Summer in the States: One Month In

A lot of people have mentioned that I have fallen off the wagon of posting. We've been all over the place, and I wanted to fill y'all in!

This is a bit belated (like 1 month), but we made it!!! We arrived in Mississippi June 9th around 10 pm. It has been so good to be back! We have been super busy, but we have been incredibly blessed by spending time with our family and friends. One conversation that I go back to this summer is when we had lunch with one of our church pastors. He asked what we been doing since we'd been back, and we began giving him our past and future timeline. He just shook his head and said "Rookie mistake!" Too true. We haven't had a lot of downtime, but we still have one month left to get plenty of that! Here is a quick breakdown of what we've been up to:

June 9-11: Arrived in Jackson and settled into Pinelake apartment. We have been blessed to have a place to settle during our time here. Our church is such a blessing!
June 12-15: DISNEYWORLD! with my parents and sister Rachel. Seth stayed in Jackson to see his sisters and friends. I loved getting to celebrate my birthday at Disney. I even got a pin to wear! And of course, I wore it everyday of the trip and keep it in my purse just in case.
June 15-22: Destin! About one week after we left for Burkina, my parents moved to Destin. We loved getting to see their new home and meet their friends. As a child, I know it is weird to say, but...I am so proud of my parents. They are doing so well in their new environment and are so happy. I also love their new location :)
June 22-23: Philadephia! We stayed the night on our way back from the beach so I could see my grandparents and brother Allain. It was good to go back to my hometown :)
June 23-26: Jackson. We spent the week seeing friends and some family in the area.
June 26-30: I went with my adventure buddy Kelly to Charleston to see our friend Ashley. She got married while I was gone, so it was super fun to get to spend some real quality time together in a neat place. Seth went on a road trip with his friend Austin while I was gone.
June 30-July 5: Jackson. We continued seeing friends and spending time doing some productive things (doctor visits, meetings, etc). Also, I love the 4th of July. Due to our absence for American holidays for the past year, we really overdid Independence Day. We celebrated for 4 solid days. I wore red, white, and blue every day. We went to a baseball game, ate hot dogs, watched fireworks. I may have even teared up at the Lee Greenwood song. It was quite fun. We also had a BBQ at the NCFairgrounds and dubbed it the "5th of July Extravaganza". I like celebrating America every day.
July 5-7: Philadelphia. We stayed at the fairgrounds (one of my favorite places on earth). We also spoke at a few of our supporting churches.
July 7-11: Greensboro, NC. We came to see Seth's parents and little brother. We are having the best time catching up and spending some quality time together!

The next few weeks are definitely packed, but we love every minute of it. Everyone asks us how we feel about being back and my immediate response is "feels so good". Getting to see all my loved ones has hands down been the best part!