Summer daze

This summer passed in a flurry of activities for us.  At the beginning of June, Joseph had his wisdom teeth removed.

Jacob celebrated his 19th birthday on June 12, and spent his summer working as an intern at Precision Planting.

Maimie participated in her first year of softball and loved it.

working hard at the Turkey Festival

Joseph followed his older siblings in working at Sonic this summer.

Father's Day

 Maimie underwent surgery at the end of June to have some bone from her hip grafted into the cleft in her upper jaw.  Poor thing was so brave and hardly complained at all despite difficulty managing pain at first and pureed food for 8 weeks.

Getting ready for surgery

Jacob bought his first car this summer.  

Joseph went on his first mission trip to Slovakia, where he helped teach English at camps for some Slovak teens.  The trip got off to a rocky start when he was turned down for entrance to his flight because his passport would expire just short of 3 months AFTER returning from Slovakia.  We spent the weekend on the phone and online trying to secure an updated passport and then Monday travelled to the passport office in Chicago shortly before his newly scheduled flight left from O'Hare.  Instead of traveling with his team, he had to fly alone and change flights in the middle of the night, but God delivered him safely to his team.

Independence Day 2015

We said a sad good bye to our dog Daisy this summer after a sudden illness.  We also bid farewell to our old Honda.  This was the car I traded my Jeep for in early 1994 when I was pregnant with Mikaela.  It was the only car I ever bought brand new, and it made it over 21 years.  

 At the end of July,  Deepika, a work friend of Steve's from India, visited and we took her to Chicago one Saturday.  We walked around enjoying some shopping and taking in the sights for a few hours.