Duerrs On Call: One Down, Three to Go

Dear friends and family,

Normally, we write our blog posts on a busy weekend, crammed between all the errands we have to do before our crazy week starts up again. This blog post, however, is coming to you from two very relaxed people! We are both officially on our summer break!

This month has been quite the adventure, with all those last-minute and end-of-the-year things to do. We’ve also been experiencing the crazy weather of St. Louis in the spring. (Thankfully, we’ve had no tornado warnings in our area yet! Just lots of torrential downpours followed by beautiful sunny days)

My last month at school started with Field Day – a fun day where all the kids spend the day outside playing games. We were blessed with perfect weather for the day! The next week, however, was our long-awaited field trip to the zoo. We had been learning about animals for weeks to lead up to the trip, and the kids were all so excited! Unfortunately, the weather forecast listed an 80% chance of rain and thunderstorms…and stayed unchanged (which is uncommon for St. Louis – usually the weather forecast changes frequently!). We hoped and hoped the rain would stay away, but it hit pretty early in the day, and so most of the kids and their parents opted to head home early. That’s the problem with planning an outdoor field trip! But it was a fun experience, and my first time at the St. Louis Zoo, so I had a lot of fun too! Last Thursday was our Kindergarten graduation service. All my kids got dressed up in adorable little caps and gowns and sang and recited all the Bible verses they had learned, and then I got to pass out diplomas. It was so much fun, and they were adorable. The most rewarding experience that evening though, was to have the parents and grandparents come to me and say how much their children or grandchildren loved school and how much they grew and learned this year. I treasured all those words so much! But I was also excited to declare myself “Not in Charge of Children” for the rest of the summer. I have spent the past week in faculty meetings and cleaning up my classroom, getting it ready for July when I go back and start putting it all back together for next year!

Nick’s last few weeks of the quarter were, as you can expect, full of homework. Thankfully, though, it was not a quarter with too many papers to write, so he was actually more relaxed than usual! He delivered a sermon in Homiletics, and got very good feedback! Now that he has passed Homiletics, he is looking forward to preaching at Our Savior a few times this summer! He also finished an exegetical paper for Exodus and the Torah, and then spent an entire weekend completing take home tests. After that, though, he was done! He is very happy to be done with school until the fall, and has taken to filling his time reading comics instead of textbooks! However, summer does not mean that he isn’t busy. He’s been filling his time this week with work, spending time at two or three of his jobs each day – working in the mail room on campus, working with general labor on campus, and working with a landscaping company. He enjoys the work though and is excited to get more hours now that he isn’t in classes!

We also had the pleasure of having two visits from family this month! Let’s be honest, that doesn’t happen often, being so far from home, so it was really fun! First, we had a visit from my great aunt, aunt, and cousin (okay, they’re really like second cousins or something but it’s just simpler to say it this way), as they were in Missouri for my cousin’s graduation. I hadn’t seen them in years, so it was really fun to chat with them and catch up! They took us out to dinner and we had such a fun evening with them! Later that week, my uncle, aunt, and cousin were also passing through St. Louis, so we got to show them around the seminary and then go out to dinner with them as well (at a DELICIOUS authentic Italian restaurant on The Hill – I don’t think I can go back to ordinary lasagna again!). Again, it was so nice to catch up, and tell my cousin a little about St. Louis, as he is considering attending the seminary when he graduates college! It was so nice to get a taste of home and see some familiar faces…we ate really well that week too!

One thing we did this month was to sit down and write a list of things we want to do this summer. This is the first summer that we really get to be together all summer (as college summers were spent at our respective homes, an hour and a half away from each other, working different jobs). Also, St. Louis is known for its arts and museums – most of which are free! Since we’ve been so busy since we arrived, we haven’t gotten much of a chance to experience these things. This month, we already went to a street fair in Maplewood, the community where we live, a few weeks ago, where we got to taste some unique foods and see what the shops in this community sell. We also went to a Sinatra Tribute Concert on Tuesday night, which was on the lawn of the History Museum in Forest Park – completely free and we couldn’t have asked for more beautiful weather! We are looking forward to the events offered here – free musical performances at the Muny, Shakespeare in the Park, the museums, Cardinals games, and more! We are looking forward to a fun summer!

God’s blessings on your summer plans and travels as well! We look forward to seeing some of you very soon in California!

In the name of Christ our Savior,

Nick and Mikaela Duerr