Thanksgiving Video from Mid America

Here is a Thanksgiving Video from Mid America Reformed Seminary. 

A big thank you to all our supporters too! 

PS you might see some 'kiwi's' in the video. 
PPS Our thank you sign was made by the talented NZ Artist Hannah Flinn!

Pake and Beppe - Visit to Chicago

Of course a visit to us wouldn't be complete without a visit to Chicago. I haven't got a huge amount of photos of this day, don't know why. It seems that when ever we visit Chicago, the weather is either too hot, too cold, rainy or snowing. Maybe it's us? On this visit, it bucketed while we had something to eat!

This made me laugh!

We came across a hot asian buns (Bao) eating contest and
got given some free vouchers to try a one. They are very good!

Pake and Beppe shouted us dinner
Kate chose sushi!

Zara with Sushi also

Grace with her meal

Michaela

Apple and I :)

Pake and Beppe - Misc 2

Some more random Pake and Beppe photos :).

Beppe and Grace at a local park

Grace playing hide and seek at a local playground

Kate hiding

Pake homeschooling Zara and Kate.
He read the Read Aloud in different voices, very funny!

Grace with her birthday cake that she made

Family Photo in front of seminary

Albert and Pake

Our Family

Pake and Beppe - Misc 1

Phew finally got my favorite web browser back also :). Explorer didn't really like blogger so I gave up and asked Albert nicely to upload Chrome, pleeeease? He is a good man and did what I asked :). 

Enjoy these family photos of Albert's parents visit. 

Dinner at Ikea. (free dinner for kids on Tuesdays!!)
 Albert's parents had never been!

Sewing lessons!

Pake playing Dutch Biltz

Summer photo at Lake Michigan 

We took one in Winter at exactly the same spot!

Michaela at the Bass Pro shop

Grace

Kate

Zara

Dinner with all Kiwis!
(Vooys', Flinns, a Holtslag, Couperus Senior and us!)

Pompton Plains

We had the privilege to be able to make a detour home from Wellandport to visit Pompton Plains where we served last summer. When we left Pompton Plains we didn't think we were going to see these lovely people again this side of heaven but God is good and planned our summer in such a way that we were able to! We stayed with the Rossis. They were a Mid America Student family. Roberto is now the associate Pastor at Pompton Plains. We were so blessed by the Rossi's generosity and willingness to host us. We were able to relax and spend time catching up with old friends. I was also able to meet a 'new' friend Franci. I had heard of her and read her blog but I had never met her. So since I was kind of in the same part of the country as her, I asked her if I could visit. What a lovely visit it was. It was great to put a 'face' to a name! Driving to her house after living in the country for 11 weeks was a bit of a challenge! Franci also told me to drive to the river where you can get an awesome skyline view of NY, unfortunately (arrgg) I had not only left my camera behind but also my ipad so no photos :(. I did look at it was well worth it!

  

New Jersey!

 

At the playground with the Rossis

 

Dinner with some special people.
(Grace's special friends)

 

Visiting another special couple.
We spent a lot of time last summer at their pool!

After looking through my photos from last summer
I realised that I didn't take any photos of this pool. So here it is!

The girls are having races in their tubes!

More races

Kate

Me on lifeguard duty.

Zara, look at me I did it!
(she retrieved the rings from the bottom of the pool)

Michaela showing off her flips

Girls with the special couple!

Atlantic Ocean!

It's been a looooong time since I've been in/seen the Atlantic Ocean! Some of the church people at Pompton Plains organised a day at The Shore to which we were invited. What a great time to catch up with people we thought we would never see again! Thanks so much for organising this! The girls LOVED the beach very much. They loved the waves, the sand, and the fellowship. Albert (although being one of the few men) enjoyed himself very much also. He also had a go on one of the boogie boards. I was surprised that he actually went for a swim in the ocean since he is not much of a swimmer at all. Thanks Aaron for being there, I'm sure that helped! (The Warner's did their summer internship at Pompton Plains this summer so we caught up briefly and met their new daughter for the first time! Abiel was born after we left for Canada).

 

On that Friday we left again for Chicago. We are grateful that we were able to catch for a few days with some of the people from our last internship. We were encouraged by the work the Lord is doing in Pompton Plains and also in our friends and graduate of Mid America, the Rossis. Unfortunately I don't have any photo's of our time with the Rossis, we were probably too busy having fun/catching up!

 

So here ends our summer internship. We enjoyed it but after being on the 'road' for 12 weeks we were ready to go home and relax. It had been a full/packed but extremely joyful 12 weeks. We had about two weeks before classes started again. We were ready to spend some family time! Our long drive home was uneventful, only stopping for gas. Thankful for cruise control! We arrived home before Albert's parents and the Bumas and so had some time to unpack before they arrived. So here starts the next instalment of blog posts. The visit of Albert's parents!

 

Kate in the white top

Our group

Michaela

Aaron left and Albert on the right

Kate

Zara

Boys pose

Semi serious