San Diego Zoo

My daughter, son-in-law & granddaughter and I went to the San Diego Zoo yesterday. We had a great time seeing the wide variety of animals on display there. This zoo is huge! We were amazed at all of animals (whose names we couldn't even pronounce) that were endangered or extinct! This zoo didn't have your run-of-the mill animals like lions, tigers, bears, giraffes, rhinos, etc. No, it had things like a Visayan Warty Pig from Asia, Yellow-backed Duiker from Arica, Lowland Anoa from Asia, Japanese Serow from Asia, and a Buergers' Tree Kangaroo from Australia. These are just a few examples of hundreds and hundreds!! We were there from 11:00 - 4:30 and only saw about 2/3 of the park. Our feet were tired from walking around so much. It was a lovely park with more than ample shade and beautiful landscaping everywhere!

California Bound

My daughter is safe and back in her home as of yesterday! I decided this afternoon to go ahead and fly out there tomorrow and see them. I am so frustrated with Delta though! What a racket!! I used skymiles to get my first ticket (when I was going to fly out Tuesday, 10/23) and I had to pay $75.00 since I was purchasing my ticket less than 21 days out. Well, when I couldn't go on Tuesday due to the wildfires I called Delta and had the miles put back in my account and because of the wildfires they were waiving the re-deposit fees (normally $75.00 - what a joke that fee is!) They did refund my $10.00 I paid for taxes but of course they don't refund my $75.00 fee. So today when I called to schedule another flight for tomorrow they wanted to charge me ANOTHER $75.00 - I asked to speak to a supervisor and she informed me they are only allowed to waive the fee one time and what I should have done is rescheduled in the first place instead of redeposit my skymiles back in my account. I told her "well two days ago if I had known what the wildfires were going to do today and if I had known that the area I wanted to go to was no longer under an evacuation order today then I would have booked a flight for Thursday instead!!!" DUH! UGH!! So frustrating! I had decided NOT to go because I was so mad and I was just going to schedule a flight 21 days out so as not to pay another 75.00 but my husband talked me into going...he reminded me that we still can't get a ticket from FL to CA for $150.00 and with the flight I picked out it used 12,000 less skymiles than I was originally using - so that was a major plus!! So, anyway, I am leaving tomorrow heading for San Diego, CA for a week....just in time too because it has turned cold here!! I've been freezing all day and my daughter says it is HOT out there - with all the fires I guess :-(

California Wildfires

I am supposed to fly out to see my daughter, her husband and my granddaughter tomorrow in San Diego, CA but I received an early morning phone call today from them letting me know they are having to evacuate their home due to these wildfires raging in CA right now. I am not sure if I am going to be able to go see them tomorrow or not.

12 Year Anniversary

Happy Anniversary to my dear husband, Gregory....I love you! Thank you for the last 12 years of your friendship, love and devotion....I adore you!

My stepfather needs prayers

My stepfather, Pete, had a heart cath this morning. The doctor found 3 blocked arteries, one of them pretty significant. He called in another heart doctor for a 2nd opinion because he is not sure how to proceed at this point. The doctor is recommending heart bypass surgery now which has to be scheduled so he is planning on sending my dad home in a couple of hours....with those 3 arteries STILL blocked. All of this is much to the great dismay of my mother. Before he went in for this procedure today we knew he was having some problems but we didn't know how "severe" the problems were. Now that we know it is really scary to think that he is coming home without them fixing things. If you are reading this, just say a little prayer for my sweet Pete. Thank you and God bless....

My Darling Dakota

My sweet youngest child has hit the tweenage years and HIT THEM HARD! If the last 3 months has been any indication of what the next 9 years is going to be like (the age at which he will no longer be a TEENager) I believe my knees are going to have calluses on them from all the praying and my hands are going to have permanent fingernail impressions from the balled-up fists when I am trying to keep my mouth shut out of frustration and rely on God for PATIENCE instead to see me through.

One minute I have a loving boy around me who wants to "play with" my hair and run his fingers through my hair (because he loves my long hair), play a game with me, sit in my lap and surf the internet together looking up information, crawl up in my bed and watch a show together, take a walk, or various other activities....then in the blink of an eye this other child I don't recognize pops out of nowhere and rears HIS ugly head! In the place of MY sweet boy, I now have an argumentative, crying, sulky child who looks at me like I am the most ignorant person in the world! I reach out for a hug and he pulls away with horror like I am covered with leprosy or something.

He looked at my blog the other day when I was sharing it with somebody else and he was so offended because there were no pictures of HIM on here! Now I have a myspace page with pictures of HIM all over it and I just never even thought to put pictures of him on my blog. I told him "but honey, look let me show you....I wrote about your birthday on here and I bet I put a picture of you there..." and I scrolled down to that posting but guess what?! I put a picture of HIS CAKE - not HIM! Oh my goodness - did that ever set him off!!! Now I am not one to "coddle" my children - I'm really not, honest and I can only deal with so much "temper tantrum" and sulking before it's off to the bedroom with you so I don't have to look at that sulky face...BUT, there have been some things going on within our household lately (of which I'll be announcing at a later date) besides just him being a tweenager that I think may be causing him to act this way so for that reason I am posting some pictures of my "sweet little man" on here for him to see that I want everyone to see HIS pictures on my page just as much as any other pictures I post on here. Enjoy!

Uncle Dakota and his brother-in-law Bryant (the big guy) rough-housing with nephew Allan - Feb 2007.


When I got back from Brazil in September, we went out to eat with my mother-in-law for her birthday. This was at the Chinese restaurant we ate at.


In July, my daughter - Tina and her baby, Bailee came into town. Dakota is such a good Uncle to all his nieces and nephews! He loves on them and is so eager to see them and they LOVE and ADORE him!!

Dakota is in the kayak at my dad's beach house in August. He is getting pretty good at manuevering that thing! Dakota and I were dancing the ChaCha Slide at Relay for Life in April - we love participating in this Relay every year. Raising money for cancer research. We also like doing this dance!! We danced it about 10 times that night!! LOL

Butterflies & Seagulls

We love going to the beach here where we live. We went one Saturday back in September and when we got there we were so excited because the surf was pretty flat in the Gulf and the the water was that beautiful clear blue-green color. We carried our chairs and cooler down to the edge of the water and got comfortable and all the seagulls showed up waiting for THEIR lunch! haha
It just gave me a chance to snap some up-close pictures of them while they waited for us to throw them some leftovers.


The seagulls almost blend in with our sugar-white sand beaches we have here in FL. I have always loved our sand! You can't find sand like this anywhere else in the world!
Today Dakota and I went to a kids' park to meet up with some other homeschooling moms/kids for a play date. We had never been to this particular park before. There was a huge wonderful butterfly garden planted at the entrance of the park and hundreds of butterflies were flittering all over the place! They were fascinating to sit there and watch. Dakota helped me capture several good pictures of them by pointing out some that were landing on flowers long enough for me to snap a picture.

Under the Overpass

I just finished reading this book called "Under the Overpass" by Mike Yankoski. This book is a powerful book I highly recommend for everyone to read! It's about 2 young college men who spent 5 months living on the streets to experience life as the homeless do. They had to rely on the kindness of strangers, sleep, eat and use the bathroom wherever they could find or people would "allow" them too. This book is a journal of their time on the streets. It will give you a whole new perspective on things!

Jay Peanut Festival

After we finished at Barktoberfest and loaded Jet (our lab) and Dakota up in the truck to head home, I asked my husband if he would ride with me up to Jay to the Peanut Festival. He looked at me like I was crazy at first because Jay is a very small community out in the boondocks and it takes about 45 mins - 1 hour driving through cotton fields and farmland to get there. But he is always very easy-going and good-natured about things like this especially if it means us "doing" something together so he agreed to accompany me. We dropped Jet and Dakota off at home because Dakota said "he didn't want to ride all the way up there!" and off we went.

The ride was very enjoyable...it had been years since I had been out that way. I was sad I didn't bring my camera when we passed a couple of cotton fields that were positively white with cotton - it looked like fields of snow!!

The weather was beautiful! When the sun went behind the clouds it was just perfect - not too hot. We walked around the festival for an hour or so looking at the vendors' booths. We didn't purchase any peanuts but we bought a bunch of homemade goodies (banana nut bread, cookies, and pralines) from churches who were doing bake sales.

I just love this time of year - there are so many festivals and things to do and the weather is wonderful!

Dad's Birthday

Today is my dad's birthday!! Happy Birthday DAD! He is celebrating by vacationing in the Smokey Mountains this week!

Barktoberfest

The city we live in has an annual celebration in October at a park downtown...it's called "Barktoberfest" and it's for the dogs. We attended this event on Saturday - our first time going - and were pleasantly surprised by all the vendors set up giving away FREE food and products for pets; the competitions going on for dogs and various other activities. This event is sponsored by the no-kill Humane Society as a fundraiser. In order to enter competitions participants have to pay an entry fee and vendors have to pay a fee to set up. From what I hear they raised quite a bit of money. We took our black lab down there - he was exhausted by the time we left - so much to smell and do!! LOL

These first two pictures were two of the dogs down there in costume - they are not my dogs - these pictures came out in our local paper the next day after the event took place. The bottom picture is my beloved lab. We didn't put him in costume. He was hot enough as it is - it was near 90 degrees Saturday and he is close to 90 lbs and black - he doesn't need a costume on top of his black coat!

Homeschooling Woes

Okay, so we had a meltdown this week...a clash of wills so to speak, between Dakota and I and after much thought and prayer the last 2 days I've decided to make some changes in our homeschooling routine. Let me first explain that the last 2-3 years of Dakota's homeschooling has consisted of mainly unschooling with some internet schooling thrown in as needed...but there has been very little "structure" to speak of. (I know this isn't proper English but I have rewritten this sentence about 4 times and frankly I am tired of rewriting it so it's staying like that! LOL) At his request to become a better speller and wanting to work on some other things he felt ready to undertake, we decided this year to add a little more structure to our homeschooling routine. Not only did I spend a lot of time this summer researching curriculum and trying to decide what to purchase for him but I also decided to enroll him with this woman who teaches small 1-hour classes (2-4 students only) on Tuesdays. I enrolled him in Grammar and Geography with her. He has been attending for 4 weeks now.

We've diligently been plugging away at his work and getting in the routine of spending 3-5 hours a day on school 4 days a week - and then Tuesdays he would go to this woman's house for 2 hours. He had his first test with her last week...it was a Geography test where he had to know and label all the European countries on a map. He had them down pat. When I picked him up that day he was so distraught because he thought he had failed that test...he is a perfectionist to the point that he won't try so many things if he "knows" he can't get it perfect. This drives me BONKERS!! It also drives me BONKERS to sit with him while he is writing because he writes and erases, writes and erases, writes and erases...over and over and over! Ahhhh, I just want to scream! Okay, just had to get that out...I know I am getting off subject here (LOL)! So anyway, because of this one test it totally ruined his whole week last week!!!! He fought with me about school every day. He had a defeated, dejected attitude. It was horrible! He had to learn rivers and oceans in Europe for his test this week and we studied and studied and he knew them and finally by this past weekend he was so excited because he knew all of them and could spell them. He kept wanting us to call them out to him so he could spell them for us and tell us where they were located. But beginning Monday when he knew the next day was "test day" all of a sudden he had memory lapse and couldn't remember anything. Tuesday when I put him in the car to drive him to "school" he started crying - by the time we got there he was in hysterics! I couldn't believe the way he was acting! Because he didn't want to go in and take a test!!

My 11-yr-old is as tall as I am and weighs almost as much as me so there is no moving him if he doesn't want to move so he was pretty much planted in the car crying hysterically and begging me to not make him go take that test....so I finally went and told his teacher what was going on and told her I was just going to take him back home. She pulled out his test he had taken from last week (which she had graded) and handed it to me and said "I'm not sure why he is so upset...he made a perfect score." I looked and he had a 100% written on the top!

I took his paper out to the car and showed him and I think Dakota was genuinely shocked that he had gotten a perfect score. Well anyway after having a playdate with some other homeschooling moms yesterday and talking to them and discussing it with my own mom I have decided to pull him out of that woman's classes and just continue teaching on my own at home. I think the added "newness" of structure along with "a structured teacher" is just too much for him to handle all at once and it became overwhelming for him. Boy I hate doing this too because this is one of those times when I sure don't want him to think his "temper tantrum" made me change my mind! Grrrrr

Get Paid to Blog!

For those of you who have been following along with my blog you know that I started this as a way to discuss my journey getting out of debt. I follow the blogs of a few other people who are also doing the same thing and one of those people, Amy Bass, led me to PayPerPost- where you can earn money to blog! I just joined PayPerPost last week and I've already started earning money! This is a great opportunity to earn cash for doing something I like to do anyway!

If you love to blog I encourage you to check out Blog Ethics and start earning money for what you write in your blogs! The site is very user friendly and there is even a "myspace-type" set up within the site where you can connect with other posties - which makes for great social networking! What are you waiting for?

The money I earn from PayPerPost will be used to start knocking out that debt of ours so we can purchase our first home together! Keep checking back - I plan on adding in tne very near future a debt reduction countdown and a goals and earnings diary so you can track my progress. Getting paid to blog from PayPerPost will help me reach my goals that much quicker!

Proverbs 31 Woman

I'm teaching a weekly Bible study to a group of women on the Proverbs 31 woman. This has been an awesome Bible study. When I first chose this study it was with a little "resentment" at this superwoman in the Bible that we women of today are supposed to emulate...but as we have proceeded through each section of this study my eyes have been opened to what made this "superwoman" SUPER - her love and devotion to God. She put him first and foremost in her life and everything else just fell into place.

We are just beginning Week 4 - this is only a 6-week study. Week 1 dealt with "The Ideal Woman" and what kind of legacy are we leaving behind. We discussed the world's ideal woman vs. God's ideal woman and the huge differences between the two. Ask yourselves these True/False questions:

• I worry more about fat grams than having a daily quiet time
• I would not have a problem going out in public without my makeup
• My first thought in the morning is "Where is my Bible?" not "What should I wear today?"
• I would feel more self-worth if I were successful in the business world
• Looking at a lingerie catalog throws me into a major depression.
• A bad hair day can affect my whole mood
• I would rather someone say I am kind-hearted than pretty.
• I am able to look in a full-length mirror while wearing my swimsuit and say, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

Week 2 discusses "A Woman Who Fears The Lord." God desires our whole heart. The Proverbs 31 woman followed God with a whole-hearted devotion. "But be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you" (1 Sam. 12:24)

Week 3 was about "A Woman of Worth" - this is what we discussed yesterday...we had such an awesome discussion! We started off talking about a woman's worth according to the world (which we can tell by the magazines in any checkout line at a supermarket what we are worth to the world...sex, sex, sex) compared to what we are worth to God! He sent His son to die FOR US and he doesn't expect anything from us except love and obedience....

The choice is yours:

Worth according to the World: Worth=What you look like, what you do, what others think of you

OR

Worth according to GOD: Worth = Who you are in Christ

"Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:14

Happy Birthday Mom!

My mom turned 60 on Friday, September 27th! My twin girls will be turning 20 on November 25th! I'll be turning 40 on December 7th! We are all 20 years apart. We've been teasing my daughters that one of them has to carry on the "tradition" and have a child and we've been trying to guess which one it would be but neither one is interested in anymore children right now! LOL (Felicia has two boys already and Tina has a daughter who will be a year old in November.)

Anyway, back to my mom...this last year or so she has started coloring her hair and wearing it so stylish she looks rather pretty these days! Before that she was letting it go gray. I never thought anything about the gray because that's just a natural fact of life....we're gonna go gray at some point of our life....but when she had her hair colored that first time - WOWZA - she was a different woman!! Now we won't let her go gray again! LOL So happy birthday mom! We love you!

Internet Marketing

Just signed up for Wealthy Affiliate and I am so excited! I haven't really addressed my finances too much in the last few months in my blog due to all the other things going on in my life but I have been diligently studying and learning as much as I can about this world of Internet Marketing and I find it fascinating!!

On a sidenote here, did you hear the story about the Ashley Qualls who is earning millions of dollars from the website she created on myspace layouts?! THAT is what I am working on doing!

Okay, back to the original purpose of this blogpost - Wealthy Affiliate! I've been researching this site for about 4 months and watching a couple of people who are members of this site (and reading their blogs) and I'm impressed with the results I've seen. It's not easy work...or an overnight money-maker! But what the guys who run Wealthy Affiliate help you do is show you step-by-step how to set up your own internet marketing business so you can draw in a residual "passive" income - and they guide you EVERY STEP of the way - which is something I desperately need help with...I have found that out quickly! LOL

Anyway, if you are interested in earning money online, check it out or just follow along with me and I'll keep you updated over the next 8 weeks as I begin my 8-Week Action Plan with Wealthy Affiliate!

The Tropical Storm That DIDN'T HAPPEN!

Well ever since that horrible year of hurricanes back in 2004-2005 that began with Hurricane Ivan and ended with Dennis, Emily, Katrina, Rita and Wilma...I've realized those of us who live in Hurricane Central have become kind of CRAZY when it comes to these storms now!! I just spent this past weekend glued to The Weather Channel for what!? A Tropical Depression that "might" turn into something else a little stronger. Oh my goodness...we even had Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel fly into town to broadcast from the beach here all evening Friday night and Saturday and we barely got any rain! It rained more yesterday AFTER the "storm" (cough cough) had passed us by. Now I wake up this morning to check out the news and there is another one coming up into the Gulf but it looks like its going to head west into Texas...but as they always say, that's subject to change so stay tuned!

Homeschooling Overload

I should be working with Dakota right now but frankly I am exhausted today! I'm just having one of those days where I am too tired to deal...of course HE LOVES THAT! LOL
We started a Bible study yesterday on the life of Paul. I love learning about Paul and his conversion from persecutor of Christians to the first Christian missionary and I wanted to teach my son all about his remarkable life. The first part of our study dealt with Paul/Saul as a baby and how he was raised in a strict Jewish household and how he was circumcised on the 8th day according to Jewish customs. I had to explain what that meant to my darling son - he didn't want to hear anymore! LOL It was everything I could do to regain control of our Bible study after that point.

We moved from Bible Study into handwriting/copywork - I let him write verses from our Bible study that morning. Dakota hates writing and this is always a chore to get him to complete all of his writing without complaining. I've learned though to tell him that I'll just add more writing if he complains and that has helped somewhat. I only had him write 5 verses of scripture but it took him an hour and a half to do that because he fiddled around so much - ugh! I just kept checking on him while he worked and I finished up some things of my own on the computer.

After his handwriting work was done we moved into Geography where he has been working on European countries and learning where they are on the map and having to label them. He has a test next Tuesday at his CAPERS class he attends so we are trying to prepare for that. That took awhile trying to finish memorizing and labeling all the countries. He is getting them down pretty good though - I have to admit I am impressed!

Spelling was next - still working on words from last week - he is struggling on a few words still so I had him write them 4 times each as well as spell them over and over and over to me. I was planning on having him make sentences with them but it was getting close to time to get ready for church so I figured he could work on that later.

Last but not least was math - just called out math facts - no written work. Ran out of time. We still needed to read some of his book too "Around The World in 80 Days" but we ran out of time for that too...had planned on doing that when we got home from church last night but we met my step-daughter at Whataburger after church for dinner because it was her 16th birthday and we gave her her gifts so we got home too late. I had not spent any time with dear husband - I just let Dakota go to his bedroom and play a game on his computer while hubby and I spent some time together before bedtime around midnight! Ugh, no wonder I'm so tired!!

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Brazil Trip Funny - Attack of the Bidet

Not sure if I had mentioned this in a previous post or not but in Brazil you can not put toilet paper in the toilet...the sewer system is not set up for any kind of paper products to go down the drains over there. So with that said - bidets are a common sight in hotels. However, in our first hotel we stayed at the majority of the week we only had a toilet and a "water hose bidet" not a bidet which is pictured here. In our 2nd hotel we had this lovely creation. LOL

Now let me set the scene for you...

We have just arrived in Bello Horizonte after spending all week in Monte Claros - we've been on a bus for the last 8-9 hours (bumpy roads, crazy drivers, etc) and this hotel is very nice! We get off on the 6th floor and we discover that there are only 6 rooms on this floor - all the rooms are in a little box shape around the elevator and members of our team are occupying 5 of the 6 rooms. This is great! We leave our doors open and just walk in and out of each other's rooms...the missionary we are working with all week gets off on our floor one time and comments "Uh-oh, I can see this is the party floor!" We are loving this! So we are all exploring our rooms and checking out the amenities and Miranda and I happen to notice the bidet in the bathroom...and this bidet is not like the "water hose" bidet in our last hotel we were in. We both have to go to the bathroom pretty bad at this point since we've been on the charter bus ALL DAY and everyone avoided using that bathroom - trying to avoid the disastrous events from the previous day's overuse - so Miranda states she is going to go to the bathroom BUT FIRST she says "Let's check out the bidet! I've never actually seen one of these work." So I follow her in the bathroom and she assumes the position (as shown in the picture above) and she turns it on...

We are both expecting a little sprinkling of water to come out...uh uh, no way...up from this bowl comes a geyser!!! It smacks her in the face, hits the ceiling and then spreads out to soak the entire bathroom!!! Talk about "rolling on the floor laughing my butt off" - that is EXACTLY where my teammates found me when they came running to find out what all the shrieking was about...this was the most hilarious thing I have ever seen in my life! Miranda walked out of the bathroom dripping wet! I still had to USE the bathroom so needless to say I was trying desperately to not "pee my pants!" from laughing so hard.

I can't believe the strength in which that water came out....that would have hurt!!

Brazil Trip Funny - Attack of the Charter Bus Toilet

During my trip to Brazil, on Friday (our last day there to do mission work) we spent the whole day in small cities prayer walking and doing door-to-door evangelism. There was nowhere to use the bathroom all day EXCEPT on the charter bus! By the time we left the last city at 8:00 p.m. to drive 1 1/2 hours back to Monte Claros the sewage smell emanating from the back of the bus hit ya as soon as you entered the front of the bus! It was overpowering!!

There was a group of us that normally flocked to the back of the bus everytime we boarded...but NOT this time! We generally saved the front seats for the "older" ones in the group - we ALL moved up as close to the front of the bus as we could. It didn't help much. We were grabbing Kleenex, Vick's inhalers or whatever we could to cover our noses to keep from smelling the horrible stench!!

Our pastor and the missionary just kept laughing at us saying they had never seen a team look quite like us before...but they looked as bad as we did! They would stand up and stick their heads up by the luggage rack where the air was coming out of the AC vents and breathe the air from the vents!! LOL
Me and our youth pastor Jesse are dying from the smell!! Then everyone is laughing so hard it makes it worse because I have to breathe harder through my laughing.

There was a box at the back of the bus that somebody needed to go get but nobody wanted to risk it!! Finally, our worship minister stuck his Vick's inhaler up one nostril and the lid to the inhaler up the other nostril and he ran back there and grabbed the box real quick....what a trooper he was!

A new friend!

When I found out who I was going to be rooming with on this mission trip my first thought was "Oh great! This is going to be like rooming with my daughter!" I had originally requested to room with another woman, a friend who is more my age and someone I have known for about 6 years but due to circumstances beyond her control she had to back out of the trip at the last minute which left me rooming with Miranda...who is a young woman not much older than my eldest child. We had only spoken a couple of times at church so we were not what you would even call acquaintances! THAT WAS BEFORE THIS TRIP! I thank God for putting us together. We had the best time getting to know one another and by the end of our two weeks together we were inseparable.
Miranda loves kids/babies as much as I do. We both flocked to the children and they flocked to us. We worked so well together!! These babies were cousins that were 4 days apart in age. We were never on the same team together technically but we managed to work it around so we could work with kids together a couple of times. Miranda covered for me so I could participate in the Operation Christmas Child project!

This is Jadson - one of our interpretors we loved joking around with. He was so much fun!! He, Miranda and I laughed constantly.

This is our hotel room in Bello - where we stayed the last two nights before heading home. There was a queen-sized bed and a twin-sized bed in the room. We convinced Lo to stay with us in our room these two nights instead of going by bus back and forth to her home (an hour away) so the three of us roomed together the last 2 nights. We had some late nights staying up talking and laughing. It was a wonderful time!

Since we've come back home, Miranda and I have continued our friendship...it is great to have a friend who "understands" what it's like to want to go back overseas and to know we have one another as a prayer partner. I probably would NEVER would have gotten to know Miranda on my own due to our age differences and the fact that she is single with no kids and I am married with kids/grandkids! Didn't think we would have anything in common!! LOL

Test Results

I never heard back from the doctor before my mission trip but I never thought it while I was away either. I think it was Thursday (I'd been gone a week) and all of a sudden I realized I had not hurt the entire week and I felt terrible for not thanking God every day!! I had been so busy doing His work every day and He had blessed me with pain-free days....but then I didn't even realize it until a week later! When I arrived home Tuesday my husband told me the doctor had called so I called them as soon as I left the airport and I found out my test results for Lupus were all within normal limits. Praise God!!

Operation Christmas Child

While we were in church Sunday we found out that a group of performers from the church were going to a school on Wednesday to do a skit during a program for "Samaritan's Purse." This is the organization that sponsors Operation Christmas Child - the shoebox ministry at Christmas time that many churches get involved in!! Our church is very involved in this ministry - we collect hundreds of boxes to mail off every Christmas so this was an exciting opportunity to be able to witness firsthand the "other side" of this ministry. Since we all had obligations every day we all couldn't go - so only 3 of us went as long as our "jobs" were covered. Charlotte, another team member was definitely going to go because her job back in the States is at a large local church which is the regional collection & distribution center for these shoeboxes - she was so thrilled at the chance to be involved in this!

After lunch on Wednesday we headed out to this school. When we got there we saw the Army outside the school - the boxes were on the truck. We found out the boxes are kept under lock and key by the military over there!! They guard them and deliver them to all the schools! The kids had no idea they were getting these. There are so many schools in Montes Claros that the schools are on a 5-yr rotation for boxes. So this school we were in won't receive boxes again for another 5 years!! I had no idea! The kids were so thrilled with WHATEVER they received in their boxes. This girl got this winter set....it doesn't get cold enough there for her to need that....but look at the smile on her face! She loved it!!

There was such an excitement in the air - it was such a rare blessing to be able to hand out these gifts to these children and then to be there with them as they opened them. I thank God for that opportunity to witness this!

Mission Trip - I'm home!

I've been home for one week from my mission trip to Montes Claros, Brazil. This was my first mission trip overseas. It won't be my last! This was the most amazing experience of my life!! I have put off writing about this in my blog because I can't adequately express with words how powerful this trip was. I can give you a blow-by-blow of what we did each day but there's no way I can tell you how THAT affected the lives of the people we met or MY life. You would just have to experience THAT yourself! I challenge you to do that if you've never gone before....

We had 16 members from our church go on this trip together...some of us left not knowing each other very well...but we ALL came back as brothers/sisters/prayer partners and the best of friends - because we had been through this amazing experience TOGETHER! To get to Brazil we had to take 3 plane rides and a 10 hour (extremely bumpy) bus ride. We were slightly exhausted by the time we got there. We arrived around 11:30-midnight Saturday night. When I got up to start getting ready the next morning for church I had a feeling my pastor, who was on the trip with me, was going to ask me to do my testimony in church that morning. Guess that was God's way of preparing me because there WERE 16 of us there so I don't know why I should think he was going to ask ME of all people but lo and behold right before we walked out to board the bus he pulls me aside and asked me! When I told him "I KNEW IT!" he said "well good, then the Holy Spirit's been working on ya!!" LOL

Now I've given my testimony before in small group settings but this was completely different! For one I had to use an interpretor - the pretty young lady in the pictures above - her name is Lo. She is a wonderful Brazilian who stayed with us the entire time and worked as our translator...we became great friends! Okay, so because I had to use an interpretor then I had to shorten my testimony to 3-5 minutes!! WHAT?! That is soooo hard to do! Also, when speaking through an interpretor you have to speak in complete phrases (but not too long) so they can have the whole gist of what you are saying to be able to interpret it. Anyway, it was a learning experience to say the least. I did it...I got through it...I'd do it again if asked! LOL

Monday I went out on evangelism team with a great guy from my church - Chuck and an awesome Pastor Lopes & his wife Elian from Monte Carmelo church there in Brazil. We had a fantastic day! Lo went with us for the day as our translator. We had scheduled appointments all morning in homes of churchmembers who had requested us to come meet with their loved ones who were not saved. Everybody we met with that day was saved! Praise God! We spent lots of time in all the homes talking to everyone, listening to them, answering questions....sharing coffee, cookies....and ultimately leading them to the Lord. It was a glorious day!

Tuesday I worked with kids all day! I thought I was going to do VBS (Vacation Bible School) at the church all day but when we got there they requested us to go into one of the local schools and go into 17 classrooms instead! We were able to hand out witness bracelets and share the gospel in only about 5 classrooms before we ran out of time. There are so many kids in Montes Claros that the older kids go to school in the morning until noon time and then the younger kids go to school from noon until 5. In some areas there is even a third shift that goes until 10:00 pm at night!!! Anyway after we left the school we went back to the church and had lunch....the whole city practically shuts down for 2 hours at lunch time to eat and rest....and then we did VBS the rest of the afternoon at the church. That was a blast! I had so much fun getting to know the neighborhood kids and building a relationship with the little girls. The picture above of all the little girls around me is from Wednesday night...they came back to church that night for Worship and I am trying to get on the bus to leave church and they keep wanting to give me things and get me to sign their little notebooks and stuff. They were precious!!

Wednesday and Thursday I worked the eyeglass clinic where we gave away free reading glasses to as many people as we could see. It was so rewarding to see these 50, 60, 70-yr-old people start crying because they could now see to read for the first time in years!!! I only worked 1/2 day on Wednesday at the eyeglass clinic because I was blessed to be able to participate in another project (that will have to be a separate post/blog!) Thursday's eyeglass clinic took place at Monte Carmelo (Pastor Lopes' church) and they had such a great team of people in their church helping everything run smoothly that we were able to give away over 200 pairs of reading glasses that day! We worked so hard to get everyone fitted with the right strength they needed and pick the frame they wanted! It was wonderful to work together like this even without the benefit of being able to communicate in English all day....you have to get real creative trying to get your message across! LOL

Friday had to be the day that capped it all. We had worked with 3 churches all week in Montes Claros doing VBS, eyeglass clinic and evangelism to reach out to the communities. Well on Friday we went out into 3 (or 4 - can't remember now) small towns about 1 1/2 hours away from Montes Claros where there is NO evangelical church at all and we started prayer walking. The amazing thing is that the pastors and members of the 3 churches we had worked with all week came together and went with us...we had to rent another charter bus FOR THEM!! We had two charter buses full! Before lunch we just did prayer walking through the towns, no evangelism - because there is no set-up for discipleship yet. After lunch we worked in the town where we are planting a church and we did prayer walking and evangelism. Later that afternoon/evening we held a block party for the townpeople and we showed "The Jesus Film." Through our efforts over 200 people came to know Christ that day in that town!! The man that is moving there to begin the church, Marcos, was overwhelmed with his new mission....the pastors of the other churches assured him they were going to send him teams every month to help him until his church got going good. This was so awesome to see these churches working together!!!!

Saturday morning we woke up early to leave our hotel for our 10 hour bus trip back to Bello Horizonte, Brazil. We were met by churchmembers and all the pastors outside wishing us farewell. It was a bittersweet send-off. The bus ride was so much fun. I laughed and laughed and laughed....we sat in the back of the bus with our interpretors and enjoyed the last day or two we would have with them. We knew our time was coming to an end with them too. I wasn't ready for this trip to end. The days had been long and hard but the work was fulfilling and purposeful. We spent Saturday night and Sunday in Bello before we began our long journey home. I arrived home on Tuesday afternoon.

For a couple of days after arriving home I just sat here at home feeling sad...spending a lot of time in prayer and reading my Bible...trying to figure out what it is I need to do here in the States. Before I went to Brazil I was happy with my life here...thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. I reach out to people, witness to people, build relationships, encourage people...but after going on this trip and doing so much more I feel like I should be doing SO MUCH MORE here! But I'm not sure what? or how? Now I'm just praying for God to lead me to whatever He has in store for me next....

Great Weekend!!

I had an awesome weekend!! My best friend and I left Thursday to go set up (grocery shop, unload) at the beach house and we spent the night out there by ourselves. We stayed up until about 2 a.m. just reading books and talking....very relaxing! We had the first group of friends come over around noontime the next day. One of the ladies brought her boat. Three of them spent a couple of hours skiing while I finished up some last minute preparations and got dinner prepared...I was waiting on the other two to get there. Once they got there then the six of us went boat-riding! Something very empowering about a boatful of ladies cruising up and down the Intercoastal waterway!! LOL We pulled up to one of the Marinas for a late lunch and then we were back on the water again. The rest of our friends started arriving later after they got off work and we had dinner together and played games late into the evening.

I woke up around 6:00 a.m. Saturday morning along with a couple of the other ladies and we sat on the back porch watching the sunrise over the water. We all had our quiet times...separately, but together - what a way to start the day! :-)

We had 3 boats scheduled to be come out for the day for us to "play" in - ski, tube and boat ride and we had a massage therapist come out around 11:00 for anyone who wanted to pay $30.00 for a 30 minute massage...there were several of us who did that. Awwwww, it was WONDERFUL! What an awesome day of fun in the sun! My husband came out about 5:00 to grill our food for us - every woman brought their own choice of meat they wanted grilled - we had steak and chicken galore!! LOL

After getting cleaned up, eating our delicious dinner of grilled steak & chicken, baked potatoes & salad...we had a short Bible study on "The Virtuous Woman" which led into some great discussion time. Unfortunately I had developed a migraine from too much time in the sun so I retired to my bed around 10:00 pm but the rest of the ladies stayed up playing games and talking til midnight or so.

Sunday was another early morning - we all had to get up and get ready for church. We were all moving a little slower that morning...sore from the previous day's activities...but it was oh so worth it! LOL

Ladies Weekend Getaway

Headed out this afternoon to stay at dad's beach house with 14 of my friends. I am so excited! I still haven't heard back about my lab work yet...that's been on my mind all week. Hopefully I'll hear back today before I head out to the beach. I have a lot to do today to prepare for the weekend. The ladies are going to start coming out tomorrow! I am looking forward to just relaxing before I leave for Brazil next Friday!

Can't sleep - too much on my mind...

I went to the doctor today - the dermatologist actually for what I thought was going to be a "routine" visit. You see, last July (2006) I went camping on the beach with friends; and after spending the whole weekend in the sun AND applying plenty of sunscreen all weekend I ended up with a pretty bad pimply rash on my face. At the time I thought that my sunscreen was out-of-date and I had just gotten too much sun. Since that time I have had a couple more outbreaks on my face anytime I am out in the sun whether I use sunscreen or not...so I started thinking I was developing an allergy to the sun?! A month ago I had an extremely severe rash that lasted about 4 days and my face was very swollen and I ran a fever at the same time...but I was not sunburned! I told myself if it happens again I'm going to the dermatologist.

After spending this past weekend in the sun (I wore a hat all weekend and sat in the shade as much as possible) I woke up this morning with this rash on my face. Upon examination by the dermatologist she told me first that I have rosacea (which I already knew...I haven't taken medicine for that in a couple of years though so she gave me some more medicine to take for that) and then secondly that she wants to test me for Lupus!! After we talked some more, we discovered that I have some other common symptoms of Lupus that I had seen my primary care doctor for but all the symptoms had not been linked together. So I went and had about 6 tubes of blood drawn today and now I wait...for 48 long hours.

Happy Birthday Dakota!!

My dear son is 11 today! Where does the time go?!

We've been asking him for a couple of months what he would like for his birthday and the answer is always the same "ummm, nothing, except maybe a Wii..."

Yeah, right, like THAT'S gonna happen! This kid already has a Nintendo, Xbox, Playstation and a laptop...a Wii is NOT in the forseeable future. Since he couldn't come up with anything else he wanted we chose to take him and his best friend to a waterpark this weekend. We spent the night in a hotel close to the waterpark so the two of them could swim in the pool all evening and then we spent all day at the waterpark. It was so much fun!! Although I must admit I think we would have had much more fun if we had left his friend at home. His friend was not into riding rides (so Dakota and his daddy or the three of us rode everything together) and he's not very sociable and we had to keep spending time looking for him because he wandered off several times....after the 3rd time of doing this I had had enough and said "That's it! We are leaving!!" Note to self: next time we go we are not taking anybody else!

Struggling...

Psalm 38: 21 "O Lord, do not forsake me; be not far from me, O my God.

Come quickly to help me, O Lord my Savior."

Friends I am struggling...I've been struggling the last four days; ever since I found out some news that is just too personal I can't go into right now. I spent the weekend pretty much in a state of numbness - shock - despair which turned into sorrow yesterday where I couldn't stop crying all day. After crying all the tears I think my body will produce AND talking to my dear husband last night I am finally starting to feel better today. I just ask that if you read this say a prayer for me will ya? I know that with my upcoming mission trip I am being tested...I guess I just didn't realize the level at which my faith would be put to the test.

Praying for sunny days!