Something witty about my absence......

While it has been awhile, I am still here and excited to share life with you few followers.  

Last day of school 2011

  We are in the throughs of summer 2011, and I thought that I should give an update.  We LOVE being here at East Iowa Bible Camp.  Out summer has been great!  We started with a great staff training week.  Our staff this year, (as I say nearly every year) is awesome!  It is becoming more apparent each year that while our ministry here will always be to the kids who come to the camps, it is also overwhelmingly a ministry to our staff as well.  I think that it always has been, but it just seems to me to be so much more important than I ever thought.  We love them all so much, and can't believe that we are nearly at the halfway mark this summer!  

We have had one of our children at every camp but one this year.  No High School yet!  Jonah is going into 8th grade, Lydia is going into 6th grade, Fiona is going into 3rd grade, Ruby May is going into 2nd grade, and Lillian will be doing another year of preschool this year.  I just looked back at that and thought, "That can't be my kids!"  But it is!  Fiona is a camper this week, and is having a ball.  Ruby May will go to Cowboy Camp next week!

In the midst of all of their camps, we are fitting in time spent with Grandma Julie and Grandpa Eddie, as well as meeting new cousins!  Eddie's daughter Megan and husband Chris had Twins in late April.  Nora and Eliza.  My sister Rebekah and her husband Curtis welcomed little Gideon on June 10th.  Baby sister Joy and husband Grant are due with their first baby on July 22, and my brother Drew and his wife Samantha are due with their 4th baby in October.  Bumper crop for the Kelly/Johnson family this year!  By the time October gets here there will be 23 cousins!  Mom and Eddie need to build on a few more rooms!  hehe! 

The "Kelly" cousins.  Best of 15 pictures :)

Ben and I are doing well.  Ben is forever repairing, cleaning, mowing, felling, plumbing, etc. which makes it sound like we never see him, but we do.  He is making a point to spend time with us as a family and I so appreciate that.  We have entered a new era in our lives though.... a long awaited one.  Ben and I have gone on a few dates and left our own offspring to babysit!  WOW!  This is a new freedom, and I love it!  We have several times this summer left the kids, and gone over to camp to play games with the staff!  I have learned cribbage, which is the game all of the kids play, and our new found "freedom" is great.  I seriously never thought we would ever get to this point!  Jonah (with Lydia's help) has proved to be a good babysitter.   

Well, that is all for now

Sarah

He really is a sweet brother.