April - Rusty was scheduled to deploy sometime in May so we planned a trip to Georgia to see him before he headed overseas. Unfortunately, Rusty was unable to get the leave he had requested, but we were still able to see my family and stay in Mom and Dad's new house.
May - A month of graduation ceremonies and parties...enough said.
June - Happy Anniversary to the love of my life! Chris and I celebrated our 5 years of wedded bliss.
July - This was a very busy month for the Slegers family. I had the honor of decorating for our Mary Kay awards banquet.
This was also our church mission trip month. We got to drive to Yakima, WA and work at the Union Gospel Mission. It was amazing to see how "un-homeless" the homeless looked. I think we have this picture of what homeless means, but when you meet these people it's like the Lord says, "See what judging does?" and you realize that these are just people. NORMAL people who don't "look" homeless. Anyway, it was an amazing opportunity to meet some amazing families and staff members who pour their lives into this ministry day-in and day-out. Even the people in the program were so welcoming of our group while we invaded their territory! (I think a couple of them would have kept Collin with them, if I would've let them!) We spent 5 days working at the mission and then headed home, but first we got to stop in Colorado for a little time to wind down.
Right smack dab in the middle of our trip, we could have missed a very important day. COLLIN's birthday!!! We did get to sing Happy Birthday, and Collin got his first pinata. We decided to wait to celebrate his birthday until we got home.
August - This past month has been a time to wind down and start to get back into the groove of things, but not before getting to have a couple of celebrations! Collin had his BIRTHDAY BASH on Sunday, Aug. 8 and everyone was there...seriously, I didn't know if we could fit any more people in our house. It might have been a fire hazard or something. The following Wednesday our church put on a baby shower for an expectant family in our congregation. What made this a unique party was that the mommy-to-be didn't speak English! I think the only words I was able to communicate with were "hola, bueno!, and de'nada" (clearly, my Spanish speaking skills are highly lacking along with my spelling skills.) We got to rest for about a week and a half and during that time I was able to transform our home into a magical baby wonder land! I totally went to town to prepare for a long awaited baby celebration for my dear friend Amy! Then I decided the decor was not enough and set my mind on tackling The Cake. I think you get a picture in your mind of what this masterpiece is going to look like and then...you get what you get. It was a cake. It was tasty. It turned out completely different then what I had hoped, but Amy loved it anyway! That was pretty much August for us...except Pat started her school year again so Collin is without his Gramma during the days. Something we BOTH miss!
September - We come to now. The time where I feel like I have to get my house back in some kind of order. Personally, I am asking God for help in being...content. Content with what he's abundantly blessed me with. We have more "stuff" than we could ever want or need. Our living situation is ideal. We have a wonderful (BIG) home to live in and we have the ones we love right under our roof...with room to spare! Personal challenges that have come up, just seem so small when I let them go and let God handle it, er, them.
Still life is amazing. I am forever blessed and can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us next! Hopefully I will be able to do at least a monthly update...hopefully.
