Happy Summer!

As always, on my last day of work, we enjoyed our traditional Dunkin' Donuts run! We also spent a long time at the library picking out books and playing pickleball. It was such a sweet day having all four of us together, before embarking on a summer filled with sports, jobs, serving, and travel.

Sports

Aside from Cross Country practice for Summer and volleyball practice for Larkyn, the main sport at our house for spring/summer is soccer.

We had a very supportive family (and Tiger) for Colton this season!

Jobs

All three kids are working hard this summer. Larkyn nanny's 3 days a week, Summer nanny's 2 days a week and works evenings in the kitchen at a local senior living and health care center, and Colton has done some babysitting, refereeing, and lawn mowing. I am very proud of their work ethic!

Family

We have gotten to spend a lot of good time with extended family this summer! We spent a week in Golden, Canada, with the Tommerdahl family celebrating Grandpa's retirement, and a long weekend in the Chicago area on my side celebrating my Grandma's 99th birthday.

Canada:

Canada was so beautiful! We drove 22 hours to get there. The mountains, lakes, and waterfalls were gorgeous! Grandma and Grandpa T got Larkyn a horseback ride for her birthday, and we also did other fun things like a zipline, mini golf, high ropes course, and more. The hiking and scenery were my favorite things!

Family Reunion/Grandma's 99th birthday

At the reunion, we enjoyed time with cousins, good conversations, and delicious food! We also celebrated my Grandma's 99th birthday!

Church and Serving

We all enjoyed a fun VBS week in June, serving together and sharing Jesus with kids. I love watching my kids love on other kids! Colton even got to be on stage for a pancake eating contest!

My middle schoolers and I served during Impact Week, where we worked on work projects both at church and around the community. We loved getting to serve and pray with a few of our neighbors, as two houses on our street were destinations for service projects for two of the Impact Week groups! Summer and her nanny kiddo made the team chocolate chip cookies and the teams were invited to swim at the neighbors' pools. It was a fun week of serving and building connnections!

The high schoolers had an opportunity to go on a mission trip to El Salvador, and Summer joined the team. Below are some pictures she shared with her support team and a little summary of her trip written by her.

The team - Summer is third from the right.

Summer sharing her testimony with a translator

This is the church of Oasis de Esperanza, and where they led VBS on Sunday (as well as where the smaller campus of VBS met the rest of the week). Summer is in the light blue shirt in the front leftish.

They put on skits and led games, and the kids were excited to be there!!

We got the chance to pray for many people when we did home visits. This was one of the homes we stopped at. (Summer is in the lime green shirt)

Outside of church

Learning to make pupusas! Basically, the dough is made out of maseca (a corn flour) and water. You form the dough into a bowl shape and put whatever ingredients you want inside, and then pinch the corners of the bowl together so that it makes a sort of closed pocket. Then you flatten it and roll it into a flat disk, keeping the filling inside. (Summer is in the green)

Saying goodbye to Pastor Ferman.

This is where they cooked the food! She said it was delicious :)

From Summer:

"My trip to El Salvador was such a cool experience for me! I was nervous, but God showed up for me and stretched me and grew me. Some of the things I really loved about this trip or that made it memorable were building relationships with my team and with the locals (especially kids!!), trying new things and being stretched out of my comfort zone, and watching God’s Spirit and joy evident in the church members we served and were served by.

Speaking of service, one of the main things God taught me on this trip was that there is never a point where you are too low or you have experienced so much that you aren’t able to serve others. As much as we tried to serve the people in El Salvador, I left feeling like they (especially the church of Oasis de Esperanza) served us even more. There were several ladies who were church members that sacrificed their time to cook us delicious food all week. On the very first night, they reiterated over and over how excited they were to serve us. Oasis de Esperanza held several church services in our honor (both a welcome and farewell) where they prayed over us or shared time and talents with us. It truly showed me that the church isn’t defined by country borders or language barriers, but we are one unified body in Christ.

While we were there, our days consisted of a pretty similar schedule. We had a fantastic breakfast, then had a church service/picked up groceries/did home visits/painted (depending on the day). After lunch, we had kids ministry at two different sites - it was very similar to a VBS, with games, a Bible story, and songs, except we needed our amazing translators and mission trip leaders from Praying Pelican Missions, Katrina, Nidia, and Loren, to translate for us! Then we had dinner, and our evenings varied. The days were long and definitely sweaty but full of so many God-moments!"