Happy summer everyone! We've got a lot to catch you up on! First off, we just wanted to mention that we have officially been married now for a WHOLE YEAR! June 2 marked our first anniversary. Wow. We decided we like each other so much we're going to go ahead and stay married forever :) Soon after that big milestone, Jason turned the big 2-5! He says he's starting to feel old, so everyone give him a hard time ;)

The first weekend in June we joined my extended family in Asheville, NC for a mini-vacation. Highlights were hiking at chimney rock state park, playing a few rousing games of Apples to Apples with the whole gang, and hanging out with my very zany and lively family (Jason will testify to that). You can see pictures from that weekend here. We're starting to get excited for our next and last vacation of the summer which involves hanging out at the lake cottage at clear lake with Jason's extended family over July 4 weekend and attending a wedding in Goshen.

I also wanted to report on the sad passing of a beloved family pet... We decided to put my cat Midnight to sleep after he very suddenly developed some serious health issues and started deteriorating very rapidly. It was a tough situation made harder by the fact that I was all the way over here in Texas while my parents were dealing with this at home in Indiana. He was a great cat, and we're all going to miss him. I'm not looking forward to the first time we go back to my parents' house and he's not there.

some things we've been thankful for lately......
- my sister's safe return from a semester abroad in spain
- getting to see both our families this summer
- our lively dog juno who is a constant source of entertainment
- playing on a softball team with people from our sunday school class
- AIR CONDITIONING!

love to everyone!
-mel