And just like that, the last day of summer arrived. We meet back at school on Monday at noon and then after a few meetings, we'll work in our rooms to get ready for Open House Monday evening to meet our new students. Wednesday morning we start fresh for a new school year.
It was a different kind of summer for me. No trips. No kids to run after or hang out with. No big goals I needed to meet or things I needed to study for. Sounds kinda boring, but it felt really great. I loved the spontaneity to each day, the ability to schedule a meet up with a friend and actually say, "Whenever's good with me!" That's a luxury I don't have during a school year, so I enjoyed it quite a bit this summer. I was able to meet up with lots of church friends and even a few teacher friends. Mike and I spent quite a few late summer evenings together, and we got to see David every once in a while when he wasn't traveling for work or fun.
Here are the highlights to how I spent my summer months (since our main vacation will be in October for Juan and Loren's wedding!)
Cat Cafe
I think I met up with three different friends three weeks in a row at this adorable little cafe that recently opened here in Columbus. You can order your drink and sit by a big window to watch the cats play, and then when you're done with your drink, you can go into the room to play with the cats. I wasn't always tempted to try to adopt one of them, but occasionally one would catch my eye and make me wish I could take it home (to which my husband and son adamantly said no).
Memorial Day and 4th of July Gatherings
Memorial Day cookout
We haven't hosted anything at our house in about a year, so we invited some church friends and family over for Memorial Day and had a big cookout.
4th of July Fish Fry
Then we invited pretty much the same people with a few extras for our now annual Fourth of July Fish Fry with Matt's family. We had a lot of fun, even when it rained and we had to all scramble to the car port where we played cards. We weren't expecting the second downpour which, unfortunately, hit within minutes of our plan to shoot off fireworks. So we rushed all the fireworks back under the carport where it's all still sitting, waiting for another opportunity.
Watching the World Cup
Puzzles
Mike and I have spent a lot of time together over the last year putting puzzles together, so we kept it going somewhat this summer, too. (Puzzles are definitely better for the winter months when there isn't yard work or outdoor projects that need tended to). They really are a great way to just have some relaxing, quality time together, though.
This one was perfect for the 4th of July, which we made his mom stay long enough to finish it with us.
Lots of Reading Time
I really enjoyed the downtime to read a ton of books this summer. I read several fiction books that some friends gave me or that I picked up at garage sales. I also picked up several nonfiction books through the Biblical Counseling conference that I actually had the time to dig into and read through.
David had this one and let me read it, too. Great book! I love that we have read so many books together since his childhood that he still shares books with me that he enjoys or that speak to him.
Father's Day
David, Juan, and I pooled some money together to get Mike a commercial grade weed eater for Mike since he was constantly having to fix his old one in order to use it. With such a big yard, the commercial one should hold up much better for him.
Bartholomew County Fair
We all spent a few fun nights at the fair this year, eating good food and watching the races. This is a picture of our family and Kimber's family together (David's girlfriend).
Those pretzels were amazing!
Tending New Rosebushes
We finally tore out some bushes that were just an eyesore when they weren't in season, and we picked out a variety of colored rosebushes to plant along the front of our house. I really enjoyed watching them bloom all summer long and took quite a few pictures of them.
Watercoloring
Earlier this year, a friend got several of us ladies together at church to do a watercoloring lesson. I loved it and decided to try it out more as a new hobby. I'm still learning the basics, but I find it so relaxing. Most of my pictures were inspired by nature, like my colorful roses.
My friend showed me this mini kit,
so that's cool that I can take it places with me to paint on the go.
I realized later that I put the apostrophe in the wrong place on y'all.
Oops.
Remodeling/House Projects
We finally got around to tackling the last room of the house that we haven't touched since buying the house, the laundry room. It's been curtained off all this time to keep all the hot or cold air (depending on the season) from affecting the temperature of the rest of the house. It's still not done, but it's now insulated properly, has new lights, a new window, and a new door. Mike worked so hard to get that much done before our 4th of July party, so he took a break to work on projects outside.
This was what we saw when we walked out the back door for quite a while.
But the attention to that back room inspired him to finally start building a deck right outside the door to that room. So the rest of his attention this summer went to giving our backyard a makeover.
After that he moved onto lanscaping, filling in dirt, and planting new grass.
It truly looks like a different house from the back now.
We've spent many late summer nights sitting out there just talking, praying, and drinking coffee. (Which also means a few extra bug bites to deal with). It overlooks a big pasture coming out from the woods that he's cleared out over the years, and we see deer walking through the pasture almost every evening.
Boots loves all the new outdoor space.
The pasture where we watch the deer
both in the mornings and the evenings
The deck now covered with a gazebo we found on sale--even better!
Protected from the rain and the dew.
In fact, I'm sitting out under it right now while it's raining.
Coffee/Chai/Random Outtings with friends
I met up with different friends at least once or twice a week either at Starbucks, at our locally owned coffee shop called Lucabe (named after the first two letters of the names of their kids), or at our favorite tea shop called Sweeteas in a nearby little cultural/artistic town.
Iced Mango Cream Chai at Starbucks. This became one of my favorite drinks.
I highly recommend it!
And when I didn't meet up with friends, I made my own coffee and thought about my Bestie back in Texas, wishing I could have gone out with her.
Sometimes we'd venture into shops together and find cool treasures.
My 6th grade Legado teammate and dear friend from church
Other times a group of friends would gather together at one person's house to do a craft together.
(My closest friend here from church, whose children also are in the Legado program and shamelessly call me Miss Rachelle at school).
This was a cute little Bible bag I made at one of those outtings.
And sometimes we did something extra fun to celebrate the end of summer.
My Discipleship group, who are also both part of the Biblical Counseling team and have gone to training with me in Texas
Friday Yard sales
And the highlight of each week was when I met up with Kimber's mom to go "treasure hunting" at all the yard sales around town. It was a completely unexpected friendship that formed through those outtings, and we found so many treasures! I got so many fun things for my classroom for super cheap (and sometimes free!), stuff for home, and a whole lot of cute clothes. Today was our last Friday to go on our weekly treasure hunt, though we'll still try to find a Saturday to go together every once in a while.
A $5 find!
A $2 find!
A friend's booth at a store called Hidden Treasures
I didn't end up buying those hooks, but they would have been cute.
A $5 find
A $10 find, with storage for many of our games inside
$1.50! Got two of them.
My new sweet friend and fellow treasure hunter, Brenda.
I treasured our weekly outtings!
World Cup
The World Cup kept us busy and on our toes as we cheered for our favorite teams and constantly made our predictions about who was going to win each game. I'm not much of a sports person, but I sure do love watching the World Cup with all THREE of my boys. I got to watch several games with David, Juan and I communicated often about a lot of the games, and Julian and I watched one of Argentina's games "together" as we chatted on Messenger all through the game, me here and him in Buenos Aires.
We had the TV on all the time with the World Cup on.
Supporting Colombia
and Argentina
Sometimes we played games while the game was on, too. :)
We were sad to see Argentina lose that final game, but I know Laura must have been so happy to see Spain take the win. So that made me happy.
Bible Study
My pastor's mom invited me to do a Bible study with her at her home, and we invited several ladies to join us. This was such a great study, learning more about the Middle Eastern culture that the Bible was written in. Kimber joined me in this study, so that was a really precious opportunity to spend that time studying Scripture with her.
Dual Language Training
In June I spent four days going to a Dual Language training at IU in Bloomington. I went with four other coworkers, so not only did I learn some great information and ideas, but I also go to carpool with them all four days and get to know them better. I really cherished that opportunity, especially since two of them are going to be teaching my closest friend's kids this year (a friend from church).
Getting ready for a new year
The last two weeks I've gone in to my classroom several times and spent quite a few hours each time organizing and setting things up for the new year. I always have better years when I go in way ahead of time and am able to work in the silence when no one is around. I feel good about how it's turning out and about how I hope it's going to flow.
Green: Spanish Reading area
Blue: English Reading area
The travel corner
So many good stories we'll be reading in two languages out of all those books this year.
Lots of blue and green to color code which language we are speaking and learning. So thankful for two friends who got my students a pack of green pens and blue pens off of my wish list so we can change colors in our notes whenever we change the language.
and purple for when we connect the two languages
side by side
I'm still missing getting a border up, but it's a coffee shop themed writing bulletin board with blue coffee cups and green coffee cups to display their writing in both languages throughout the year.
Spanish verb cards that help the students conjugate their verbs correctly. This is a biggie with 2 way Dual Language (both native and not-native Spanish speakers in one class). A friend got it off my Amazon Wishlist for my students. :)
I'm ready to get back into a schedule and routine and to spend my time investing into a new group of 11 year olds, and I'm so thankful for such an amazing teammate/church friend that I get to teach with again this year and pray with often over our students. But I'm a bit anxious about having to turn my brain back onto fast-paced after a couple months of being able to operate in slow-mo. I will also miss long morning walks and long mornings and late nights out on my new deck.
I must say, when you're not planning a big trip or trying to accomplish some big goal, the summer really does seem to last a lot longer. I look back at these pictures and feel like some of them were already so long ago. I got to really savor the days and the experiences with so many friends and often just by myself. I definitely missed being able to travel, especially for my dad's 80th birthday, but I will be seeing all of my Texas friends and family soon enough as Juan and Loren's wedding approaches quickly in a little over two months.
I spent a lot of much needed time with the Lord this summer, working through various challenges that hit me over the last year and seeking His guidance and counsel. Mike and I have also spent some much needed, unrushed time together and made some renewed, deeper spiritual commitments together. I stepped down from the women's ministry team at my church so that I could focus more attention on the Biblical counseling ministry that God has been equipping and preparing me for in so many ways over the last four years that we've been here. I've sought counsel and given counsel, which I'm learning go hand in hand. You can't do the latter without the former. My biggest takeaway from the annual conference is that as a Biblical counselor, you can only give what you have received from the Lord. You can't go into a counseling session without being actively engaged in the Word, ready to share fresh knowledge and wisdom. I finished the school year feeling depleted in so many areas, and I feel like I'm starting this school year renewed, refreshed, and recharged to go into another year on my personal mission field with bilingual children in the American public school.
Here goes to year #24!
Your prayers are greatly appreciated!
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