Serving the Lord Together: Summer 2016

So these pictures from the last six months are all out of order, but at least they're here :) This is us visiting a lady in the nursing home.

There's lots of pictures of Julia in these posts, so I hope you enjoy them as much as I do! She's big enough to bounce in her bouncer here -

We were going to dress up in our wedding clothes for our anniversary, but we were traveling then, so we did it for my birthday instead.

The girls thought it was pretty exciting!

Me and the children -

Julia and I making our lists for the week :)

So I keep wanting to take pictures of Julia in each cute outfit she has - this one used to be Anna's, but Julia only got to wear a couple times before she outgrew it.

Sticking out her tongue :) I think these were from this spring.

This picture is from a week or two ago - I told Aaron I wanted a wagon for my birthday and it's come in very useful for the garden harvest. Everyone seems to like digging for potatoes best...I think I'm done canning pickles for the year and freezing beans and corn, so tomatoes are the big thing left.

This is also a recent photo - Aaron took the kids canoeing at the state park just down the road from us - the mosquitos were really bad, but it was so calm and beautiful otherwise.

I stayed at the van with Julia, we thought she was a little young - the kids were a little scared when they got in and out, but enjoyed it a lot!

You could see the sky perfectly reflected in the water -

I know the date on this one - it's July 4th! Esther and Anna wish there was a parade every day of the year :)

Anna and Esther and Ellie waiting to head back to the farm for more picnicking -

The farmer across the road from us planted a big canola field - so bright and cheery looking!

This is July 6 - Aaron's birthday - the children thought we should put candles in the cake, so we had seven to represent thirty-seven.

Aaron Joseph really wanted to help blow them out :)

Esther is a such a good big sister to Julia and a big help to me.

I took the children to Nathan's church's VBS in TRF - it was at a park.

We went to the fair for just a little while on the last night, but were there long enough to see the animals, play a while in the soybean box, get hand paintings and hear the Wordless Book, see the fireworks, and eat ice cream :)

At the end of July, a group of friends from Minnesota and Wisconsin came for "Hands of Hope" at our church. We did 2 block parties - one here and one in TRF (games, prizes, bouncy houses, candy, hotdogs, snocones, popcorn, etc.) and a few construction type projects in our community. These pictures are from our block party - this is Anna taking her shoes off to go in the bouncy house -

This is Aaron giving out door prizes -

This is Steve making snocones - it was a beautiful evening and there was a good turn-out, so we were happy to be able to meet a lot of people and share the gospel with some of them.

Wendy and I did registration -

They did some painting at the local historic pioneer village -

The kids were able to help me snap beans!

For something special, I let the girls play with a couple of my dolls and they wanted a picture taken. In the background is our stacks of books - bookshelf building is on the list for this winter :)