This is Claire with Penny.  A gal at their church has horses and bought her with Claire specifically in mind.  She has been teaching Claire how to care for horses and to ride them.  They are getting to know one another.  This horse is Secretariat's granddaughter!  She needs some healing before she can be ridden.

My mother would have been 100 this year on her birthday, June 23!  She was born in 1926.

She's been with Jesus for 11 1/2 years already.

The husband of a friend in my women's Bible study passed away suddenly.  He was only 1 year older than us.  So thankful that he loved the Lord so much.  I went to the memorial.  His son handmade the casket and Tim was dressed in hunting clothes.

I gave a talk on Psalm 23 at a kids' Bible Club.  The LORD is my Shepherd.  How precious that our Shepherd cares for us and guides us!  IWe need not fear when we are in the valley of the shadow of death.  He is WITH us always.  Listen to His voice and follow Him.

We made necklaces and bracelets using coloured beads (green - green grass, blue - quiet waters, etc.)  I also found an Etsy seller right in our town that sold sheep beads so we used those too!  A sweet provision from the LORD as other sellers would not be able to get it to me until after the lesson day.  I was able to drive to the lady's home and pick it up!

I've also been helping with kids' Sunday School so the regular teachers can have the summer off.  One of the lessons was on kindness.  The pastor is going through the Fruit of the Spirit and our children's Sunday School classes are also.  

I talked about using kind words vs. unkind words.  I had cut out a big red heart.  I said some sentences and the children told me if the words were kind or unkind.  If it was kind, I spread some white toothpaste on the heart.  If the words were unkind, I spread charcoal toothpaste that is black on the heart.  Did you know there was such a thing?  It was perfect for this lesson! I had purchased that toothpaste, not even knowing it was black.  What a shock when I squeezed it out and it was black!

Can I take the bad words and put it back in the tube of toothpaste?  No.  Ugly words said remain with a person.  I can still remember so many said to me and I know I've said them to others too.  Forgive me, LORD.  Kind and cheerful words can encourage and help others.  Let's do that!

I met our friend Yuki at Yokohama Ramen.  She became a Christian when she came to college here in the States.  She now works with Called to Greatness on a college campus.

I celebrated my birthday at the end of the month.  The tradition is getting chocolate cream pie!  Our local German restaurant, The Breadbasket, closed so we drove to Yoder to get it!

Our son and daughter-in-law in Arkansas celebrated their anniversary on the same day.  Their tradition is Bonefish Grill.

It was a full June month!  Lots of miles and lots of celebrations!