June has come and gone....I never understood the whole June gloom concept until moving to England. This June was one of the ugliest I have ever experienced! Almost every single day it rained. It didn't just rain....it POURED!!!! We also got some good marble size hail storms along with some intense lightning and thunder storms. This is not my definition of summer. I know I often discuss the weather in our blogs and thats probably because I come from a place that the weather is pretty boring. In the summer it is dry and hot. In the winter it is dry and cold with a few wet and cold days. Nothing too exciting besides the days where the wind gusts get forceful enough to move a small child. Living in England has opened my eyes up to the 4 seasons! I have never seen such a dramatic change with the fall colors as I have here. I have never experienced the excitement that spring brings with the blooming plants and new born animals as I have here. I also have never experienced so much weather change just in one single hour. You can walk in a store with sunshine behind you and walk back out 10 minutes later with pouring rain. And it keeps changing! I am still having a difficult time deciding what to wear on a daily basis. I often find myself walking through puddles and getting drenched while wearing sandals and a tang top. I also find myself sweating to death because I wore a long sleeve shirt and boots when it was rainy and cold, then suddenly turned humid and sunny. I don't think Carsten experiences such amazement as I have because Nebraska is more true to the four seasons than California. It is just insane to me! I never knew weather could affect me so much. Pathetic, I know. But hey...I'm a Cali girl at heart!
Ok so enough about the weather....let me update you on what we have been up to here in England. At the end of May we went to an event called "Big Church Day Out". This was where a few christian bands came to put on a 3 day festival for people who were willing to come camp out in the unpredictable English weather. We decided we wanted to go even if it was kind of far away. We gathered all of our camping gear and headed down to the coast. We had such a fun time! We set up our tent and then took our camping chairs up to where the bands played. Bands like Chris Tomlin, Newsboys, The David Crowder band, and Matt Redman played. It was so fun! It was different yet familiar for me because I spent 10 years of my life going to support my brother's band at festivals like this. It was kind of strange to just go to the festival and not be there for a specific band. Each band lead a time of worship which was sooooo awesome! We really enjoyed it! Then we camped out that night. God held off the rain, but he didn't hold off the wind. We didn't get much sleep because it felt like our tent was going to blow away with us in it.
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| Our cute little tent! |
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| The main stage area |
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| Carsten and Me trying to stay warm |
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| The stage at night |
Since we were home...we had the chance of puppy sitting for some friends of ours. My dog India was very excited because their dog Winston is very playful! They played all day long!!! It was so funny to watch them.
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| Winston and India play tug-of-war |
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| Fighting over a toy |
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| Belly rub for two please! |
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| Nap time after a hard day of playing |
On June 20th, we celebrated our 1st year anniversary!!!! Yiipppeee!!!! We celebrated all day. We made shishkabobs for dinner and watched our wedding video. We were not able to eat a piece of our wedding cake as most married couples do on their one-year anniversary because our cake is in my parent’s freezer. We couldn’t figure out how to ship a cake to England. Haha! So instead we did a toast with the Martinelli bottles that we saved from our wedding. We are hoping to eat a piece of our cake when we go back to Cali in July and August.
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| Carsten grilling the kabobs |
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| Cheers to a great 1st year!! |
Other than that....Carsten is finishing up his 3rd masters class. He has been working so hard these past two months! I am so proud of him! We are ready for him to have a break from school.
We have so much to be thankful for here in England. I know I complain about the weather or the different things that the British do, but God has totally blessed us with a wonderful life here in England. A lot of the military here have such mixed opinions about living here. One thing I have come to grips with is that….its not about me. It doesn’t matter if I don’t like the weather. It doesn’t matter if I miss the states. It matters that God has placed us here for such a time as this and we need to be focused on doing his will. Before we know it we will be headed back to a new base in the states and I don’t want to look back on this experience and regret anything. I mean come on…who gets to say that they lived in England for three years? We are blessed! One of the many blessings God has given us is our wonderful bible study group….I thank God for each and every one of them! These are people that became family in a short amount of time because of the experiences we have gone through in such a short amount of time. We cry together, we laugh together, we pray together, we talk about God, we encourage one another, and we help each other when husband’s are deployed. A year ago I had no clue who these people were…today they are life long friends!
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| Our wonderful bible study group |
Praise the Lord!
Well, that was our June. We should be having some busy months coming up until Carsten leaves. Thanks for reading our blogs and following us on this amazing journey. If you would like to pray for us here are some prayer requests to consider:
1. Pray for Carsten as he juggles work and school
2. Pray for both of us as we prepare for Carsten to deploy for a year
3. Pray for God to prepare Carsten and the base that he will be heading to, Safety!!!
4. Pray for me as I try to figure out what I should do while Carsten is gone. I’m debating on whether to start my masters or not. I have been praying for a friend or two who would understand and be with me while Carsten is gone.
Things to look forward to in upcoming blogs….
1. Our trip back to the states for Zach’s wedding.
2. A possible trip to Spain before Carsten leaves.
