Joel is off to the University of Florida~by Beth

Friday was another milestone in Joel's and our life. He left for UF. Stephen and I helped to pack him up. Here are the photos to prove it!

An unexpected trip to Texas~by Beth

After the conference ended, we grabbed some dinner, late, at the Golden Arches with Nathan. The plan was that we would take Nathan back to the South Campus where he was staying and also drop off Caleb and Zachary to spend the night. In the morning all three would ride back on the ALERT vans back to ALERT and the boys would work base support for a little more than three weeks. Just as we arrived at the South Campus at dusk I got a call that my aunt in TX had passed away. So, we got the boys off, got the other children ready for travel and said our goodbyes. While filling up the van with gas Jonathan and I began to discuss whether it would be possible to go to Texas for the funeral that would be the following Tuesday, 4 days later. Since Jon did not have to be to work until Friday we figured we could swing it. So, at 11:30pm we started out, not for Florida, but for Texas. We called Nathan to check with him about staying at ALERT which was fine. His sister-in-law works in conferences at ALERT so she arranged our housing on campus. Around 2:30am we pulled over to rest at a rest stop somewhere in Illinois. David got out to use the restroom and looked at the map of where we were but he must have been too sleepy to realize that Illinois was not on the way home to Florida. Later in the morning the children woke up and began to wonder where we were. Charity, in particular, kept asking where we were, where we were going, etc. I tried to give vague answers like "We're going south". Before we got to the Texas sign she had figured that we were not going home. They erupted in cheers when they realized that we would visit family in Texas. We kept our visit a secret from Katie. She had been asking us to visit practically every month. She had also suggested that we send Stephen with the two boys coming to ALERT and he could fly home with them. So, when we arrived we went to her apartment and had Stephen knock on the door. Because she and Stacey (our DIL's sister) had been painting all day in over 100 degree heat and had just gotten back and showered, they were pretty tired. So, Katie yelled "Come in." Stephen turned the knob and I had him walk in and she squealed with delight. The whole time we were there was delightful. We got to help Nathan on two rooms they were fixing up in their apartment and celebrate Katie's birthday a couple days early. On Tuesday we drove over to Ft Worth for the funeral and had a special time with all my Dad's relatives. I got a shot of the remaining three siblings of my grandparents. They have lost two siblings now. Dad is the one in the center. Though it was a very long trip home, it was well worth going.

Indy conference~by Beth

After visiting in Ohio we headed to Indianapolis for our ATI home school conference. The adult sessions were very good, as always, and the children all loved their programs. Johanna and Abby were in the Children's Institute, Charity and Emma were in Pre-Excel (with their leader being the daughter of a good friend of mine), Christiana was in Commit, and the boys in ALERT cadets. Nathan came up on the ALERT van to be the logistics man for the cadet program so we got to spend time together. That was great. We also helped out a lady at our hotel with transportation since her van needed some work. Here are some photos of our conference.

Kiddie Park~by Beth

Lisa and I took the 5 girls and Stephen to one of the oldest kiddie parks in North America. They had a great time and so did we. Here are some of the things that they did.

The Creation Museum 2010~by Beth

We left for the north on July 15th visiting the Creation Museum on the way up again. We had a great time visiting the grounds outside before the museum opened. It was such a fun family time, though we only had 9 children with us. The picture on the bridge was a brand new Japanese garden and it was beautiful!! I wish I could have taken it home with me :-)
Later the day we went on up to visit some friends that I met in Israel along with the pastor and wife that lead the tour and had a wonderful time together. The next day we went on up to my sister's and visited all my family. Jonathan preached twice for Dad at church while we were there. My sister took some days off work to spend time with us and we really enjoyed being together. Of course we went swimming at Grandma's pool. Stephen had such a great time learning to jump in and roll in. Here are the kiddos and and the cousins.