{22.JULY}

July was so full! I'm afraid I may miss something, so I'll try my best to sum up all I can remember.
First off, HEAT WAVE!! To end the school year and kick off summer England, and well most of Europe experienced a massive heat wave. Where we were at, it was 39 degrees Celsius!! (that's over 100F) We enjoyed it the best we could. Beach time and loads of time in front of the fan.
School also ended for the kids meaning lots of goodbyes and new beginnings. M will be moving up to secondary school so we had a mini graduation to attend. T will be coming back home to continue homeschooling with N & E in the fall.
Our missional community group continued to meet on the estate for meals, prayer nights, and times of worship. And our mum's group has grown going into the summer!! We have probably 6 or 7 new mums that join us on a regular basis now, some are refugees from Ukraine while others are British mums who have never had a community to grow with. It's a beautiful and messy time of togetherness.
And to finish July off, we packed our bags and headed to join over 600 other GEM missionaries at Annual Conference. Tim helped with transportation arrangements from the airport to the conference center so he had to be in a bit early, so we took like 12 hours to explore a tiny sliver of Venice before getting our bus to Slovenia. The time away was so refreshing and encouraging. The sessions were just what we needed, the worship lifted my weary soul, and the connections we made with so many other missionaries was unbeatable! God really spoke to our hearts and gave us some direction for the upcoming fall and winter. And He blessed us with some great prayer warriors as well.

As always, here is the month in pictures ....

this beautiful guy landed right outside the window, early one morning while I was doing my devos.

Stockton's Sci Fi Market was a total highlight of our month!!
It was epic!

we really got to "nerd out" with a lot of other friends

clearly it was made for our fam!

we went with others from our community groups
and enjoyed a picnic by the river between sessions

N's first solo sewing project - by hand may I add!
She's so good!

N & E climbed this massive tree -
it was a lesson in perseverance and team work!

SIX now!
E turned 6 this month and enjoyed a day of fun and cake!

it's always an adventure taking these two boys places -
this was for new glasses and they really got into the whole "trying on" thing
hahaha

All 4 kids went on our church's Kids Weekend Away camping trip
so mom and dad got a date weekend!!!!! :)
We began with lasagna, a game night with friends followed by a very late movie!

then we went up north a ways and enjoyed a sweet little town
with a MASSIVE second hand bookshop!

Then to end the weekend we took a very HOT and sunny hike around Staithes,
our favorite seaside village

the sites were gorgeous~

That's a tractor.... baling hay.... on a cliff by the North Sea
I love this place!

July began a new favorite for us,
biking and scootering to the park!
It was much quicker and is great exercise!

Finishing up our lessons in Africa!
Our last few countries to study were
Djibouti, South Africa and Botswana

The garden has started to produce real food!

We are really gonna miss our walks to and from school every day!
A great time of bonding and talking.

This is our community center where we do our missional community and Mum's group.
It's right around the corner from us and the other family on the estate.

trying out some African food with a special teacher ....

Our new pastor is a South African!
He took us in for a day and taught us all about his country, fed us foods from there, and showed us so many cool pics. It was a learning day for everyone! So Cool!

Plus he's a great teacher!

T's teacher from this year ... She was an answer to prayer! Just what T needed for the year.
She really cares for her kids and wants what's best. We will both miss her LOTS!

M's teacher! Also a great gal and lovely answer to prayer. She spurred him on and challenged him to be the best he could be! M's so sad to leave her behind.

super proud of all our kids' hard work this school year!
Way to go M!

Excavation blocks - this kid is obsessed with them

Had the honor to join a Hen Do to York,
to celebrate my soon to be new neighbor!
It was an awesome day! Thanks for the invite!
British traditions are so fun to learn about.

The beginning of the heat wave was spent celebrating a family at the beach!
And it certainly was a lovely one.

BEACH! and with the heat it wasn't too cold to swim! lol

we finished the night well, with fish and chips on the shore

M said this is how he felt .... he thought he was melting

we took a late afternoon later that week and spent it cooling off in the North Sea

and then followed that cool down with a no cook dinner of fresh fruit and veg, pop tarts, cereal and juice

So many alley way water fights too!
SO fun!

we used whatever we could to cool down!

the dog even got in on the water fights - he thought it was great!

Tim and I got invited to an 80's night surprise party for a lovely and dear friend and neighbor!
We dressed the part and had a great night aboard the Teesside Princess

such fun on the river boat!

Sadly we had to say a sad farewell to an amazing young lady and neighbor.
She was a YFC intern and was instantly a close friend to our family.
She will be greatly missed but we are excited to see how God directs and moves in her life!