I think

I think I'm going to go eat a little leftover dessert from last night. And then I think I'm going to go to bed. But first I think I'm going to post this picture. Because I like to post pictures. And I miss these girls. I wish Mandy was in the picture.

Okay, I think I'm done now. Good night!

They're Coming to Take Me Away......

To the Happy Home
with trees
and flowers
and chirping birds
and basket weavers
who sit and smile
and twiddle their thumbs and toes.....
They're coming to take me away

HaHa!!!!

Ah, yes. The funny farm.

That's where the kids JUST ABOUT sent me today.

For real.

A Date With Emily

Yesterday Kerwin was working and Sara wanted to take Jessica and Amber shopping for some spring clothes. So I babysat for Emily and Lauren. Lauren's nap lasted for 3 1/2 hours which left me with plenty of quality time with Emily. I never was really into Barbie's as a kid. I'm still not really into Barbie's as an adult. Found that out pretty quick. But I did have fun with sidewalk chalk, computer games, the trampoline and the golf cart. A couple different things that made me smile: she was showing me that she could get up from a sitting position by just standing up. While I can do that sitting Indian style, I definitely can't just sitting with my knees bent in front of me. So after watching me attempt to do it unsuccessfully, she informed me "It's just cause you're so old. That's why you can't do it." Thanks Emmy. I appreciate it. Then another time we were sitting on the trampoline and she decided to stick her feet in my face and wanted me to smell them. I really had no choice. They were just right there before I could react. So after making a big deal over how bad they stunk I told her it was only fair for her to smell mine too. Not thinking she'd actually do it, she leaned over and took a big whif. Then said "Actually, they smell pretty good!" Maybe that made up for the age comment? She's something else, that girl. It turned out to be a fun time. I wish I had a picture.
Today we had I think 52 people in church. They just kept coming in the door! We had some planned visitors and some unexpected. It was nice though. Made church look pretty full. We even had to use one of the preschool tables for potluck. But since there were so many people, all my food got eaten and now I don't know what I'm going to have for supper. And that's a problem. BUT, I am thankful that I need to figure out what to have rather than if I'm going to have any at all. And I don't really know quite how to end this so I'm just going to end.

Missin It

I know it's been awhile since I posted but I'm still really missing Jamaica and couldn't bear to put something different on the blog so I just decided to put a few more pictures up. Sorry if everyone else is bored with it.

Have a good weekend!

Home again, home again

This is going to be a really long post with lots and lots of pictures. I thought I could condense it a little more but once I got started i just couldn't decide where to quit with the pictures so I just kept going. This trip ranks pretty high out of all my Jamaica trips. It's at least in the top two, if not the best one yet. So since it was that good, I just wanted to share all of it with everyone. So here goes...
Here is our whole group minus Erin who is taking the picture and Lisa who didn't come until Sunday night. I think the small group is what made it such an incredible trip. You get to know everyone and it really makes it a family like atmosphere.

We got in Saturday afternoon and spent the rest of the day getting settled and hanging out with the kids. Then Sunday after church we took our traditional trip to Devon House to eat some I Scream. Delicious. I was hoping to get pineapple but sadly, they didn't have it. So I opted for mango instead which was just as delicious.

We didn't have any big concrete projects this year, but they did lay a lot of block which called for a lot of mortar which called for A LOT of sand sifting.

Possibly one of the cutest kids on earth. His name is Dayne but we all called him Spiderman cause the first day we were there before we knew his name he had on a spiderman shirt. So stinkin cute. And he knew it too.

We did work. But we also had a lot of fun. Erin D sporting her homemade wire glasses.

Roger. AKA Wayne Brady. Anyone else agree?

There was a crew up on the roof all day getting a new roof all formed up. Another team will put the zinc on. Our team just got it ready.

Here's one of my kids that I sponsor- Rushede. He loves to help work. One day a bunch of just hitting puberty teenage boys were all "helping" start the cement mixer. They all tried starting it but none of them could do it. Finally he got it and his smile was a mile wide. There was no acting cool. He was proud as a peacock. And I was kinda feeling like a proud mama myself. Yep, that's my boy!

One day me and Lisa were painting some new picnic tables. Then the laundry lady chased us down. Literally chased us down, and wanted us to paint all her clothespins. So, that's what we did for the next 1 1/2 hours. Painted clothespins. We made it more exciting by naming them as we painted them. I think we had a Daryl, a Curtis, Yolanda.... it doesn't get much more exciting than painting clothespins, let me tell ya.

Every year we do a skit for the kids. This year we snagged a bunch of material from the sewing room and dressed up for it. We did the fiery furnace and the kids loved it. They called for an encore but our creative juices were drained and we never did give them one. Sorry kids.

This one shall remain anonymous. We'll just say that someone put ice in someone elses bed after the someone else dumped a bucket of water all over the first someone. And the someone else didn't discover the ice until after midnight. We stayed up late that night because the music across the street was so loud it was rattling the roofs where we were. Not so much the lullaby you can easily fall asleep to. And also, I was not one of the someones.

Beach Day! Lisa, Erin and me spent a lot of time creating a turtle in the sand. And then here we are destroying all our hard work.

We all shaped our hands into letters to spell out JAMAICA with our shadows. Only after we were home did we realize it was all backwards. Still a fun picture though.

One of God's beautiful creations

Ocho Rios/Dunns River Falls. Beautiful waterfall. I've climbed it I think four times over the years. I'm not an overachiever when it comes to climbing the falls. Some like to do it over and over. Not me. I just take pictures.

And this is the reason we climb alone, and not on a guided tour. The tour guides make their group do really embarrasing things and act stupid while everyone else walks by and laughs at them.

Beach day was Friday. Friday night was the Hands in Praise program. Here's the girls doing "Thank You". After seeing it so many times, it still touching.

After the program we gave the kids ice cream. And I went around and took a bunc of pictures. This is Cleveland. Funny funny kid. Has a great laugh and always has a smile on his face.

The girl is Tissia. The boys just hopped in the picture and I don't know their names.

I know we're not supposed to have favorites but........ I love Mickail. He's a lot of fun. And while most of the kids are rail thin and look like their bones could just snap in two, this kid is an ox. Biggest muscles I've ever seen on a kid his age.

Kemoy has been there ever since I started going nine years ago. I love seeing him. After talking to him I found out he's a computer brainiac. I was very impressed with how computer smart he was and felt really dumb because my computer knowlege is so limited. I think he thought I was dumb too.

My two sponsor kids. Cassandra is 17 and Rushede is 14. I love being able to know the kids I sponsor, and to be able to watch them grow up and keep in touch with them has been a blessing.

And now we are to the end of the week. Wow - it was so hard to leave this year. So hard. And here is the last picture I took. Out the bus window, there she stands. My good friend and sister Erin who is serving the Lord in Jamaica. Seeing you stand there crying as we left still gets me a little choked up. But I know you love it and that's exactly where God wants you and where you want you. So good to be with you!

So there you have it folks. Jamaica 09. I really should have waited until tomorrow to post because I really needed to just go to bed but I just was so excited. Congratulations if you made it all the way through and are still reading. Thanks for sticking with me. Tomorrow is back to the grindstone. I'll be struggling to be happy about being at work I'm sure, but it must be done, right? I am so thankful for this trip. I can't really think of one complaint from the whole week. It was so rejuvenating and refreshing and I loved every minute of it. As mission trips go, it's really hard to put into words. I'm still just trying to process it all. Oh, and since this is so long and it pretty late and I really need sleep, I'm not previewing and editing. So I'm sorry for all you grammar people out there who find all my mistakes.

Leavin on a Jetplane

Well farewell all. I'll be leaving in a couple hours for Jamaica. I'm pretty stinkin excited and that's all there is to it. See you when I get back!

IOU one egg casserole

I meant to blog earlier about Thursday night but just didn't have the time. Nate and Jamie called me on Tuesday and said they were going to Florida and could they stop by Thursday night for supper. YAY! So they came through with Haley Jo and spent the night here. We went to Logan's for supper then came back to my place to hang out for awhile. It was short but sweet. Haley is so stinkin CUTE! And she's gotten a lot bigger since Christmas. Sitting up all by herself and trying to crawl! I miss her. I miss Nate and Jamie too, but I can't really pick them up and cuddle them like I can with Haley. Thanks for coming guys!


Friday night I was planning to go sing at the nursing home but had been wanting to go to the circus. Well, Jena's grandparents were down and decided that they wanted to see the circus too, so I went.


Saturday morning I got up and went to breakfast at Mark and Bekah's. Some of Bekah's friends (who have become my friends over the past couple years) came down for a visit. They haven't been here since her and Mark got married so they were due for a visit. I don't have too many pictures because I didn't spend the whole day with them. I had so much to do to get ready for Jamaica. And it made me sad to not be with them the whole time but it would have been downright foolish to not spend the day getting ready for my trip. Because I have no free nights next week. But anyways, like I said, I don't have too many pictures but I'll put up a few of the ones I do have.

Playing "Meet the Cow" Have the blindfolded person point to different parts of the cow and when they point to the tail, stick their finger in something gooey. In this case, sour cream.

The girls (minus Hope who was taking the picture) Bekah, me, Emily, Jarrin, LeAnn and Jena.


The Human Chair

and THEN............

Sunday morning we woke up to a SNOW DAY!
That's right- SNOW! Enough to cancel church. You should have seen the blizzard! Craziness! We did manage to make it back to Mark and Bekah's for breakfast again and our own little Bible Study, but it was probably stupid for us to drive in that crazy of weather. I did get a picture of a couple of the bigger drifts. Ready? Really? It's a lot of snow........ here goes.......

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Holy Cow it's HUGE!

Okay, so maybe that was after it melted a little. But really, we probably had a total of 1 to 1 1/2 inches of snow. But for the Alabamians, it was enough to cancel church. So we went to M and B's as planned for breakfast before having our own little church in their living room. Complete with special numbers and everything! It made for a really good day.

We left their house about 1:00 to go out for lunch. After lunch, the vanload dropped me and Jena off at home before heading home themselves. I had made some Rice Krispie bars and wanted to give them a containter for the road so I ran inside to get it. When I opened the door to go back out to the van, this is what was waiting for me.

A big giant GROUP HUG!*

*Picture is re-enactment.

So, it was another great weekend with lots of good memories made. Praise God for great Christian friendships, right? Love you all!