We went to church after that and spent the afternoon in the pool. That evening we had a cookout with the rest of the family here in Peoria and watched fireworks across from our apartment complex.
On Monday we traveled up to Sedona, which we discovered is one of the most beautiful places in the world. It's a national forest full of mountains, red rocks, natural bridges, and creeks and streams. It's gorgeous and we took a hike up to Devil's Bridge. Below are some pictures of our adventures.
On Tuesday, July 6th, I started my new job at Grand Canyon University as a faculty scheduled for the online courses for the college of health sciences. Since GCU started their online programs last year, they have grown to like 30,000 students taking online classes. I am one of the people who schedules the professors to teach those courses, but I only schedule for the college of health sciences. Eric's parents were still here, so they went to one of the old western towns south of Phoenix. That night we went to a Cubs/ Diamondbacks game. It was good to see friendly Cubs fans and cheer for our favorite team with them! Eric's parents left the next morning and returned safely to a very flat Indiana. Eric and I are returning home September 4-8th to attend the Notre Dame home opener, celebrate his sister Candice's engagement to her fiancee JT, to see my new nephew Zephaniah (who is due to be here around Aug 28th), and see all our family and friends.. and our dog Rockne! We can't wait to go home and hug everyone again, especially our new nephew and our puppy who we miss very much. So we'll be excited to see our family again and have that feeling of home :)
Eric and I have been attending Christ's Church of the Valley (CCV) in Glendale and are hoping to get involved with their small groups there soon. It's a very very large church, but has great opportunities and great challenges and encouragement. We miss having friends around and miss our small group from church at home. We haven't met a lot of people here our age, so we're looking forward to making new friends. We've been able to Skype with our friend Becca, which will now become a weekly event :) Anyone else wanting to catch up, we do have Skype and we love seeing you and knowing what's going on in your lives!
