Family Visit

Vacation Bible School is now finished, and I finally had time to take some pictures from our camera, and put them onto our computer!  Being the non-camera people that Tyler and I are, we kept on forgetting to take our camera with us while my family was here for vacation.  We remembered on the last day, and so any and all pictures that I post from my family's visit are all on the same day...I know-not very interesting!  I am sorry, but maybe you can find a couple that you do like.  Since it was the only day we had a camera, we ended up taking 87 pictures that day.  I will not put them all on, but did have such a hard time deciding which ones to use.  No one in our family is a professional photographer, or even striving to be one, so you will be able to tell that when you look at the pictures.  We did see some beautiful things, both in the Badlands and in Spearfish Canyon at the amazing waterfalls.  I miss my family very much, but am so thankful for the pictures that I have to look back at!

This is a snapshot of a very small portion of the beautiful Badlands.  It is so neat to see something that was carved out in this way by the Flood.

Of course I have to have a picture of my wonderful husband and I!!

This is the whole group: Lorelynn, Lorena, Mary, Tyler, Dad, Mom, and Grandma.

While we were hiking around a little (as much as we were allowed to) we saw a couple of different places where there were mountain goats.

You really have to look to see these mountain goats-they blend in with the scenery.

Lorelynn was able to receive a call from David, who is in Afghanistan, even in the middle of the Badlands!

When I see Lorena, I still cannot believe that she is 18 years old and only has a year of high school left.  Sometimes I think she should still be my little 5 year old sister that we all had so much fun playing with!  It was great to have her out here, and several people in my church said they want her to move out here!!!!

After being in the VERY hot Badlands, we drove to Spearfish Canyon, which was a complete opposite of the desert place we had just been in.  There were beautiful waterfalls, and everything was so alive and green!

This is called "Bridal Veil Fall".  I have only ever seen it from the road, but this time we decided to hike a little and get closer to eat.  We had to wade through some VERY cold water and do a little climbing, but is was worth the work when we got there.

Another picture of Tyler and I.  This is quite an accomplishment, since we are not picture people!!

Dad and Lorena

We had to make our way through this creek to get to the waterfall. 

When we got done with all of our fun, and had gotten back to the main road, we saw this sign a little ways down from where we had started our little excursion!  

This is a picture of the BEST mother in the world!  She is standing in front of another waterfall that we went to, called "Roughlock Fall".  

Grandma and three of her granddaughters

This is where we took our engagement pictures, so it was fun to go back and take pictures after we were married.  I am not sure if the sun was shining weird on my hair, or if it really was that frizzy by the end of the day!

A picture of Roughlock Fall

Teenagers & Family: Our last two weeks

It has been about two weeks since we last posted, and those two weeks have left us tired, but happy.  At about 8:00 a.m. on June 27th, we left the parking lot of Liberty Baptist Tabernacle in two vans loaded with 18 teenagers and juniors (4th-6th grade) and all of their luggage, which for some was hardly anything and for others was far more than desired!!  We drove about 6 hours and ended in Aberdeen, SD at Richmond Lake Bible Camp where we spent the next week.  We had a great and wonderful time, although I felt very tired by Tuesday afternoon!  I would love to post some pictures, but being the bright people that we are, Tyler and I left our camera at camp!  We will hopefully be receiving it shortly.  We had the normal bug bites, sunburns, headaches, and accidents.  I got a very painful sunburn on Wednesday, which I had to keep on covering in soothing aloe vera.  We had one teenage girl with 104 mosquito bites by the time we left for home.  One young lady got knocked pretty badly in the face while we were playing with a big ball.  Her biggest concern was that she could not feel half of her face for the rest of the day!  Another of my girls had back spasms...and the list could go on and on.  The preaching, which was the whole purpose we took the kids to camp, was great.  We heard from Bro. Torrey Jaspers and his father Dr. Glenn Jaspers.  The main theme of the week was that "Direction Determines Destination".  We were all challenged with the fact that decisions we make now will affect our future. Several of our young people made good decisions that we pray will stick with them through the rest of their lives.  I was delighted when Dr. Glenn Jaspers asked me if I knew the LaBates!  Of course I know them...they are from the church I grew up in!  He told me that Mrs. LaBate grew up under his ministry!!  There is so much more I could tell of our week at camp, but I will save it for the time when I can hopefully show some pictures.

We arrived home on Saturday, July 2nd, which was the same day that my family arrived from Indiana.  I was so thankful that my dear husband had taken the time to make our apartment as spotless as possible before we left for camp!  The week spent with my family was delightful!!  On July 4th they attended the "God & Country Rally" that our church holds every year.  They enjoyed immensely the music that was performed.  The rest of the day we spent with people whom Tyler and I call "Grandpa & Grandma Wells".  They are not really either of our grandparents, but we love them very much.  We did the normal things you do on the Fourth-eat and play games outside!  In the evening we watched fireworks in town--they were beautiful.  The night ended with Jennifer and Sabrina Damron, as well as my sister and sister-in-law spending the night at our house.  I was surprised that both a full and queen size mattress fit on our living room floor!!  Tuesday we went up to Hill City, where we rode an old train, called the 1880 train, through the Black Hills.  I was reminded again of what a beautiful place we live in!  Once we got of the train, we spent the rest of the afternoon walking through Keystone and looking at all of the little shops.  We finished the day by having supper with another set of grandparents that I have acquired at the church, the Maullers.  I ate buffalo meat, and it was delicious!  Wednesday was our day for Mt. Rushmore.  It was very, very busy when we got there, but we were thankful that the weather had cleared up from the rain that had been around in the morning.  Our last day together was Thursday, and I think it was the best day we had.  We spent our morning in the Badlands, which were amazing.  We could not stop taking pictures!  The afternoon was spent in Spearfish Canyon, where we hiked a little and saw two beautiful waterfalls.( I promise to post pictures of this later when I have more time)  We ended the day by having dinner at Pastor and Mrs. Furse's log home way up high on a hill.  While we were eating we saw turkeys, deer and a coyote out the big window. We had to say our goodbyes on Friday morning as we ate breakfast together...we miss them all already, and hope they will be out again soon!!

This morning started Vacation Bible School here at Liberty Baptist Tabernacle.  I am the 2nd grade teacher, and Tyler is the 6th grade teacher.  We will also be helping with "Teen Time" in the evenings.  I thought I would let everyone know, so that you will not expect any more updates during the week (not that we post that much anyway!)  We will try to also have some pictures of that to show everyone at the end of the week!  We may just have to have a post of all pictures!!!!!!  GOODBYE FOR NOW!!