Therefore with JOY shall ye draw water...

1 And in that day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. 2 Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation. 3 Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. 4 And in that day shall ye say, Praise the Lord, call upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalted. 5 Sing unto the Lord; for he hath done excellent things: this is known in all the earth. 6 Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee. Isaiah 12 Lately this chapter has really been an encouragement to me. They are verses of thankfulness, worship, and love to our Heavenly Father. On another note. Only one week until I'm on a plane out to Oregon. Here are my thoughts on that, "I'm going on an adventure." Not sure how much adventure I will meet while out there. Tomorrow. We are celebrating Tessa's 7th birthday. She gets to have a her "big" birthday party this year. The theme is carnival, but due to lack of planning on our part, it will probably not be as carnivally as it could be. One thing that will be present is cotton candy. She insists upon it. So, tonight I will be picking up Jesse(our cousin), after Clothes packing in Goodfield. He is coming so he can be at the party. School has started. It's been a lot rougher than I thought it would be. I loved college. I really did. The people, the atmosphere. It was just such fun. It's also hard, because I have friends that are a year younger than me just starting, and I remember all the excitement of starting college, and I'm not sharing it with them. Of course there is always the plus of not having homework in the evenings. God is faithful and has given me the confidence that I am doing the right thing. I honestly haven't had any doubts, just fleshly desires to go back to school. I know that Satan is trying to discourage me, but I'm thankful that His grace is sufficient for each day. Lately... Last weekend, we had Grant and Hannah's talk on Ixtlan on Friday night. Then on Saturday, Rhea, Sophie, and I went to a baby shower for Hannah and Ivory. It was great to be able to catch up a little. This week has been crazy. I thought that once school started, it would slow down a bit, but if it continues that way it has, there won't be any slowing down. Monday, I went to the ICC young group welcome night.(I know I'm not at ICC, but I miss those people) Jeremiah Psinus from Morton came and spoke on how we should keep our affections on things above. It was a good talk. We also had a singing which sounded beautiful. It was such a great evening praising God. Tuesday, was my day off. For lunch though, I went to 2 Chez in Peoria, for a Girls' Afternoon Off with 4 other ladies from the bank. It was a good time to get to know some of the other people from Speer. The bank paid for our lunch(which was not cheap), paid us for going, and gave us a gift card. All for no reason. Yep. I love my job. But not just because they are generous. I really do like the work. Also, Tuesday night was Katie and Landon's church shower, so I went with Mom and Rhea. On Wednesday, I worked. After work, I went over to one of the Officer's house, because I am house/cat sitting for him and his wife in September for a week. I'm kind of excited. We'll see how I last living on my own for a week:) Then we had Conference tapes in church, which were really good and encouraging. On Thursday, I did a little shopping with Sophie in the morning for Tessa's birthday. Then I went to work. After work, we had a staff meeting at the Midwest Food Bank. We packed Tender Mercies packets and then had pizza and our meeting. It was a fun time working together as a bank. Today, I have been working, and then I'm heading to Clothes packing as I said earlier. Coming up... Katie and Landon's wedding is in 2 weeks. Tuesday I'm going to the Farm Progress Show with Olivia Steffen and Hannah Schick. It should be fun. Olivia will have some of her younger cousins that she babysits. Call us weird, but it is fun, especially all the free stuff:) I'll be starting my Preschool job at Miss Deanne's the Tuesday after we get home from Oregon. I'm pretty excited to start that! So there you have it. My life as of lately in a nutshell. Hope you all are having fun going back to school, sending your kids off to school, or just doing what you've been doing:)

Late Pictures

Before I started this post, I was thinking to myself, "Wow, I'm doing pretty good for getting two posts done in July." Then I realized it's August. This post is pretty much some random pictures. Some I took, some I didn't. I know I said I was going to do a post on Ryan and Ashley's wedding once I got some pictures, but I decided to skip that. Especially since they have been married for 3 months now. I also took pictures of cute little Josie Shae, but that has been 2 months ago. I've been a little slow on posting pictures, but here's what I got. Oh, and we attempted at taking some pictures of the 6 girls on Sunday at Schumacher's. It was ok. Today, Cassie showed her chickens at the 4-H fair. We stayed for a little over half of it, and so far she had been winning championship in every class she was in. The other kids were getting a little frustrated, and Mom was embarrassed that she was winning all the time. We had to listen to the announcer say, "And the championship goes to Cassie Berchtold" like 8 times. Who knows how many times after we left he had to say that too. Somebody told us that Cassie is sure cleaning up the chicken show. Yes, she was. I mean, it can't be very exciting after so many times of winning. So here are the pictures.

 The wedding party. And by the way, Aaron(Ashley's brother) started repenting on Sunday night. So we were all super excited for that.

 The Bride and Bridesmaids

 Aubrey apparently telling on Sophie.

 Sophie loved the kittens. She has an imaginary one named Charles, so this was probably her first experience with a real kitten.

 Jesse doing a pop-a-wheelie

 Aubrey loved the kittens too, and apparently flip flops that are a few sizes too big.

 Kaiya and Sophie

 Playing with the ball

 Cassie and Kylie

 A typical Endress gathering.

 Dad and one of the 4 babies

 Aubrey and Claire

 All the attention is on Autumn

 I would like everyone to take time and notice all the facial expressions(especially Sophie's)

 She is quite the little model.

 And this is about the time the truck pulled up the drive-way

 Kylie is attempting to do squats?

 This probably turned out the cutest

 Kylie cheesing.

 Kylie and Autumn always had plenty of smiles

 Lexi and Sophie:)

 She got one of her cousins names mixed up, and this was her expression....priceless.

 And Kaiya always smiled too

 This is pretty much what Aubrey felt of taking pictures.

 I love this piggy-tails.

 Mom and Sophie

 Kaiya and Autumn.

 Grandpa and the 6 girls

 Not really sure what this face is all about, but nevertheless it's hilarious.

 This looks so natural right?

 Cassie Showing her chickens

 And her is Josie Shae

 She is such a cutie...