Illinios State University and helping around the house!

We were able to make a short visit to Bloomington, Illinois to Illinois State University. This is one of the schools we will be working on when we report to our ministry assignment. We were so thankful to be able to hang out with our future co-workers and to have them show us around campus! Here are a few pictures from our afternoon at ISU!

Looking at a big map of Illinois and pointing to Bloomington (our future place of residence).

On top of the tallest dorm on campus - it was a beautiful view of campus and all of Bloomington and Normal!

So, besides visiting ISU, we have been busy with home renovation projects. As many of you know, we are currently living with Andrea's parents in Lima, Ohio. Her parents are in the process of updating the decor throughout their whole house. We figured we would help and gain knowledge of painting walls (since we may have to do it when we purchase a house someday). I think Joe really likes painting! Here are some action shots!

Joe painting the ceiling in the family room! Very focused!

Joe with a paint bucket in hand and Andrea's Dad trimming up!

25 Percent!

We just crested over 25 percent of our monthly financial goal with our support! We are a fourth of the way to going to Illinois now. Thanks to everyone for your prayers and monthly financial giving!

Mountain Biking

This was the day that we went mountain biking. We rented the bikes for the day and rode on some trails in the Rocky Mountains. We were out for about 5 hours of biking on about 15 miles of trails.

This was Joe perfecting his skills at a mountain bike park.

Colorado!

We had a great time in Colorado for the National U.S. Staff Conference with Campus Crusade for Christ. We head out to Colorado for this conference every two years. There was about 4,500 staff members with us at Colorado State University! It was a great time of encouragement, rest, and fellowship with our fellow staff members. We heard great messages from national leaders, pastors, speakers and authors during our twelve days at CSU.

We had some free time while we were there as well. We did a couple day hikes in the Rockies with our friends and also were able to go mountain biking in the mountains!

This was during our first hike. We hiked with our friends Royce and Liz to the top of Horsetooth Rock. We climbed about 1,500 feet topping out around 7,000 feet above sea level after about 2.5 miles of hiking. Once on top, we were able to see the great plains to the east and the great Rocky Mountains to the west.

On top of Horsetooth Rock

This was our second hike with Royce and Liz. We drove into Rocky Mountain National Park for a 10 mile round trip hike. We started at 7am at around 9,475 feet in elevation. We climbed about 2.5 miles to the tree line. We continued for another 2 miles to Flattop Mountain and then onto Hallett Peak cresting at 12,713 feet in elevation. We arrived back to the car at 3:30pm exhausted, tired, sore, and Joe having drank 7 liters of water.

Our hiking group: Royce, Liz, Andrea, Joe

On top of Hallett Peak!

These our some of our new friends who are actually on our team in Illinois! They are Jeff and Kate Mehne and they happened to be hiking the same trail as us that day.

This was a picture of the parking lot where we started!

July 4th Fun!

So, July 4th was a little while ago, but we had such a great time with family that we wanted to post some pictures! Hope you all had a great 4th of July, we know we sure did!

We played ladder ball with Andrea's family. It was a lot of fun. It was like cornhole, but with a ladder instead.

Andrea's dad (Dave) and sister (Jill).

Andrea and her sister!

Andrea with her bro-in-law (Glenn). We ended up playing disc golf with the whole family. That was quite interesting!

Joe lovin' on our nieces. Aren't they precious and adorable? We sure think so - Ava is in the red shirt and Ellie is in the white shirt. They were having fun while waiting for the fireworks!

Moving!

So, officially we are moved out of our very first apartment. We happened to move out on one of the hottest days of the year, but on the bright side, it didn't rain. Some of our friends came to help us, which was wonderful! We got everything into the Uhaul quickly and everything fit! Here are some pictures from moving day!

Marc and Royce - 2 of our friends who helped us - see why we picked them - they look strong!

Joe's Hometown

We went to Joe's hometown (Lewisburg, Ohio) last weekend to visit with his family. His sister, brother-in-law, and our nephew were in town from NC. We had a great time visiting with them and with his parents. We also had a fun time out in the country! Here are some pictures from our fun weekend!

Joe's dad, Joe, Andrea, Curtis (Joe's brother-in-law), Michelle (Joe's sister), Toby (our nephew), and a bunch of ice cream cartons.

Picture of Joe's parent's barn and silo.

One thing you might not know about us is that we enjoy shooting guns every once in a blue moon. We only ever shoot at Joe's parent's house due to it being way out in the country.

Joe shooting a shotgun. It is a pretty neat picture as you see the shotgun shell ejecting and the clay pigeon exploding in the air. The pretty impressive thing is Andrea took the picture after hand throwing the clay pigeon.

Andrea shooting the shotgun. It was her second time ever. Also another neat picture of the shotgun shell ejecting and Andrea hitting the clay pigeon!