I have just spent an entire day washing laundry, folding clothes, packing suitcases and organizing my kids room so we can leave Oma and Papa's house a little less messy :) We have been in and out of their house all month and it has been a bit hectic as we have been trying to see as many people as we could before our adventures out west. Well, tomorrow is the day. We are leaving for Colorado, with an extra day in Topeka, Kansas to visit our old neighbors. We will be in CO for 2 days and then we will fly off to Canada. In Canada, we will be seeing many former BG children who have been adopted and we will participate in a 5K run/walk (yep, we will be walking it cause we are out of shape) fundraiser for Beautiful Gate. Bryan, Terp and I will also be presenting about BG at Sunrise adoption agency.
We then move on to California where we will get to give updates at Crosspoint CRC and The River CRC. My children have been asked to share about their experience at Beautiful Gate and I believe that there may be bribery involving Disney Land tickets so my kids are a LITTLE excited :) We will get to see many volunteers who have come through Beautiful Gate since we have been living there and I look forward to those reunions!
After California, we will return to Colorado where our family will have 5 days alone in the mountains at a cabin, aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I am pretty sure we are going to enjoy our only vacation together during our furlough. Hiking, playing, swimming, reading and relaxing as a family. Our kids have and will soon endure more meetings and presentations with Bryan and I being a little busy so I look forward to letting them set the agenda for our vacation (better pray that they are gentle on us though, haha).
Bryan, Terp, the kids and I have a goal while we are on our trip out west. We are going to try to post 2 pictures every time we have internet access. One will be our best picture of the day and the other will be our worse picture of the day. My kids LOVE to photo bomb pictures now thanks to our former volunteer, Paige, so this adventure should be enjoyable!
I am very excited to announce a partnership for the month of August to raise money for Beautiful Gate Lesotho. If you're in the Holland area maybe you've heard about a new business called Coast 3. It was started by some friends of ours from Haven Church. In a nutshell, they offer all kinds of outdoor adventure equipment for rent and also have a very cool monthly membership program that is really starting to take off. Our friend, Christina Terpstra (Terp) has had the opportunity to hang out at the store and the staff and equipment is top notch. Coast 3 not only provides great opportunities for people to go and enjoy the outdoors, but they provide opportunities for families to come together, put away all the things that distract them from each other and make memories that will last a lifetime. 
