Greetings friends and family!
June has been quite the adventure for us! As you probably
know, we got the opportunity to travel home to California for the first time
since we moved to St. Louis almost a year ago. It was a wonderful, busy, two
and a half weeks!
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| On our flight to California! |
We started out our vacation on June 9th, flying
out of St. Louis at 9:00 in the morning. After a brief layover in Minneapolis,
we were on our way to California! We landed around 1:30 p.m. (thank goodness
for the time change!) and went through all the craziness of navigating LAX to
get our luggage and grab a shuttle to the rental car place. This was our first
experience renting a car ourselves (hooray for being grownups!), but thankfully
it went smoothly, and we were soon on our way down to the Irvine area. We
stopped off in Long Beach on the way to visit a friend, and then made it to the
Irvine Spectrum, a large mall where we spent many hours in our college years,
just in time to meet a large group of our friends from college for dinner! It
was our first time seeing these dear friends since our wedding last July, so it
was so wonderful to just sit and chat and catch up on all their lives. In the
time we’ve been gone, some (rather, a lot!) of our close friends have gotten
engaged, some got married, some started new jobs. It’s been so hard for us to
be missing out on these things as we’re not there with them, so it was a lot of
fun to spend time with them.
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| Spending some quality time at Corona del Mar |
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| So much yum. |
The next day, after spending the night at my aunt and uncle’s house, we
got up and went to the beach for a few hours and then ate lunch at In N Out – two
more things we haven’t gotten to do since last July! We then spent the rest of
the day bouncing around Southern California, trying to spend as much time with
friends as we could! Those hours with our friends were so precious!
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| Our visit to CUI, a year after graduating |
The next
day, we stopped by Concordia Irvine’s campus just for fun…we spent four years
of our lives there, and that is where we met and started dating, so it holds so
many memories! We walked around, and also were able to find some faculty and
staff that we were close to in our years there, and spend some time talking
with them. I am so glad for the time we spent in Southern California, even if
it was only for a few days!
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| Meeting my niece, Teagann, for the first time! |
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| Teagann and Uncle Nick |
That day, Thursday, we made our way up to my parents’ home
in Visalia, with a stop off in Bakersfield for dinner with Nick’s family. On
Friday, Nick and I got the joy of meeting our niece, Teagann, for the first
time! She is now almost three months old and she is such a happy little baby!
We got to spend almost two full days with her over the weekend, and that was
such a blessing to us! On Saturday, I hosted a Sip and See baby shower for
Teagann, so a lot of friends and family got the opportunity to come and meet
her. My sister then stayed at my parents’ house with us for the rest of the
day, as we were celebrating Father’s Day that evening. On Sunday, my sister had
to work, so we (meaning my parents, Nick and I, and my brother TJ) all got to
be babysitters all day! It was so much fun! We took her to church with us (and
got mistaken as being her parents multiple times) and then took her home and
spent the day with her, holding her, feeding her, changing her diapers, and
watching her sleep. We loved having that opportunity to spend so much time with
her, knowing that we won’t get to do that again for a long time.
On Monday, Nick and I set off for our own little adventure,
just the two of us, to celebrate Nick’s birthday. We drove over to the coast to
spend the day on the beach (you just can’t spend too much time on the beach!),
and it was wonderful. The weather was beautiful, and it wasn’t crowded. Then we
drove down to Solvang, where we went out to dinner, spent the night, and then
did some sightseeing. Their little shops are so much fun and, of course, their
Danish pastries are delicious!
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| Nick's birthday trip to Solvang |
Tuesday was Nick’s birthday, so we returned to Nick’s
parents’ home, and we spent a few relaxing days there. We went out for dinner
on his birthday, we got to watch his little brother play in a baseball game,
spent some time swimming in the pool, and he played lots of board games with
his family.
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| Photo booth fun at my cousin's wedding! |
On Friday, we returned to my family’s house, and I got to
spend some time catching up with some of my high school friends. I love that we
still manage to get together, even after all these years. It was so wonderful
to hear their news about new jobs, a new baby, and other adventures!
The next morning, we set out for the Sacramento area, where
my cousin was getting married. This was a really fun opportunity for me to see
my extended family, because he is a double cousin, meaning we share both sides
of the family! So I got to see aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents on my
mom’s and dad’s sides, which was a lot of fun! Again, there was a lot of
catching up to do!
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| On our hike in Big Bear |
Sunday morning, we left Sacramento and drove down to
Bakersfield, where we almost immediately left for Big Bear with the Duerr
family. All eight of us spent three days in a beautiful house in Big Bear. It was
beautiful and relaxing, and a lot cooler than Bakersfield! The main stress was
the fact that there was a forest fire nearby, but thankfully we were never at
risk. We spent one day on a short, but fun and beautiful hike. We spent another
day out at the lake kayaking, and getting sunburned in the process. On
Wednesday, we packed up and headed back to Bakersfield, where Nick and I had to
repack all our things for the trip home.
On Thursday, we spent the day traveling back to St. Louis.
There was a heart-stopping moment when Delta told us our flight had been
cancelled (and we had already made the two hour trip to the airport!) but
thankfully they rebooked us on similar flights, and we had good, uneventful
flights. I particularly enjoyed watching the thunderstorms in the clouds below
us as we flew from Atlanta to St. Louis.
Since our trip, we have mostly been recovering. As you can
probably tell, it was a wonderful trip, but since we were constantly
travelling, it was really exhausting, and it is so good to be home. We are also
still adjusting to the time change, which makes it difficult to wake up early.
But we are both somewhat getting back into the swing of things. Nick did
liturgy in church on Sunday and is writing a sermon to preach this upcoming weekend.
He’s also been hard at work at his two jobs on campus these last few days. I
spent some time in my classroom yesterday, as I am trying to get things planned
and ready for this upcoming school year. We are looking forward to a relaxing
July with some fun events, our wedding anniversary, and time to just spend
together before all the craziness of the school year hits again.
In the name of Christ our Savior,
Nick and Mikaela Duerr
