Hunter turns 3!

In June, Hunter celebrated his 3rd birthday in St. Louis with much of our family; both sets of grandparents were there, as Chris's parents joined us from Tennessee. We had a picnic in the park and grilled out...on one of the hottest days in St. Louis, thus far. You can almost see the heat in Hunter's expression. Hunter loved having both set of Grandparents there for the occasion. He talked about it for weeks leading up and is still asking when it will be his birthday again! He felt so special. It's hard to believe all of that was a month ago! We can definitely see and improvement in Hunter's verbal skills, as a result.

Even though, we returned to Germany with temps in the mid-60's (we even had to pull out sweaters and jeans...I knew I was hurting when I was contemplating putting Hunter in a turtleneck...in July!), we are now in a heat-wave, with everyday above 90 and no A/C. Today we went to play group and all the kids ran around naked playing in the pool and sandbox in a friends yard. This is a typical past time in hot weather. All we can do is retreat to the basement. Chris has been diligently working on his dissertation and will hopefully finish by next Spring. He has also been busy meeting our new Chaplains and Commander and organizing a mission trip to Czech Republic for late summer.

When I returned home, I was faced with an interesting question from my German neighbors; they asked if I referred to Germany as home or America. I stopped and thought for a moment and said, "well, Germany"; for this IS my home, now. I think of St. Louis more as my parents home or where I am from, my background. They explained that moving around, like we have done over the years, is very unusual to Germans; usually they move once after they are married, and are usually not too far from parents. This produced some interesting thoughts over the next couple of days. I have been so content with my life in Germany, that I never longed for a visit (home, the Germans would probably use a different word for this) to St. Louis. BUT, while in St. Louis, it felt so good to be Home with my family, in familiar surrounding. This surprised me, as I was very content to be Home in America too and wanted to enjoy my time there. It dawned on me, this was an answer to prayer, God has taught me more about being content whatever my situation, wherever I am.

Please pray for the families of Hohenfels, as we are getting ready to deploy a unit to the War for 15 months; this is a very scary time for many of the teens and wives. Pray for God's peace to keep them in the shelter of HIS wings.