The end of May brought a salsa (food not dance) party hosted by the Whitesburg Baptist Church choir. It was here that I met Sara who very quickly became my best friend. Andrew and I went to Birmingham for the Hillsong concert, where we all thought the balcony was going to collapse due to there being soooo many people there. It was shaking and making me nervous. I broadened my arts horizons by going to see MacBeth at the Fantasy Playhouse. It was pretty awesome. I think Sara and I laughed a lot more than we should have.
I went to camp with the middle schoolers at Whitesburg this year. We loaded up around 130 people and headed off to Fort Faith on June 1. I was the leader for the Yellow Wombats. My group consisted of the same girls that were mine for D-Now. They were such a blessing. We had some great discussions on purity over the course of the week. I'll never forget the last night when one of them finally had gotten things settled with God and she ran ALL over camp screaming about how great God was. It was pretty amazing to watch God work in their lives.
July brought my grandparents and a trip to see the Huntsville Stars and fireworks. I don't get to see them very often, but it was nice to be able to hang out for a while.
Mom and I road tripped it to Kentucky and Indiana in July. We've never done that before. She met up with some high school friends at Barkley Lake. I headed up to spend the weekend with Aunt Barbara. All we did was scrapbook and shop. It was glorious girl time.
August brought some sad news. My grandfather passed away. He'd been in a nursing home for a few years with Alzheimers. It meant a trip to Indiana for the funeral though. It's the first time Mom's whole side of the family had been together since Uncle Harvey's funeral in 2007. It was really good for some of us cousins to be together again. We had a great time and laughed a lot. I don't think I have laughed so hard I physically hurt. We didn't know we were all so funny. :) We would just like to get together again under better circumstances.
I've added to my list of ministries too. I joined the Women's Ministry committee a little earlier than planned. My term was to begin in January, but due to one of the ladies moving they asked me to begin in July. We just had the LIFT dinner which is our big kick off for the women's ministry department. There were over 400 women in attendance. It was fabulous! I am also a sponsor for the Student Worship Arts Team (SWAT). We had our kick off in mid-August with a BBQ. The kids were pretty excited about it. The first Sunday of rehearsal we had over 120 6th-12th graders. I'm pretty excited to see what God does in these kids lives as the year progresses.
Well, I guess that sums up the summer. I'm sure there were a lot of things I left out, but these were the highlights. I'm going to end my summer at the beach. I'm headed to Mobile to see Sara and spend Labor Day weekend resting and relaxing by the ocean. I can't wait!
