eyes to the sky

we had a crazy attempt to see the air and water show downtown this weekend. when we left the train station with partly cloudy skies, we never expected to step out of union station to a full out thunderstorm. (so much for the hour by hour forecast!) we puddle jumped from subway to garrett's popcorn to old navy and finally to millennium park. after cramming more people than an umbrella is made to cover one more time, we were about ready to pack it in and go home when just like that -- blue skies. so after walking 3 miles with soggy feet, we got to see a shortened but still impressive air show. it was definitely a fun afternoon to remember!

sonja, joy, and i at the bean

i wish we took a video - the sound is just as impressive!

back to reality

in a funny way, summer has flown by...yet door county seems like ages ago. so what has taken up our time during the whirlwind we called our summer? it went a little like this....

our summer began in the timothy christian gym and/or baseball field, sweating out hours in summer camps and, naturally, eating our fair share of freeze pops. one baseball camp, one basketball camp, a trip to door county, and three volleyball camps later....and june is over.

we waste no time over here in the van schepen home. the hour my last volleyball camp was done, we hit the road for iowa to embark on our month of travel. welcome to july.

in typical summer fashion, we put on more miles than we prefer to count. and praise God that they were all safe and smooth going. we started heading north to emo, ontario. with a little careful planning for our bathroom stops (with thanks to minnesota's government shutdown) and a successful border crossing, we started our travels off with a fun weekend celebrating jake and jolene's wedding.

thankfully, we had a twins game scheduled for july 4, otherwise i'm not so sure i was going to be able to convince my husband to come back out of north country. it was a battle of two loves for him, but the twins always win. :) it was a hot afternoon but a great game to watch with some pretty amazing company...and the twins won! moving on to edgerton, i had the privilege of experiencing my first dutch festival. a highlight of the trip, no doubt. from there it was back to iowa for a few days for a good bondfires and four wheeler rides.

moving on...cause we don't sit still very well...matt went on a fishing trip to minnesota and i went to michigan for calvin volleyball camp. i got to catch up with some college friends, all of whom are coaching their own vball teams. thankfully, we had A/C in the gyms to combat the record temperatures. but i could only escape the heat for so long. i think we will always reference the heat to...."at least it's not as hot as it was on the weekend of ben and bailey's wedding!" but the heat can't stop a good party and the wedding was absolutely beautiful with perfect evening temperatures to dance the night away. congrats ben and bailey!!

and that brings us back home....kinda. we are currently dog/house sitting so sleeping in my own bed is still a few days away. after that, the summer ends where it began....back in the TC gym. volleyball tryouts are a week away - the true sign of summer's end for me.

so there you have our summer in a nutshell. we plan on fully utilizing every last drop of summer in the coming weeks and hope you do the same!