One Busy.......Life (July)

July:

4th of July Picnic: With a group of Americans here doing a 2 month short term project, they could not go a year without celebrating the 4th of July. So what did we do, pulled off the largest German/American July 4th Picnic that I have ever participated in. We had Burgers, Brats, Noodle Salad, desserts out the wazuu and even Sparklers! It was a lot of fun to see our American and German friends interacting and engaging with one another. One German friend even made little American flags to put on top of their dessert, it was way cool! To me the day had less to do with the independence of American and instead the new relationships being built between America and Germany.

Caleb's Birthday: Our little Buddy Boo turned 4! Which meant his first birthday party that he could invite his friends to. As oppose to Grace's party when she turned 4 and invited 10, we decided to decrease that number to 4 for Caleb. We were a little inexperienced when we did Grace's first party and ended up being overwhelmed with 11 total 4 year olds. Anyways, Caleb had a blast inviting his friends and having a special day that completely revolved around HIM. It was a day that he deserved and was a long time coming. We went to the playground and had another round of water gun wars (Caleb's request). It was a true joy for Stephanie and I to see the joy on our little mans face as he interacted with his friends (and this time Grace was on the sidelines). We are so blessed by this little guy and his sweet soft heart, thank you God for Caleb James!

English Camp: This was the 5th camp that we have participated in and the 4th one that we have been on the planning team. The theme this year was Christmas in July, which created plenty of easy creative ideas. Unfortunately due to Stephanie's illness she was unable to participate (which I think might have been on purpose due to her problem of listening to Christmas music before the day after Thanksgiving). In all honesty it was wierd for our family not to be as involved as much with English Camp as previous years. I was also partly taken out of English Camp due to Stephanie's illness and because of the RUF group and most importantly trying to do a better job of not burning out and overdoing myself. All in all English Camp again was a success and the kids learned English and were loved on by the tutors that came from the US. I was blessed to see what God was doing/did in each of the tutors lives while here and how He was drawing each one of them closer to Him! (picture of church where Luther preached and where he is buried. It is a day trip during English Camp)

Caleb's Surgery: After Caleb getting his 1,000th ear infection (perhaps an exaggeration) we decided finally to have tubes put into his ears. Upon consultation the doctor also recommended having his Adenoids removed. Since Stephanie was still sick, I went with him to the outpatient clinic for the operation. I felt so helpless there as my Buddy Boo was put out with anesthesia. This was the first operation on one of our children. He pulled through just fine and we were amazed at the difference in his hearing. Soon after he kept pushing a button on his Buzz Lightyear and we asked him why, and instead he asked us "did you know that this button made noise?" We then asked him if he has never heard it before and he said no, amazing, Praise God! (pic is not from his operation...it is from his birthday)

Bekah's Birthday: Need to give a shout out to our intern Bekah who also celebrated her birthday during her stay here. We surprised her by inviting the whole RUF Team come for dessert at our place, so that she would be able to have a "surprise" birthday party. She even got to wear the family birthday crown!

Farewell to the RUF Team: Before the RUF group headed out we decided to head to the beach to spend some time together chillin' before their departure. Although it was not Tropical Islands (Sorry Carrie), there still was a pretty large slide that made up for having to go with plan B. It was a great day of just being able to be together. Although in the beginning 2 months seemed like a heck of a long time, it was amazing how fast the time actually went. It was a blessing to have each one of them here not only to help with ministry, but to be part of our life for the summer. God did some pretty amazing things in and through this group, which was a blessing for me to be a part of. (picture of the Dirks family)