Thursday, August 2, 2012

while i've been gone...

So since I last blogged, we celebrated at ICSB with another graduating class, said goodbye to a few friends we will dearly miss, went to the US for several weeks, and returned back to Budapest a week ago. Exciting, busy, and lovely summer. :)

Saying our sad goodbye to Miss Amanda!

First, Kevin was asked to give the commencement address at ICSB. I was super proud of him, despite his reservations. He gave a phenomenal charge talking about prayer. After doing a fantastic job and receiving encouragement from just about everyone, the pastor at our church asked if I was helping Kevin keep a level head or if I was basking in the radiance of his job well done. Definitely the latter.


And Seth and Kate were asked to walk the Bible down for graduation, with leads the procession at the opening of the ceremony. They were stinking adorable of course. This was Seth's second time being asked. He also did it when Kate was a baby, so he was a pro. :) Love that the Bible is so huge, but love even more that they didn't argue about who would carry the Bible!

Two days after graduation and several graduation parties later, we left the house at 3:45 a.m. on Monday, June 11 to head to the USA. [We only go home every two years, but we went home on the summer in between because of incredibly cheap tickets and some old family friends who wanted to make it happen. Thank you!] The kids were superb on all of the flights. We know lots of people were praying for our safety and for the kids to travel well. The Lord was gracious!


My parents had professional pictures taken of all four grandkids at a local park. They turned out beautifully! The series of Kate below showcases her personality quite well. We were so pleased with how they turned out. I will have to share more later. I took these ones off of Facebook.

We split our few weeks home between my parents in Chicago and Kevin's parents in Western New York. We also squeezed in a family reunion at my grandparents' house in northeastern Ohio. We will be back next summer for our scheduled trip to visit as many supporters as we can, as well as spend some time with our families once again. The beauty of this trip was that we ONLY spent time with family. We didn't speak at churches, talk with mission boards, meet with supporters, or travel all over. It was relaxing (albeit really busy!) and not stressful to have to raise support and meet with others, speak at places, etc. It was the biggest blessing, not just for us but for our families as well who didn't have to share us other than with each other! Next summer will be back to craziness.

Cousins cuddled and held hands all night during their last sleepover together this summer. Sniff, sniff.

It was also great for cousins to spend time together. Seth and my nephew Daniel (they're 15 or so months apart) got along really well for the most part, and Seth even had his very first sleepover away from Mom and Dad! He ended up spending the night at my sister's house with her family several times.

And in really exciting news, we were given a new DSLR camera! I took over a thousand pictures in the few weeks we were home, but I promise I won't post them all. But I am going to go through them and post a bunch, mainly for our family to appreciate of course. :) I signed up for an online sort of photography class. I haven't done it yet, so bear with me as my pictures aren't that good as I don't know what I'm doing yet. But I am really excited to learn in the upcoming months. So be on the lookout for pictures from our summer...and life in general as we are back in Hungary. :)

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