Summer Has Come and Gone

Fall is in full swing in my neck of the woods all though the weather isn't reflecting it. Andy and I came down with the first debilitating colds of the year this past week...that's how I know we've hit fall. Fox 12's weather blog called this July-mid October the driest on record, ever! It's been hot.We just took our air conditioning unit out of the window today.

Here's a recap of this summer:

June was pretty uneventful. It marked the start of a very busy wedding season as we went to Rachael (Rotter) now Gross' wedding. Spring term also came to a close just to have summer term kick off a week later. On that week break, we journeyed to Battle Ground Lake and camped for 2 nights. Needless to say, it rained. After all, what could we expect? Did we really think that we would stay dry while taking a camping trip in June? I think we've learned our lesson that summer doesn't really start until July in Oregon. The highlight of this month was Timmy (my brother-in-law) decided to get baptized when they came up to visit us at the lake. Phil & Kate (brother/sister-in-law) also came up to visit for the day and brought along the cutest little one year old (Xa) to play in the mud at out campsite.

 Timmy making public his decision to follow Christ through water baptism at Battle Ground Lake.

 Camping breakfast.

Trenches had to be dug around our tent to keep water out.

July brought another wedding and some long awaited sunshine. I had the privilege of standing along side my friend Christina as she wedded Stanley Friesen. The Branches Camping trip to Kilichis was also in July. Little did Andy and I know, July was a pretty chill month compared to the storm of events that awaited us in August and September.

Cooking chicken fajitias at the Branches Campout.

August held 2 more weddings, 3 family birthdays (including Andy's 30th), a new job for me and a family vacation. Heather and Jerry, our friends from church, were wedded on August 18th. Andy played a set of Beatles songs at their reception. On the same night, Nichole and Adam (Nichole was once in my small group), tied the knot. Since we couldn't be in 2 places at once, we attended Heather and Jerry's due to the fact that Andy was reception entertainment. The very next day was Andy's 30th birthday also a Sunday. We took the day off from all of our duties at church to celebrate. We traveled to Lincoln City and stayed the night at The Shalishan Lodge, a great place to stay! We will go back, hopefully soon. After that we drove up the coast to take part in my side of the families vacation. We stayed at a beach house in Cape Meares, just a few miles away from where we got engaged last November. Two nights later we were on our way back home so I could start my new internship at Intel. Somewhere at the beginning of August, I interviewed for an administrative assistant position at the largest employer in the state.

 Gorgeous weather!

 Timmy, Briana and Abe

 Happy 30th Birthday

 Celebrating August Birthdays! Andy(30) Rhonda & Dan (55)

On to September...Wedding season really ramped up this month. On the first Saturday of September, Andy preformed his first wedding as an ordained minister for a couple from Branches. (Side note: Andy has been ordained for 3 years just never been asked to preform a wedding. Must be because he wasn't married himself.) Fast forward 7 days to the next weekend, Andy was preforming wedding #2. This time I was the wedding coordinator for my good friend and ex roommate Katy (Pedersen) Smith. Then just one short week later we were celebrating our best friends, Rachael (Christophersen) & Dustin Ward's wedding. As this month came to a close, I started back to school at PCC for my last term before I transfer in January to Warner Pacific College to finish my bachelors degree.

We are very glad to be in the second week of October, done with weddings and settling in to what feels like a more normal routine. It's looking like December will be a fun month as we are going to Disneyland with the Kangas side of the family and of course Christmas will cap off the month. I am very much looking forward to the holidays this year and hitting our one year anniversary at the end of the season. God is still our sustenance through it all.