I'm back. It has been a crazy, several weeks. First I was getting ready for my mission trip, then gone for the trip, then back to a crazy last week of June. So sit back & relax, maybe grab a cup of coffee & i will catch you up on my "Little Life"
Sunday 3 June
Happy/sad day - My youngest son Josh left for this two month mission trip with Teen Missions International. This time he is going as a leader. In the past he went as a team member. We took our traditional airport picture today. I'm proud of my son but will miss him. At least I will be bless to see him in 10 days when I go to camp for my team.
Here are our airport pictures. My how time has flown by
June 2006 - Josh age 13 1/2 on the right with his dad in the middle & brother Wood (15 1/2) on the left; first mission trip going to Tanzania & Mozambique, Africa & Switzerland
June 2008 Josh age 15 1/2 in the middle with me on the right & Wood on the left; 2nd mission trip going to Samoa & Australia
And today Josh now 19 1/2 heading to Germany
Monday - Thursday 4 - 7 June
no pics, too busy packing for my trip
Friday 8 June
Last night of summer baseball for me. This is the youngest boy of the family I have been taking baseball pictures for. He plays minor league baseball. Matthew tagged this guy out while he was trying to come home.
Saturday - Sunday 9-10 June
No pics
Monday 11 June
let the packing begin. I will be gone 13 days & will not be able to do any laundry or go to a store to buy anything, so I must make sure I have everything now. I can get by at this mission camp on wearing the same clothes for two days, so that helps on the packing load.
Tuesday - Wednesday 12-13 June
no pics headed out on my mission trip, to see the full details of this trip click on this link
Thursday 14 June
I arrived at the Lord's Boot Camp on Wednesday 13 June. My team would be here on Saturday. My morning was free to watch my son, Josh's, team Germany Camp run the Obstacle Course (OC for short) & take some pictures. The OC is a 14 event course to teach team unity. All obstacles have a Biblical name. This is some of my son's team members crossing the "Red Sea" at 6:15am.
Friday 15 June
My last free morning, so I took some more pictures of my son's team on the OC. This is the Slough of Despond (taken from Pilgrim's Progress). You have to swing over it & if you fall in, well you have had your bath for the day. Don't worry, it is hot enough at boot camp you will be dry with-in the hour. I fell into this many times when I was 15 & going on my first mission trip. As a leader, you have the option of running the OC with your team. My son Josh would try to run it every other morning. He is on the right & one of his kids is on the left. Yes, they both made it across.
Saturday 16 June
Yes, you can see armadillos alive, instead of dead along the highway (ha, ha). There are 3 baby armadillos in this pictures. The parents were no where in sight when I took this. The whole family was living under the pool at camp & we saw them several times.
Sunday 17 June
Okay, I did not take this picture, but one of my kids on my team did of me underwater in the pool. I borrowed my son's underwater, digital camera & we had fun taking pictures. Nice camera but a little slow. It was an Olympus. Another leader on the team had a Kodak digital underwater camera that took pictures a little faster.
Monday 18 June
This is my team around 8:30am ready to run a 10 event obstacle course to teach team unity. We did this every morning & the kids loved it.
Tuesday 19 June
One of the most godly woman in my life - Gayle "Widder" Will. I first met her when I was 15 & came to Teen Mission on my first mission trip. She, her husband & another couple founded Teen Mission 43yrs ago. She loves staying in contact with as many teens as she can that have gone through Teen Missions. Even though her health isn't the best she is still at camp every summer teaching music & serving the Lord.
Wednesday 20 June
I do some digital scrap booking when I make a DVD summer for the kids on my team to share about their summer. Today was bath day. Baths are done bucket style, just like missionaries (& some of the teens will do) if they lived in Africa or places in South America. I put this page together to show how to take a bucket bath.
Thursday 21 June
My son Josh & I serving the Lord together. Josh was the male assistant leader on the teen Germany team. Teen go through two weeks of boot camp training. Josh's last week & my week of Peanut Camp overlapped. It was nice to be able to see him, even just in passing everyday.
Friday 22 June
This picture was taken in Aug 2006 when my son Josh was 13 years old. He went to Mozambique & Tanzania, Africa. He is holding Mahoro (Precious in English) Nkutu, his Ugandan leaders little girl who was a year old at the time. This is the last time Josh saw Precious.
Precious & Josh today. Precious' parents were back at the Florida base to lead another backpack team to Tanzania. Precious is now 7 & was old enough to be on a Peanut team. Her parents picked my team because of being Josh's mom.
Saturday 23 June
Team presentation day!!! Our team has baked around 150 cookies from scratch & all by hand. Package them in decorated bags with bible verses. Now we are going out to pass out the cookies & share the gospel.
The team in a Nursing Home/Group home sharing the gospel with songs they have learned
Puppet show they put together with the music.
One of the local fire departments. The kids sangs songs, then passed out the cookies & wordless books. The kids paired up with a fireman & told them what the colors mean & how to ask Jesus to be their Savior. This is Ceci & the captain of the Fire Station.
The kids also shared the wordless books at the nursing home.
Sunday- Tuesday 24 -26 June 2012
No pictures - traveling home & resting the next two days
Wednesday 27 June 2012
I made a new batch of oatmeal blueberry muffins. They were good but a little plain. Then when I copied the recipe to my computer found out they were suppose to have a crumbly topping which some how I missed, so will have to make them again with the topping
Thursday 28 June 2012
This baby Purple Martin from my neighbors yard decided to try to fly & ended up crash landing on our screen. Of course the two girl cats heard the noise & came running to investigate. Both are sitting very still trying to figure out how are we going to get lunch.
Friday 29 June 2012
I'm working on making the DVD slide show for my kids from my team. To save space, I take some of the pictures & group them together in a digital scrapbook page. Here is one I worked on today -
Saturday 30 June 2012
Another day of house cleaning, dvd making & digital scrap booking. Here is the page for today
Sunday 1 July 2012
Wonderful day of going to church, taking our interim pastor out for lunch & napping. No pictures today.
Monday 2 July 2012
With temps around 99 to 100, doing nothing but staying inside & working on my team DVD. Another page of digital scrap booking
Tuesday 3 July, 2012
Since our town is very small - population around 380, we celebrate the 4th a day early so not to loose people going to bigger towns on the 4th. The Lion's Club always has a great supper & some local band playing music at city park, then fire works. Because we are so dry, this was the first year in 20yrs we have lived here that only the city fire department was allowed to shoot off fireworks, no one else.
It is soooo nice to walk out our front door, with our lawn chairs & sit in the middle of the street to watch the city fireworks being shot two blocks up the street.
Wednesday 4 July, 2012
Happy 4th of July everyone!!!! Bethany, the town where our church is at, always has a 4th of July parade that starts & ends at our church. So our church always has free, snow cones, drinks & hot dogs for the people in the parade & watching. I always ride in the Sunday School float, but this year we had plenty of adults so I wasn't needed. Instead I rode in this sweet car with a lady from our church. She was riding alone & wanted some company.
Thursday 5 July, 2012
Back to working on the team DVD, almost done, here are two more scrap book pages of the kids on my team
Friday 6 July, 2012
My husband brought home the bobcat my son Josh shot back in January, all stuffed & mounted. The girls didn't really care about it, sniffed it & went on with life but our male cat sniffed it & got freaked out. He spent the rest of the night, cowering through the house looking for that bobcat that he knew was going to eat him. Even when we hid it in our closet, he was still scared up to the next morning.
The bobcat
Motor watching Grouchy rub on the bobcat, knowing any minute now it going to eat her.
Grouchy giving kiss to the new cat in the house. Doesn't understand why it won't play with her or talk back, so rude.
There are my weeks & I'm back to being caught up. Now to sit back & enjoy everyone else's pictures.
God Bless
