Vacation!

Our last seven days was spent at Green Lake Conference Center in Green Lake, Wisconsin. I've spent time there throughout many of my summers and always enjoy the restful nature of the area. And the fact that there is little cell phone reception does add to the peace and quiet! My whole family was there--mom, all siblings with spouses and children. Makes for a large group. Altogether there were 13 adults (and one nanny) nine kids, all ages 6 and under (of course referring to the kids). And five dogs--surrogate grandkids, if you will. My brother just bought a golf cart so it was perfect for taking the kids around the grounds to look for deer (didn't see any but saw wild turkeys a lot), stop at the Country Store for penny candy, climb the towers (formerly used as water towers) and generally feel the wind in our hair. Of course we climbed the 81 steps to the top of Judson Tower to see the lake. Lauren didn't like that too much--she had to walk down backwards. We toured the old log cabin museum on the grounds with cousins Raegan and Brody. While there, the girls put some stitches in a quilt, put a few extra pieces on a loom rug, and Annika and Lauren made dipped candles which I think are pretty cute! We found out about a candy contest where you sing and post it on youtube...here's Annika's final rendition. Lauren, Raegan, Emily and Brody (cousin) wanted to do 12 Dancing Princesses instead so Annika soloed.



We're doing well. Dan will be going onsite for one church interview--encouraging! We'll know more details in a couple of weeks after vacations by the search committee members.

As for now, school is allowing us to stay until the end of the calendar year so Annika will be starting first grade here at Peterson Elementary and, Lord willing, we'll only have to move all of our stuff once.

Thank you all for your continued prayers! They really do sustain us.

Perhaps Summer Will Come in July?

Temps have been mild here in Chicago. The Fourth of July came with rain and thunder. July 5 finally, pretty much for the first time, brought nice weather to Chicago. For the 4th, we hung out with Uncle Brian's family and a surprise guest--my cousin Amanda who I haven't seen in a decade! It's crazy when you last saw someone when they're 10 and now she's 20, living on her own and going to Northeastern Wisconsin Technical College. I'll see if I can get some of the pics from cousin Judy to post. P.S. I also beat Cousin Judy at arm wrestling. I guess slinging kids around for six years did tone some muscle!

Our family has been sticking pretty close to home the last six weeks. Dan has had on-calls at the hospital almost every weekend, some weekends with two shifts. Makes for a tired set of parents.

Annika had gymnastics camp for two weeks. It's really affordable through the park district. She enjoyed that and loves showing off her sort-of splits and attempting hand stands. A friend picked her up on the way to camp and then I picked the girls up after camp. Worked well.

She has also lost her two front teeth on top and another one on the bottom.

Lauren is in ballet once a week for eight weeks and she's enjoying that as well. Fits in with the whole princess obsession.

Emily is obeying a little bit. Still trying and testing boundaries--testing--what a misnomer. She's blowing right through them.

Megan is teething again which makes for sleepless nights. We've had to refill her diabetes prescriptions once. But God is gracious! While being concerned about Megan being in the hospital, I didn’t have to worry about the bills that accompanied it. Matter of fact, beyond making sure the hospital took our insurance (state aid), I didn’t think about it during the rest of our five-day stay there. Nor did it even cross my mind to think about how we would have paid for just her diabetes supplies after.

A rough estimate of alcohol swabs, needles, lancets, blood sugar meter, two types of insulin, sugar injections (in case Meg is every dangerously low and we can’t wait for juice to take effect) and ketone strips would have cost us about $1000 if we had to pay out of pocket. Her insulins were $122.99 and $103.99, ketone strips were $11.99, test strips were $249.98 for 200 (we use at least five a day…), and lancets were $33.98…. That will be our typical order each month—the insulin, even if we won’t use it all, is only good for 28 days. So…it’s not exactly social medicine, but I’m grateful for it right now!

Dan has had one phone interview with a church in Minnesota. We won't know the results of that for a few more weeks as they also interview other potential pastors. We're still not too worried yet. We're also excited for friends of ours who did get a job this week--The timing is great because they have to be out of student housing in two weeks and now they have a destination.

I'm still just writing. Did stories on Twitter and Facebook (two online sites where you can interact with friends) for three publications--if you're going to learn something new, make the most of it! I'm also spending too much time on the games on Facebook. Right now, Becky and I are tied on Mahjong.

Cousin Raegan and Becky were with us this last weekend. Becky had some work in town and was able to bring Raegan to hang out with us. We went to a splash park, the Field Museum where we saw real pirate treasure from the Whydah (very cool) and ate some real Chicago-style hot dogs at Gene and Jude's.