Troy Masters the High Dive

The Pella pool has been an oasis for us this summer. It is a really great set-up for families. It has everything from the lazy river (me and Scott's favorite) to the kiddie pool with fountains and smaller slides to the diving boards. It's quite a large facility and the family membership is really inexpensive. Anyway, Troy "outgrew" the kiddie pool area after a few days and ventured over to the diving boards. He became a low-board pro and asked if he could go off the high dive. I told him not until the end of the summer. Well, we reached that point and he got to try it and of course loved it! Here are some shots of the daredevil. (Sorry, they are in reverse order!)

Happy Birthday, Katie!

Katie has now officially become a 15 year old! She is having a little different birthday this year as we are quite a ways away from family and friends. She still had many gifts to open this morning and has been enjoying checking facebook for many birthday greetings from family and friends.

This is also our last Sunday in Pella. We had a wonderful potluck and send-off after the morning service. They presented us with a very generous gift and some ladies from the church made special quilts for each of the kids. (They began making these after we arrived and finished all three in 10 weeks time!) We felt very blessed and recieved many words of thanks for Scott's work here this summer...Now off to vacation!

Katie and her birthday gifts.

The kids are displaying their quilts. They were pretty excited about them.

Library Pay-off and Other Excitement

So we have reached our last week in Pella. We have had a good summer, but miss many things about being at home-in our own house with our own stuff and our own friends (you get the picture!). Next week we are going to do some traveling around the midwest-Iowa and Minnesota. We will get to see cousins, aunts, uncles and Great Grandpa. We also hope to catch up with some old friends. Then we will make our way down to Indianapolis to Brian and Mallory's wedding next weekend. We are looking forward to seeing many California and Michigan friends there too. Anyway, we are closing up the Pella chapter and Scott's last internship (!) and are ready to head into another school year and last year of Seminary!

Katie got creative with some sidewalk chalk today. Made for a nice photo op.
Hey! Katie won 25 "Pella" bucks from the library! Pella bucks must be spent in Pella. We spent all morning walking in and out of stores downtown trying to decide how she wanted to spend it. Thankfully they have a pretty nice Christian bookstore that had some things. All the extra time she had to spend reading paid off!
This is how I usually found Troy each morning. He would wake up early and since there were no channels on the tv for him to watch, he got to play Mario Kart.

We will always remember the vegetables in Iowa! Our neighbors are gone for two weeks, so they asked us to keep an eye on their garden and to help ourselves to whatever we wanted. The tomatoes are plentiful right now. The kids enjoy going over and trying to find more each day. We can't always keep up on eating them all though! We were also blessed with many people from the church dropping vegetables from their gardens by our house. Sometimes we even came home and found them (the vegetables) setting on the kitchen counter!

Goofy kids.

Gone Fishin'

We were invited by a family from the church to come fishing at their house. They have a beautiful home on a small fishing lake just outside of town. They had lots of poles for the kids to use and were patient teachers. The kids all did really well. Kamryn gets the prize for the biggest fish and the person who stuck with it the longest! We roasted hotdogs for dinner with many wonderful side dishes and made s'mores for dessert. The kids came home dirty and smelly. What a great evening!

Kamryn with her prize fish.

Troy gets some fishing tips from a friend.
Another shot of Kam's fish.

Roasting hotdogs for dinner. Everything tastes better cooked over an open fire, doesn't it?!

Scott with his first catch.

Kamryn with her first catch of the day.

A beautiful spot.

Kamryn surveys the lake.

Scott gives Troy some pointers.

Troy stuck with it pretty well. They only had to rescue his line from the weeds a couple of times!

More Time With Friends

It was so much fun to see so many friends during our stay in Grand Rapids recently. We did miss Scott being with us (He had to continue his duties for his internship in Pella.), but we had a great time and were able to see many people that we hadn't seen in a few weeks.

Troy and his buddies were able to swim at the pool together.
We went with the Klavers and Dawn E. to Millennium Park in Grand Rapids. It's basically a big lake with a nice man-made beach and splash pad for the kids. (I had to get a picture of cutie-pie Kelly and her mom, Deb.)

On our last night in GR I was able to attend a meeting for some college friends of ours who are working for Young Life in Costa Rica. It was fun to catch up with them all. Here I am with Kevin and Michelle Suwyn and Rhonda DeWaard.

Time With Friends

While we were in Michigan we were able to spend some time with our good friends, The Elsenbroeks. It was so great to see them again! Of course we missed Scott-our group did feel incomplete! Sadie and Kam instantly picked up their friendship right where they left off. They are such neat friends-different likes and personalities, but still best buds! On one of our outings, we hunted all over the mall and finally found them friendship rings. (It took awhile to find ones that they could both agree on!) We are blessed with great friends!

Katie Goes To Mexico!

Katie and her youth group from Cascade Fellowship CRC went on a mission trip to Mexico City. Katie was so excited to go and thankfully the trip went smoothly and they all had a great and safe time. Here are some pictures before the group left. It was a trip that I'm sure Katie will never forget!