Quick Family Update-- July 23, 2009

Hi Everyone--

As you'll see below, I just uploaded a bunch of new photos. We decided to celebrate our four month anniversary with Ellie-Kate (as well as her rapidly approaching 18 month birthday!) with a photo shoot at Walmart. As lots of people have observed, she's growing and changing so quickly that we want to freeze-frame every possible moment!!

Our summer continues to clip along at a fast pace. Chelsea and Emmy both finished their photography projects for 4-H, and, praise God for those China pictures! Both of the girls won their respective divisions, and we're headed for the state fair on August 1, right after Emmy shows Coco in the county dog show :) Now, Emmy's enjoying a bit of down time while Chelsea catches up on summer reading for her AP English and Bio classes. Britti's doing an internship for grad school at the local historical society, and Ellie-Kate tries to find every opportunity to get outside that she can!

We're headed for Burr Oak State Park tomorrow to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary. We began the festivities tonight by watching our wedding video. Emmy has always felt left out that she wasn't part of the wedding so we're going to renew our vows tomorrow with all of the girls at our side, and Emmy and Ellie-Kate get to be flower girls. We were really praying that Ellie-Kate would be with us before our anniversary, and God graciously answered that prayer (and so many more!!) We're going to stay in a cabin and enjoy the lovely scenery, relaxing lodge, and pool/lake. On Sunday morning, we'll head home for one more 4-H meeting before the fair. Praise God for Lindsey!! She'll house-sit for us and try to keep the animals all alive until we return :)

Enjoy the new pics, and we'll post new ones from our trip ASAP. Have a great week-end!!

Christie