Lowden State Park

Two groups of our friends merged when Charity and Jeff's friend Greg started dating our friend Sarah. Now we get together with the Rouse's, Greg, Sarah, and Julie about once every month or two. Not only do we have fun together, but we spur one another on in our relationships with Christ. This weekend we spent a short time at Lowden State Park in Oregon, IL. We did a little bit of hiking and Jadon loved it! He was running on the trails and he would stop to study things that caught his eye along the way. Brian and I definately want to do more hiking with our kids.

Playdate with the Pauls

Today Wendy brought her 3 delightful daughters over for a playdate. I've been struggling a bit with having 2 kids and starting to question if I wanted to have anymore, but she restored my hope. And as Brian says, "What's a little more chaos?" It was fun to have some little girls over for a change. There was no fighting over cars and trucks. Also, Leah and Emily had a little baby playtime. Wendy and I were roommates freshman year of college and now here we are, 5 kids later, hanging out in my backyard. Living back in the midwest and having children has brought us Augie girls closer together and I'm enjoying those friendships as much as I did back in college, just in a different way.

4th of July

The 4th was actually pretty low-key for us since Brian had to work and we didn't want to subject Leah to fireworks. On Saturday, though, Jeff and Charity came to town. We always love hanging out with them. The fellowship and laughter are great! We all went to a cookout at Larry and Cindy's house that afternoon. On Sunday we went to church and the Petunia Fest. From here on out summer is going to be really busy, but fun. We have a lot of travel and visits coming up that we are looking forward to.

Petunia Fest

Every 4th of July weekend, Dixon hosts the Petunia Festival. This year we went to the Kid's Day at Washington School on Saturday and the parade and carnival on Sunday with Jeff and Charity. It was a lot of fun.

Touch a Truck

We took Jadon to a Sterling Park District event, Touch a Truck. He got to explore all types of emergency, service, and delivery trucks. His friend Brecken happened to be there and if you look closely, you can see them both in the blue garbage truck. It was so cute to see Jadon turning the wheel back and forth and exclaiming, "I'm driving!" Leah is almost 4 months old now and she just learned how to roll from her back to tummy. She is an adorable baby and I'm having the most fun dressing her up everyday in pretty little sundresses. Hope you're all enjoying summer as much as we are!

First Love Concert

This weekend we saw First Love in concert. They just put out a CD and this was there first concert. First Love sounded great and their songs really ministered to our hearts. Their group consists of Charity and Jeff Rouse (our cousins/friends), Melissa Fleming ( a friend we made out in MA), and 2 guys from their church in Galena (didn't catch their names). Charity and Melissa wrote all the songs and sang. Charity also played keyboard. Jeff played drums and the 2 guys played guitars. I am so impressed by their talent and their hearts.

The Carnival

The carnival came to Sterling for a week and we took Jadon twice. He loved it! Here he is, enjoying the "carmel" as he called it, with his friend Brecken.