Cousins, Godparents, Friends, & Relatives

We spent four days with my sister, Kim, and her family.

The cousins had a great time spending time together. During our time there, Dennis & I were able to go over to the new NICS headquarters and meet some new people and see where they have moved to.

Elisabeth also took the time while we were in Mississippi to donate her hair to Locks of Love.

This is the second time she has grown out her hair to do that.

~~~From Mississippi, we headed north to IL. We spent two nights with our friends (Elisabeth's godparents) the Martin family in Jonesboro, a town we lived in for 4 years.

Red owns and operates an antique auction business and Dennis took a closer look at an ancient pistol that was going on the next auction. Stick 'em up, Red!!

Elisabeth with her MawMaw, Elizabeth.

With PawPaw, Red
~~~
We moved on north and spent a day with our friends the Mrosko's in Decatur, IL.

We had a great time boating in their boat, even though we did almost sink the poor boat with so many people on board.

The kids enjoyed tubing and swimming in Decatur Lake.

Anna Mrosko & Ben the dog, facing the wind...
~~~
From Decatur we went to Gifford (our home for 8 years), where we spent several days catching up with folks and seeing lots of old friends. It was a great time there. The kids all stayed with friends and had an AWESOME time reconnecting.

Dennis & I stayed with Earl & Sue Hesterberg. It was nice for all of the Cooley Clan to have a little break from each other.

Nathanael and Justin, friends since they were 2 years old

Elisabeth and Maria, just 3 weeks apart in age and friends from the start

Caleb and his godparents, Jim & Lori Bednarz

Hannah and Carla, friends and pals from infancy
~~~
After an excellent service of sharing at St. Paul's on Sunday, we headed to Moline, IL to stay with Hannah's godparents, Chris & Juliann Zimmerman and their family.

Here's a couple of horse crazy girls ~ Hannah & Isabel.

~~~
We arrived in Mpls. on Monday and spent all day Tuesday getting ready to fly back to Florida. On Tuesday night, we had a pizza party in our airport hotel room. Dennis' Aunt and Uncle from ND joined us a the hotel. Three of his cousins and their families, who live in the Cities, joined us that night for pizza and/or swimming, as well as our friends the Linns & Sprouls.

Elisabeth gets a few more minutes with Kirsti.

Catching up with cousins was a lot of fun.

Lots of yummy pizza for everyone!
Thanks, Uncle Tom & Aunt Kathy!
~~~
We arrived back in Florida and went right to work getting ready to head back to Brasil. We shopped and packed for the first couple days so that we could spend some time relaxing the last couple days.

We had a great afternoon at Pine Island, a fun, little beach on the Gulf of Mexico.

We stayed long enough to watch the dolphins come in and play...

...but left shortly after Caleb had an encounter with this critter who floated in on the tide. Ouch! That was one BIG jellyfish!
~~~
It's been a great summer filled with tons of memories!
18 States travel in
17 speaking engagements to share about our ministry at AVA
6 National Parks & Monuments
9,600 miles traveled in a great conversion van
Too many gallons of gas to count (and who'd want to)
Tons of friends & relatives visited
AND
More blessings than we can even begin to count!