Making Over Me

Making Over Me: The Sequel!

2011-12-26T23:09:00.000-06:00

When I first started this blog, it was intended to be a journal of my weight loss journey. And I journaled that journey here...until I stopped that journey. Why did I stop? No real reason. One goal I had made for myself way back when was to run in a 5K. I trained for that 5K (using THIS program) and I completed my goal. Along the road to completing that goal, I lost 20 pounds or so. I was feeling good, looking better. But then it was as if reaching that goal signified the end. When in reality I was far from it. I stopped working daily and soon my eating habits were back to their old destructive selves. And I gained back the 20 odd pounds I had lost. I didn't do a great job of "Making Over Me".

Later I thought about changing the name of this blog, because I was still blogging here on occasion, but it was mainly family life and day to day occurrences. But then I started thinking about it. Whether it is weight loss, growing in my faith, or working towards other goals, daily I am, in some way, making myself over day by day.

Over the last month or so, I believe the Lord has impressed upon my heart the word "Purposeful". Through a Bible Study I am in with other women, God brought the perspective of being 'purposeful' to my mind. As I have mulled over that thought, I have decided to make my goal for 2012 to be about being more "purposeful" in many ways. I want to be more purposeful with my time. More purposeful with my words - what I say to others. More purposeful in the choices I make overall. And more purposeful with my health.

So, I'm kicking off the 'Making Over Me' sequel! But it won't just focus on weight loss...and it won't always focus on my efforts to be more purposeful. Sometimes it'll just be a post about a funny thing my daughter said, or something I read or saw that I want to pass on.

A gift I believe I've been given, and something that I want to hone in 2012 and beyond, is my love of writing. Therefore I will be writing more. On this blog, and hopefully on a novel that has been 'in the works' (in my head) for years! Time for it to be put into action!

Stay tuned my friends!

Fresh Homemade Lemonade

2011-10-07T01:47:00.000-05:00

In our new casa, there are several fruit trees. We've got grapefruit, mandarin orange, mango and lemon. There is also an avocado in the growing process, but it probably won't start producing fruit for another year, as it is still a baby.

But out of all of the trees, the one that continues producing all year round is the lemon tree. Daily there are new lemons reading to be picked. These aren't the big bright yellow ones you can buy in the produce section at the grocery store. These are smaller, round and only turn a very soft pastel yellow...but can be used while they are light green in color too.

We had several lemons that had accumulated in our fruit bowl, as the kids had been going by the tree daily to check for ripe lemons. Truly some that they had picked were not yet ripe, but I wanted to find a use for all those lemons (and the lemons to come...)!

Of course, lemonade came to mind. But I've made fresh lemonade before and usually what happens is the lemonade comes out bland and watered down, with a sludge of sugar that sank to the bottom at the bottom of my glass.

So I decided to look up 'recipes' for lemonade. I found this one at Simply Recipes. OF COURSE! Why didn't I realize that I needed to dissolve my sugar in order to keep it from sinking to the bottom and creating the 'sugar sludge'. So here's a pictorial of our homemade lemonade creation.

Our lemon tree outside in the yard. The lemons in the tree are still green, not ready to be picked...

But once they turn light yellow, like this, they are ready!

I squeezed 7 lemons in order to get just barely 1 cup of lemon juice!

While I was squeezing lemons, I had one cup of water and 3/4 cup of sugar boiling on the stove, to dissolve the sugar. The recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar, but it also said we could reduce the amount of sugar to 3/4 cup if desired. I figured we get plenty of sugar in our diets, so why not cut back a bit?

The leftover lemons after all the juice got squeezed out of them!

The final steps, which I did not get pictures of, were to combine the lemon juice (I poured it through a strainer into the pitcher in order to strain out seeds), the boiled sugar/water mixture, and 3-4 cups of cold water to dilute. Refrigerate until cold, then top off the pitcher with some ice and slices of freshly cut lemon if available.

Weekly Homeschool Wrap Up: My First Ever!

2011-09-24T21:45:00.000-05:00

I haven't written any blogs about homeschooling recently...mostly because we haven’t actually started full school yet. I know, appalling, right? But that is the beauty of homeschooling...the flexibility!

Now if you are new to my blog, don’t get concerned...I’m not a lazy homeschooling mom, unable to get into the swing of the new year! Our family moved to Puerto Rico one month ago, and have been getting settled into the area in order to begin ministry to high-risk youth and young adults in the area. We’ve found a permanent house to move into and will be moving into said house on October 1st...yay! We’ve had a wonderful temporary furnished rental to stay in for the meantime. But during all this time, all of our belongings, including the majority of our homeschool materials and curriculum, have remained in the moving pods we moved our belongings in. We have the pods delivered to the new place on Sept. 30th, we unpack and move in on Oct. 1st and we will be starting OFFICIAL school on Oct. 3rd! Only a month behind schedule...we’ll catch up!

But, like most homeschooling mamas out there, I couldn’t travel with my kids and not have some sort of educational materials with us! The kids have been working through some grade level ‘challenge’ sort of workbooks since we left the ‘mainland’ in early August. However in the last couple weeks I really needed to put together some sort of homeschool structure...especially since our main tasks of finding a car to buy and a house to rent had been accomplished.

After consulting with my husband, we determined some skill areas that the kids are weak in and designed, in conjunction with their ‘challenge’ workbook, a homeschool structure designed to get them in the routine of school and help them work on some areas where they are still struggling to catch up to grade level in.

So with that in mind, here’s a walk through the various subjects we covered in our week this week!

Morning Board:

This "Morning Board" we go over all together every morning. It is intended mainly as a tool for Sassafrass to learn how calendars work, ordinal numbers, counting, etc., but we all have a lot of fun with it. Plus we've added in a little extra Spanish review work as part of the "Morning Board". We are really liking this new routine and start to our day. If you are interested in doing something similar, I found most of my printables through Mama Jenn and Homeschool Creations.

Thought I'd give ya a close up of the weather for the week. Sunny, sunny, sunny - like usual!!

Math:

Both big kids fully grasp the concept of multiplication, but because they’ve been doing so much ‘catching up’ in that department, they haven’t had enough focus on getting their multiplication tables memorized. So when they are asked a simple math problem, like 8 x 7, they have to take several minutes to figure out the answer. Because we’ve been focusing on catching the kids up on concepts, we have focused less on rote memorization and more on making sure that they understood the concepts. However, knowing ones times tables is an important and beneficial skill. So Daddy gave them a challenge to memorize all their times tables 0-12.

In addition to a few math concept pages in their workbooks, the two older ones worked hard on flashcards and some fun times table games I found HERE. For the soon-to-be 1st grader, she was to be tested on her alphabet letters and numbers 1-30. She already had her capital letters down pretty good, but was still getting confused on some lowercase letters. Numbers she knew verbally through 20, but by recognition only through 10. We found some fun printables to challenge her in these areas HERE.

History:

I’m putting together a year long ‘elective’ study of the history, people and culture of Puerto Rico. I call it elective b/c it will be over and above the history program that comes with our curriculum. But it is not truly elective b/c my children have no choice in whether or not they attend the class/do the work! ;) It has been fun to begin to learn more about the country of Puerto Rico and the history - some of which is a painful history replete with situations where the national people of Puerto Rico have been victimized by other nations many times over. But it is also a history rich with storytellers, art, music and culture. So far we are using these two books:

One is actually a coloring book, but it has a lot of child friendly pictures and information based on the culture and history of Puerto Rico. The other is a Spanish textbook about the history of Puerto Rico. I’m reading it in advance, both to learn and to challenge my Spanish reading and comprehension, but also to learn about the history and culture of PR. I then re-tell the history to the kids. This week in particular we learned about the capital of Puerto Rico - San Juan. Did you know that when Christopher Columbus discovered and subsequently named the island, he originally name the capital city ‘Puerto Rico’ and named the island ‘San Juan’? But somehow the message was later reversed and that is how the island was named Puerto Rico instead. The Taino (the original island inhabitants prior to the discovery of PR by the Europeans) name for the island was Boriken and Puerto Ricans often today will still refer to themselves are Boricuas - paying homage to their ancestral roots!

Science:

Okay, we aren’t doing any formal science right now, but since we are staying right across the street from the Atlantic Ocean, there is some informal science happening every day! For example, nearly daily the kids will find and capture hermit crabs and create a habitat for them. This has spurred discussions on habitat and questions from the kids on things like “What do hermit crabs eat?” and “Do hermit crabs poop?” (that came from the boy...) and random questions like “Is a platypus poisonous?” (still have to Google that one...). We also love exploring the exposed reef along the shore, looking for crabs, and discussing the various forms of sea plants we see there - we are especially intrigued by the black sea urchins with the red center!

Spanish:

With the move to Puerto Rico, we’ve had to step up our Spanish language acquisition. We’ve been doing Rosetta Stone Spanish for the past year back in MN and though our two oldest are fluent in Spanish, they are a bit rusty in speaking. Plus Robert, Sassafrass and I are still learning more every day. However our Rosetta Stone is packed (we get our pods delivered next week - hooray!!), so our Spanish language work has been more informal. I try to keep to the premise of only speaking Spanish amongst ourselves when we are out and about in the community. Sometimes we’ll launch into informal conversations in Spanish around the house and my favorite game is to say things in Spanish and have the older two kids translate for little Sassafrass.

Language Arts:

Language Arts is the area where my kids are probably weakest...in all areas of L.A. So we’ve focused most of our homeschool time on work on subjects such as grammar, spelling, writing and reading. Their workbooks are heavily loaded with these topics, which is why I chose those particular workbooks. However we’ve also used flashcards (homophones/synonyms/antonyms for the older two; sight words for Sassafrass) and brought back our weekly spelling test. Sassafrass had her first ever spelling test and she did great - 100% A+ with a sticker!

P.E.:

'Nuff said. :)

Socialization: (hahahahaha!)

My Homeschool "Room"...:

...is actually a 'homeschool cooler with a buncha stuff piled on it'...

T-minus 5 days til our move! I won't get a homeschool room then,

but I will get much better organization!

This next week we are moving out of the temporary rental home into our more permanent rental home. We are excited to have our pods delivered, have more clothes to wear than the few pairs we’ve been wearing over and over again for the past 3 months, and have all of our homeschool materials and books!

Linking up for the first time ever to the Weekly Wrap Up that Kris hosts every Friday over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Manic or Mohawk?

2011-09-16T06:00:00.000-05:00

Our 'peliroja' in the ~~manic~~, ~~mohawk~~, HAMMOCK!!

In the front of our temporary rental home, there is a green hammock that spans the front of the patio area. The kids love it and are always in it. In fact, it has been the source of several arguments, some pouting, and several lectures and discipline rooted in the premise of SHARING.

For the first couple of weeks though, Angie couldn’t get the word ‘hammock’ down quite right.

Our two favorite variations was when she would say:

“Mommy, it’s my turn to be in the MANIC”

“Daddy, we better not put a MOHAWK in my room for my bed. I might fall out!”

Our Jehovah Jireh!

2011-09-13T19:47:00.000-05:00

9/10/11

There is a plaque that hangs just inside of Ramon & Maria’s doorway. It says “Dios te Bendiga”, which means “God Bless You”. Ramon and Maria own the house that we will soon live in...because God blessed us!

When we moved to Puerto Rico, we had arranged to rent a temporary vacation home for a month while we looked for a permanent home to rent. Finding the vacation home we are in is a ‘God-story’ in and of itself...one that will get it’s own blog post soon!

PS...here's a pic of our temporary vacation rental home...where we are currently living (another blog post I'll need to write is about the awesome owners of this vacation home!)

Our main two tasks when we first got here was to find a house to rent and a car to buy. We hoped to have both secured by the end of our first week or two here. We soon learned it would be more difficult than that.

Back in Minnesota if we wanted to find a house to rent, we’d have newspaper ads, Craigslist, and other online search venues at our disposable. We could probably even find a realtor to help us find all the rental house options available to us in our price range.

In Puerto Rico it’s not so easy. Craigslist isn’t utilized here much, and while there is a local free online classifieds site, it is mainly used by realtors, and realtors only represent a fraction of the population of people interested in renting their house. In addition, there is no collective ‘search engine’ like an MLS listing all available homes for rent in an area or given price range. We asked our friend Julio how he’d recommend we look for a house to rent. Besides checking the local online classifieds, he said the way most locals would find a house to rent would be to drive around in neighborhoods they’d like to live in, looking for houses that have a ‘For Rent’ sign posted.

Not super efficient, but that is what we did. We drove around neighborhoods looking for houses with ‘For Rent’ signs on them. We also looked online. Julio served as our administrative assistant, making calls for us because Spanish over the phone is still pretty intimidating for us (we are slowly getting used to it!). We looked at a few houses. A couple were listed for rent, but in reality, the owners would rather sell it. Apparently there is a high risk associated for owners renting out their home. It is very common for renters to default on paying their rent, and the eviction process is even more involved and long here than it is back in the States. Often homeowners will have their homes destroyed by renters who are evicted due to non-payment. Because of this, there are not many homes available for rent. But the housing market is as tough here as it is in the States, so some homeowners still find there is no other option other than to rent out their home.

Early on we looked at a house that we thought was ‘The One’. It was a beautifully maintained house, with all the ‘extras’. It had a lovely fenced in, beautifully landscaped yard; with a gazebo and a double car garage with doors (garages with doors are not common here - there are mainly carports). And the price was right. We happened to find that one through a realtor. We told the realtor we’d be ready to put down a deposit. He wanted to get some details ironed out with the homeowners first, but that’s when it all fell apart. The homeowners (Rosa & her husband) realized that they hadn’t thought through the process of renting out their home. They had already moved to Florida, but their home was FULL of furniture that they didn’t want to move to FL. They offered to sell the furniture to us, but it was both a style we didn’t prefer and they were selling it at a price we definitely could not afford. Since we couldn’t buy their furniture, they didn’t know what to do with it all. They decided they jumped the gun on listing their house for rent and decided to take it off the market.

We were majorly bummed out by this news. We had looked at a dozen houses and none of them even remotely compared to Rosa’s house. Not even close. We started to feel like we’d never find a house that would meet our needs.

Discouraged, we went back to the drawing board and found a few more houses to check out. But nothing was working out. Either the house was too trashed to even consider, or the owners wanted to keep it listed for sale while renters lived in it, meaning people would be coming through the house all the time to look at it, and that there would be the potential of needing to find another house to rent again if the house sold.

We got a phone call from the realtor that had shown us Rosa’s house. We answered his call, hopeful that Rosa had found a solution to her furniture woes and her house was available to rent again. No such luck. But the realtor had just gotten a phone call from another couple that was interested in renting out their house. He told us it was about the same price range as Rosa’s house, had one more bedroom, but overall wasn’t as ‘polished’ as Rosa’s house. He wondered if we’d be interested in looking at it. We said yes and made an appointment to look at it that afternoon.

Once we saw this new house available for rent we KNEW that there was a reason Rosa’s house didn’t work out. This house was a 4 bedroom home, sitting on about a half acre of land, full of fruit trees including mango, lemon, mandarin orange, and starfruit. The house had been in the family of the owners for over 50 years. The owners were ready to move into a smaller home as they move into the retirement phase of life. But they didn’t want to sell the home and land that has been in the family for years. The house is simple but clean and well maintained. It isn’t huge or expansive, but it is enough. But what we love the most is the land. Before we moved to Puerto Rico we dreamed of having a house on enough land to not only continue to pursue our desires to live sustainably by growing as much of our own food as possible...and maybe have a few chickens too...but ALSO to have an expanse of land to use for ministry pursuits. And we would have plenty of land here to use for all sorts of ministry pursuits.

We told the realtor we loved it and would sign a lease and put down a deposit as soon as we could. This was on a Friday. The realtor said we would take care of all the details on Monday.

Meanwhile...Hurricane Irene decided to bear down on the area over the weekend, delaying all business until well into the next week.

We got a phone call from the realtor on Wednesday (after most of the power in the area had been restored after Irene) saying that the second house - the one we just saw - wasn’t going to be available after all. He didn’t have any details why.

Frustrated we cried out to God. “Why?!?” It seemed so clear that renting Rosa’s house didn’t work out because this second house was much more suitable for our needs. And now it isn’t available either? Why?

Bummed, we went back online to check out the classifieds for any new rental listings. There were a few. We called. We looked. They weren’t possibilities.

We decided to write a letter to the couple - to Maria and Ramon - to introduce ourselves further and explain why we’d love to rent their house if it could be a possibility. In our work as real estate professionals in MN, we had often written personal letters on behalf of our clients to help benefit a purchase agreement. Now we were doing the same...for ourselves!

We drove over to the house and found the owner - Ramon - outside. With the help of our friend Julio, we explained to Ramon that we wanted to give them more information about ourselves and that we had written a letter to them. We gave him the letter and he said he’d read it with his wife. He also explained that the reason why they didn’t want to move forward right away with renting before was because Hurricane Irene had caused some issues on the property...mainly causing an old water reserve tank to spill and damage some areas on the property that they wanted to get fixed before renting the property out. We pointed out that our number was in the letter, and we asked them to call if they were open to discussing the possibility of us renting the house.

Three days later we got a call.

We met up with Ramon and Maria. They said that they were very touched by our letter. Turns out that there are some similarities in our journeys in life. Ramon and Maria, now in their 60’s, never had children. They wanted to, but were unable to biologically. They decided to pursue adoption at a time that adoption was very difficult. Because it was next to impossible to adopt in Puerto Rico, they tried to adopt from, you guessed it, Colombia! But they weren’t able to complete their adoption process because of some ill-timed changes on government regulations on international adoption.

The crazy thing is, we didn’t say anything about adoption in our letter! We hadn’t told them our kids were adopted. But because our older kiddos especially look much more ‘latino’ than we do, Maria & Ramon just assumed they had been adopted. When we met to discuss things further, we discovered the Colombia link. Maria & Ramon had wished that their home could be filled with the playing and laughter of children. Now it will be! In addition, Maria and Ramon expressed their honor to have their house rented by missionaries and their shared desire to see their community impacted by the power of the Gospel.

They had looked into the repairs they needed to make due to the damage caused by Hurricane Irene and created a timeline. They knew the would be ready for us by October 1st, but couldn’t promise they’d be ready before that. They wanted to know if we could wait until October 1st to move in. We were sure we could. Somehow!

There was one more glitch though...Ramon & Maria won’t be ready to move to their next home (which is in a different part of Puerto Rico) til later on in the year because of some medical treatment they are completing in the area. They knew we needed to move in by October 1st at the latest, so they needed to find a place to live locally by Oct. 1st so that we could move in.

But here’s the kicker! Remember Rosa’s house? Turns out that Rosa is Ramon’s niece. And she needs someone to live in her house...her completely furnished house...for the time being. And Ramon and Maria need a place to live so we can move in by Oct. 1st. Problem solved!

Remember all that land that the house has that we hope to use for ministry purposes? Even though we haven’t moved in yet, we already have plans in the works for a regular Saturday night ‘Open House Party’ drop-in event for young adults and a special outreach event on Halloween!

And without further ado...here's our only photo of our house-to-be (so far anyway!)

Oh, and if that isn’t blessing enough, I contacted the owner of the temporary vacation home that we are renting and let them know of the situation to see if we could work out a deal to stay in this house for a few weeks longer til Oct. 1st. There was no way we could afford the monthly rent - even the greatly discounted monthly rent - that we had paid for the first month. But before I could request an even greater reduced rent, the owner offered to let us stay here for the additional 3 weeks RENT-FREE! We only needed to pay the cost of utilities.

Double Blessing!

We give praise to Jehovah Jireh ("The Lord Will Provide") for providing a house for our family!

One Month! (Part Two)

2011-09-04T06:00:00.000-05:00

PART TWO

August 1st - DEFINITELY the hottest day of the entire journey. It was sweltering. Did you remember we had no A/C in the van either? We had the cheapie plastic hand-held fans, a lot of water bottles and windows to roll down. Even still we were easily pouring sweat as we drove out of our hotel in northern Maryland and headed south to Washington D.C. Juancho desperately wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial as President Lincoln is one of his top fave historical figures! The traffic from Baltimore, MD all the way into DC was ridiculous and the only thing worse than driving with no A/C in billion degree heat is driving 10 mph in billion degree heat. We finally got downtown and Robert had a horribly familiar feeling. Yes, just then his staph infection decided to flare up. But he was a trooper and popped some meds and plodded on. We ate some Subway in the park and then walked to the White House, the Washington Monument and on over to the Lincoln Memorial. We were bummed that the Reflecting Pool was all under construction. After all the walking, WITH the dog, in the intense heat, AND Robert being sick, we were worn out!! We found a little ice cream parlor by the Lincoln Memorial and Robert, the kids and the dog all sat down to some ice cream while I hailed a taxi back to where we had parked the car. I got the car and came to pick up the rest of the family. From there we drove out of DC, thankfully getting out before rush hour got TOO crazy. We drove all the way to Newport News, VA to stay the night. We loved relaxing into the air conditioning that night!!

The girls and I at the Lincoln Memorial

(the photographer...ahem, Juancho...left out Mr. Lincoln!)

Did I mention it was ridiculously HOT that day?

(I honestly thought at least one of us or the dog might just die of heat exhaustion!!)

(Postscript: Sorry, that's the extent of the pictures here too. Did I mention I left my camera at my friend's house along our journey and she had to mail it to my brother's house in FL? And did I mention that my camera ran out of space to hold photos on it? So thusly...no mas fotos! Lo siento!!!)

August 2nd - We woke up, packed up and moved on out. It was another hot day, but we were excited that our plan for the day included the beach! We were on our way to Raleigh, NC via the Outer Banks! We got to the Outer Banks area and found a public beach. The sand was SCORCHING hot, but the waves were refreshing! We enjoyed bodysurfing for a while - though Robert and I had to trade off on PJ duty. Dogs weren’t allowed on the beach during the day, which was okay b/c the beach was way too hot for PJ anyway. But we found a nice shady spot up on a dock to hang out with PJ while the rest of the family enjoyed the waves. After a little while at the beach, we packed back up in the car to head towards Raleigh and the home of our friends who live there. Along the way we saw signs to tell us to watch out for bears and alligators. We watched, but we didn’t see any. We rolled into Holly Springs, NC (the suburb of Raleigh that our friends live in) in the early evening...and spent the evening enjoying catching up with old friends.

August 3rd-5th - We stayed in Raleigh with our friends and enjoyed two days on their pontoon boat in the local lake. Ironically, there was a nuclear power plant on the banks of the lake, so many jokes were said about watching out for two-headed fish and about not drinking too much lake water or we might grown an extra head ourselves! ;) That said, we had a wonderful time pontooning (is that a word?) swimming and spending time with our friends. I also got the blessing of meeting a friend for lunch - a young woman that I’ve known since she was 12 years old. She is now in her mid-20’s, married and working as a nurse in a birthing ward of a hospital. She was one of the first girls I met during my first year at TreeHouse back in 1998! I’m so thankful that even amidst the many changes life has brought both of us, we’ve been able to remain in touch and even got to see each other again during our time in Raleigh! Hopefully she’ll come visit me in Puerto Rico (along with the rest of ya’ll!). On the 5th we left Raleigh and made the long drive to Orlando, FL...to the home of my brother Jon and his now fiancee Bailey! Little did we know along our drive that they had just gotten engaged the day before!

August 6th - 8th - We were in Orlando, FL with my brother and his wonderful fiancee. They were super hospital, letting our big crew PLUS big dog take over their 1 bedroom apt. They also, both being employees at Disneyworld, hosted us for a day at Disney. We fit in a remarkable amount of rides and attractions and meeting dozens of characters all in one day - over two parks! It helps when we have personal tour guides! We also enjoyed the pool in their development, some delicioso sno-cones, dinners out - including one with a friend Robert initially met way over in Egypt! We also got to have breakfast with some dear friends of mine from college who are now serving in ministry in FL...we love their hearts for others and for the Lord! What a special few final days in the USA!

(PS - there will be some pics at some point of Disney - I had my camera back by then. BUT, USB cord is missing...)

August 9th - we woke up SUPER early to make our way to the airport...the day of travel will have to follow in another blog post (part 3?!?).

August 10-25th - the rest of the time of the one month since we left MN has been filled with car-hunting, house hunting, connecting with local friends and ministry partners, exploring, networking, planning...AND some time at the beach (of course!). Oh, and there was a hurricane in there too.

We are so thankful for the Lord’s guidance throughout the past month. Though we have been challenged at times by things that are outside of our control, unexpected or frustrating, we have been INCREDIBLY blessed!

"Give thanks to the LORD for He is GOOD, His love endures FOREVER!"

Psalm 107:1

One Month!

2011-09-03T08:58:00.003-05:00

8-25-2011 One Month (written on August 25th)

PART ONE

One month ago today, on July 25th, we did the final pack of our car, had an early morning doctor’s appointment (multi-tasked with a dog grooming appt!), a final lunch date with a friend and then we hit the road for the beginning of a two week trip to Florida, where we’d later board an airplane for Puerto Rico. As we drove south on Interstate 35, the emotions that I had been able to stoically hold inside during our Going Away party the day before, came bubbling to the surface. As the tears fell, Robert and I gave thanks to the Lord for the amazing friends that He has blessed us with in Minnesota, and all of the ways that had supported us and loved us and been there to guide and encourage us through both the great times and the tough times. The beauty is that friendships do not end because of the separation of miles. We knew that God had called us to Puerto Rico, and we also knew that though we wouldn’t see our friends and family on a regular basis, those relationships would remain strong and true. We also hoped to host many friends on their own visits to Puerto Rico in the near future! (hint, hint!)

The Dressels & the Dades (our Going Away Party hosts!)

The next several days followed this crazy, wonderful, memory-making itinerary:

July 25th - drive 5 hours south to Coralville, IA to spend a couple days at the home of my (Holly’s) parents. The drive was routine and uneventful, but sweaty. Did I mention that the A/C on the minivan that we wouldn’t be keeping had already broken and we didn’t want to sink $2000 into repairing the A/C on a vehicle we couldn’t keep? Smart financial decision, but it led to a very sweaty trip!!!

July 27th - drive a short 3 hours to Batavia, IL, where we stayed at the home of our dear friends for a short overnight. Our two girls LOVED having the opportunity to spend time with their 3 girls, whom they have become fast friends with over the years. Holly loved having the opportunity to connect with her college roomie. We were all bummed though, to miss her husband, as we always seem to schedule our visits to IL at the worst possible times for him. PS - on the way to Batavia we got to stop in some small town right across the border of IA in IL and have breakfast with a MN friend who was in the area for a wedding! Crazy but fun to have a MN connection “on the road”.

July 28th - Started out early for our longest drive of the entire trip...well over 12 hours in the car and passing through 5 states as we drove from IL to NY...Niagara Falls to be exact. We pulled in with enough time to check into our hotel and pop into the Applebees down the street for some dinner. We were all exhausted heading out of the Applebees and didn’t realize that Robert’s backpack, which never left our side b/c it was full of important documents (and $$!!) for our trip, was no longer with us. We did realize it when we pulled back into the parking lot of the hotel 5 minutes down the road. Minor freak out moment. Okay, actually MAJOR freak out moment. The kids and I went on into the hotel while Robert sped back to Applebees. Thankfully it seems the night crew at the ‘Bees didn’t have exceptional work ethic...when Robert got back to the restaurant, our table was still full of the plates and unfinished food we had left there. And Robert’s backpack was there, all valuables still safely inside. Phew! He got home and we all quickly crashed!

July 29th - Another early morning as we planned to go to Niagara Falls. None of us had ever been there before and we couldn’t be this close and not go! Unfortunately as we woke up, the rain was absolutely POURING outside. Not just a heavy rain. The kind of rain that even if your windshield wipers are at the highest speed they can go, they still can’t keep up. We stopped and got some breakfast and as we got back in the car the skies were still dumping water on the earth by the bucketfuls. We prayed that the rain would stop in time for us to visit Niagara Falls and began driving in the direction of the falls, through the incessant rain. About 5 minutes away from the state park, the rain stopped entirely. By the time we parked and got out of the car, a bit of sun was peaking out. We hiked around the area, though our favorite part, of course, was the Maid in the Mist voyage! We had to do it in two rounds because we had PJ, and PJ wasn’t allowed on the boat, of course! So Robert, Juancho & Laura went first, and Angie and I followed. Thankfully we we were there early enough and just after the rain, so the lines were small and moved quickly. Angie decided to use some of her birthday money from Grandma to buy a couple little souvenirs from the gift shop. By lunchtime we were on our way to Boston, MA where we would stay with friends that we hadn’t seen since 12/08/2007, the day we left Colombia. Our friends had adopted their son from Colombia at the same time, and stayed in the same ‘residencia’ as us and we all became fast friends. We couldn’t wait to see them again and catch up on the years!

(Postscript: Sorry there are no pics for the above...I took pics, but they are locked away on my digital camera...still looking for that USB cord...the pics below were taken with my camera phone...)

July 30th - Juancho’s 14th Birthday! We did a small birthday celebration today and decided to save the real ‘fiesta’ for when we got to Puerto Rico! We were in Boston today and our friends took us around to all the sights. Our friends live in Concord, so the natural starting point was seeing some of the historical sites in Concord and Lexington from the days of the Revolutionary War. We saw the place where the first shot of the Revolutionary War was fired (“the shot heard ‘round the world”), where Paul Revere made his fateful ride warning about the arrival of the ‘redcoats’ and the homes of several famous authors such as Emerson and Alcott (author of ‘Little Women’). Later we went into Boston, took a Swan Boat ride at the park that the children’s book “Make Way for Ducklings” made famous. We saw Fenway Park and later went to a classic clam & seafood restaurant for some real New England grub. I did NOT have any clams though...couldn’t bring myself to do that! Was very impressed with the 4 year old and 8 year old who had no trouble putting away the clams though!

The kids in Lexington, MA in front of a Revolutionary War memorial

At the "Make Way for Ducklings" park - Boston, MA

(can't remember the name of the actual park...)

The girls on a 'Swan Boat' ride - Boston, MA

(Angie & Laura are with friend Julianna here)

July 31st - We left our friend’s in Concord after a wonderful breakfast send-off and drove through Connecticut to see my oldest sister Debbie. She is in Connecticut for about a year and a half and didn’t expect to see any of her family during her time there. But God works in mysterious ways and led us to plan a route down the east coast that went directly through her town! After seeing Debbie, we drove into NYC just for the purpose of being able to now say I’ve been to NYC! We stopped for a few minutes and snapped a few pics of the Statue of Liberty. Then we got back in the car and drove through New Jersey and stopped at a hotel just into Maryland.

And before you burn your eyes out reading this very.long.post.that.still.isn’t.finished, I’ll stop here and say “Tune in tomorrow for Part Deaux!”

Hurricane Preparedness...

2011-08-30T06:00:00.006-05:00

In light of the theme of this post, I wanted to add this quote, sent to me today by a young man here in Puerto Rico. It says:

"Mas valen las tormentas con Dios a bordo, que las aguas mansas sin tu presencia. Dios nunca nos prometio un viaje facil, pero si un puerto seguro."

Translation: "More valuable are storms with God on board than calm waters without His presence. God never promised us an easy journey, but He did promise a safe harbor."

Another 'previously written' blog post...all about Hurricane Irene!

See the island that you can't actually see because it is covered entirely by Hurricane Irene?

That's Puerto Rico.

photo credit

8/22/2011 - Hurricane Preparedness

We knew hurricanes were a reality of living in Puerto Rico. Remember our first trip to PR in August 2010? We got an extra two days of adventure because of a little guy called Hurricane Earl. That one wasn’t a direct hit, but pretty darn close! We felt the effects of that through long power outages, water outages, no cell phone coverage and in that occasion, being stuck for an extra two days on a small island called Vieques, 10 miles off the coast of Puerto Rico. We figured this was God’s way of giving us the full ‘Puerto Rico Experience’ before we actually moved!

Another thing we’ve known is that prime hurricane season in the Caribbean runs from typically late August through mid-October.

That said, with our lack of Internet access and any TV access, we haven’t exactly been checking`the weather regularly. To date, every day has been sunny and in the mid-80’s, minus an occasional passing afternoon rainstorm.

Sunday afternoon (8/21/2011) we went over to our favorite beach in the area, Playa Sardinera (aka “Sam’s Club Beach”) for a much needed Family Day. The sky was just lightly overcast, enough to keep from feeling like we were being scorched. The beach had several other families there enjoying the day and the waves were just robust enough to make for some fun bodysurfing and boogie boarding. This particular beach creates a natural sea swimming pool area because an above water reef buffer the dangerous waves and currents from the ocean. Because of that there are some awesome tidepools to explore. We spent much of the afternoon exploring the tidepools, trying to catch some sea creatures and learning by doing (love it when that happens!).

As we left the beach, we noticed that there were cars lining up at the gas stations to get gas. The lines of cars were overflowing the gas station lots and onto the streets. The only other time we’ve seen this was just before Hurricane Earl, the summer before in Vieques. Robert did a quick check of the news and sure enough, a tropical storm (Miss Irene) was on the way...destined to pass RIGHT OVER the entire island of Puerto Rico...and possibly turn into a hurricane level storm in the process.

Before the move we had talked briefly about putting together a “Hurricane Survival Pack” once we got settled. But given that we aren’t yet settled, we hadn’t yet put together the pack! So here we were with a few hours before the storm was scheduled to hit our area. Where to start? We decided to start by jumping in line with all the other cars at the gas station. We remembered that on Vieques the gas had run out entirely, and it took several days before the gas stations were filled again after the storm.

After getting gas, we drove home to change out of our wet swimsuits and take stock of what we had in the temporary rental home (aka-The Sea Turtle House). After talking with the neighbors on both sides, I got a good idea of some things to do to prepare for the coming storm. I decided to write them down so that I would remember once we DO eventually put together that “Hurricane Survival Pack”! Here they are:

**Make sure all outdoor items are secure - put inside a shed, inside the house or somehow secured outdoors. This even includes the small things like clothespins!

We pulled in the green hammock, the porch chairs and all of our shoes from the porch. We secured the trash bin under the outdoor table, which we put in the corner of the carport, behind our car. We also put PJ’s doggie crate into the area in the carport where the hot water heater is enclosed and then pulled the car all the way into the carport too, in order to keep it safe from falling/flying debris.

**Have plenty of flashlights and batteries on hand. Candles and/or a hurricane lamp and lighters are good to have too.

The Sea Turtle House was equipped with a couple of working flashlights and a hurricane lamp with a little bit of oil. There were lighters too. Yay! We did pick up a couple more flashlights so we could keep them stocked throughout the house as needed. (Postscript: I recommend having a few of the long-necked lighters on hand (the kind you use for the grill). Just tried to light the candles with a small cigarette lighter b/c the other one had run out of juice...and just about burned my thumb off! ;)

**Wash any dirty dishes while there is still water.

With the ant problem we have in the house, I didn’t want to end up having dirty dishes languishing in the sink if the water were to go out. I washed everything up and continued keeping everything washed up while we still had water.

**Have all family members take showers while still water.

Since we were stinky and salty from our day at the beach, we needed a shower anyway. The prospect of losing water and not getting it back for potentially a few days caused us to get everyone in and out of the shower with haste so we could at least start the storm squeaky clean!

**Fill up the bathtub and sink with water to use for flushing toilets if the water goes out for an extended period.

Some houses in the area have a very large ‘reserve tank’ of water on their roof or in a storage shed in their yard for times where the water may be out for a prolonged period of time. The Sea Turtle House doesn’t have a reserve tank though, and the owner of the home suggested this! The only downside was that I couldn’t find the plug to the bathtub and my attempts to MacGyver something to plug up the tub didn’t work. I did fill up the sink though. Good thing the water didn’t go out though!

**Have plenty of drinking water and non-perishable food on hand that needs no refrigeration or cooking to eat.

We went to Sam’s Club and got MORE than enough! However I am quite sick of carbs by the end of this day with no power. Even though it is still raining, we are going to try and get charcoal lit for the grill tonight so we can grill up the chicken that has been defrosting in the freezer all day!

**Make sure all phones and computers and any other ‘chargeable’ electronics that will be needed are indeed charged.

We realized that power would probably not last for long. So we plugged in laptops and phones so that they’d keep their battery power as long as possible. As I type, we’ve gone nearly 24 hours now with no power and the kids have still been able to watch a couple Redbox movies on one of the laptops, and here I am typing up a blog post to eventually put up the next time we have wi-fi!

**Eat up anything for meals that would otherwise go bad quickly in a fridge or freezer with no power.

We ate chicken for dinner last night with some salad remnants and some fruits that would go bad with the power going out. We all ate two things of yogurt for breakfast this AM, whether or not we liked the flavor. For lunch it was turkey sandwiches with turkey that I thought was already a bit ‘off’, but the kids insisted it was fine. So the kids got turkey sandwiches and I ate PB&J. Actually just PB, b/c we have no ‘J’.

Okay, the other laptop just died at the tail-end of ‘Nanny McPhee Returns’, so my laptop is needed to see the end of it. Plus the dog is begging to go out, so away I go. But at least I have the beginnings of our “Hurricane Survival Kit” information all ready to go!

PS - HAPPY BIRTHDAY TODAY (8-30-2011) TO MY BEAUTIFULLY YOUNG BIG SIS JENNI - LOVE YA SIS!!

Our 1st Day in PR...

2011-08-28T12:24:00.000-05:00

Hi Friends!!

I promised I'd get back to blogging when we got 'to the field', and I apologize for the delay in getting started! Since our internet access is spotty right now, I started writing blog posts on the computer to post later. So I have a couple ready to go, but they are from a while ago! Still, they will give you more insight into our days here. This post focuses on our very FIRST day here...which in some ways still feels like yesterday and in other ways feels like ages ago! However I'm taking advantage of some uninterrupted time at "the office" so I can take care of a few computer/internet related items...including this! Sorry there aren't any pics...I haven't gone through all our suitcases enough yet to find my USB cord for the camera. There will be pics soon! (PS - even if you don't read the whole thing, scroll down to the bottom for some current prayer requests. THANKS!)

8/9/2011 - 10:55 pm

Here I sit, the only one awake in the house. Even the dog is completely passed out! Believe me, I understand! My body and mind are EXHAUSTED! But yet I can’t shut off the mind part. So many thoughts running through my head!!! So I decided to just write them down, all stream-of-consciousness-like. Follow along if you like...

Right now I’m thinking God has handed me a blessing in what looks like a curse. He’s done that before. See, the house we are staying in for this next month apparently is located within the zone in Hatillo, PR where there is no good T-Mobile 4G service. (Postscript: We later learned there is no 4G service by T-Mobile on this part of the island...) And the 4G service is what we need to run our internet wi-fi. So since there is no 4G service here at the house, there is also no internet. The curse side of that is that we are a CONNECTED family. And I’m not referring to ‘emotionally connected’, though that is true too. No, I’m referring to ELECTRONICALLY connected. We have big fans back home too (okay, they are mostly relatives and best friends, but still...), and we like to keep people in the loop.

So had this house been in an area to receive 4G service, I guarantee I would be mindlessly surfing Facebook, putting up a status update first, then commenting on a few friends posts or pictures and FB-stalking some others. I might go on to read some CNN headlines before drifting off to sleep. What wouldn’t happen would be this, me writing down my thoughts and experiences. That is not to say that mindlessly surfing Facebook is bad...I think it can be JUST what the doctor ordered on a mind-numbing day. But something that I moan about from time to time is how I have no time to just write like I wish I did. I go on and on about how one of my goals is to write books and do freelance writing, but belabor how I have no time. Maybe I actually DO have time, but I use it unproductively. (I can envision that my husband will be nodding his head in agreement when he reads this...you were right honey!) I have a feeling God is going to teach me some lessons through this turn of events...and though it feels a bit uncomfortable right now, I know they’ll be good ones.

Speaking of learning from the Lord, the loss of wi-fi internet connection isn’t the only way I believe that God is going to be working on me. See, this house that we are staying in for the next month I truly believe was given to us by the Lord. That’s a whole different story in itself. However, upon arriving there were several things that made me remember that reality is often much different than perception! This house is turning out to be much more, ahem, ‘rustic’ than I had originally expected. Part of that is definitely my fault. I forgot to check the online ad thoroughly enough to see that there was no washer or dryer available. There isn’t, which will probably be a little bit of a headache in itself, but I’m trying to keep a good perspective. It could be worse! If we were becoming missionaries in the bush in Africa, there’d likely be no air conditioning, no washer/dryer, no electricity, maybe even no floor or window screens! Yes, it could be worse. Keep perspective! (meanwhile I bought some laundry detergent and a clothesline and clothespins to try and wash some of the stuff at home to limit the amount of time I spend in a laundromat over the next month!).

Meanwhile, looking on the bright side of things, our day of travel went PRECISELY as expected, with no issues. Everything went SO smoothly! I’m so thankful for that because there were many areas where there could have been difficulties, stress and headaches. And there were none. And the kids kept good attitudes and were in good spirits the entire day, despite the early morning and jostling tons of bags through security. Then there is dear PJ, who made his first trip on an airplane...one that included two flights, nearly triple the distance (than a direct flight would have been), and one layover. And he arrived in San Juan, PR safe and sound and super duper excited to see us!

Thank you Lord for your blessings. Even the ones that might initially seem like a curse! Help us keep perspective in all things!

CURRENT PRAYER REQUESTS:

**If you follow us on FB, you may know that we've been searching for a house that suits our family needs and budget. And though we had thought we had found "the one", it wasn't coming together. BUT we didn't want to give up hope, and so we wrote a letter to the owners, and dropped it off and spoke with them a bit last week. We got news LAST NIGHT, that they'd like to meet with us tomorrow to discuss us renting their house! Though nothing is for-sure right now, it certainly sounds promising. Pray for the meeting - we'll be meeting them tomorrow (Monday, Aug. 29th around 4:00 pm). PS - if you don't follow us on FB, go here and click to 'Like' our family ministry page!

**PRAISE - we got a car! It is a 1999 blue Honda CR-V. We were thankful to find it. It runs well, has been well taken care of in and out and the cost was HALF of our max budget for the car. This allows us to put the overage into a savings for any car needs and/or the purchase of a new car down the road. Pray this car serves our family well for at least the next couple years with no major problems.

**We've begun some planning and preparation for ministry plans and programs that will kick-off in September. Our ministry schedule will start with outreach and community connection and build into regular programs over time. Pray for meaningful connections in the communities where we will serve and with the volunteers we will be serving with.

**It's amazing how much more Spanish we are speaking and understanding now than we were when we first landed a few weeks ago. But we still have a long way to go. Robert and I are working to set up weekly Spanish tutoring with some local connections to help us build our fluency. Pray for opportunities to work out for us both to pursue individual Spanish tutoring.

**Praise & Prayer - our kids are truly amazing. They are so flexible and have handled all the transition with such ease...it continues to amaze me. We are thankful that there are kids in our temporary neighborhood that our kids have connected with. Pray for Aaliyah and her family - the neighbors to our left. Pray also for Alexsi and his family - our neighbors to the right. And pray for Juancho, Laura and Angie - for health and continued endurance amidst all the transition.

**Yesterday we had the opportunity to connect with a gal who lives in our neighborhood. Her name is Jaditza and she is clearly going through a difficult time in life. Pray for her and the struggles she is going through...pray especially that she will seek after God with her life. We had some great conversations with her about spiritual things. There is an openness, but yet some resistance as well. We hope to connect with Jaditza again in the near future.

**Pray for the people along the East Coast now being affected by Hurricane Irene. We experienced her power one week ago today and were thankful that the amount of damage was minimal. We pray for those who are experiencing her power right now, and for protection and quick recovery for damaged areas.

THANK YOU! We love you all!

My Favorite Links Monday

2011-03-14T05:50:00.005-05:00

This is where I share with you some of my favorite websites, blogs or other links that I've been visiting lately! DISCLAIMER: I am not paid or otherwise compensated for mentioning these sites on my blog. I just like 'em.

Christian Health Cooperative - Through friends, I learned about this Christian Health Cooperative that was starting in my area in early 2011. This group meets monthly and each meeting has a different topic relevant to living healthy and naturally...always focused on the directives God has given us in the Bible on how to live the healthiest lives possible. I've been learning a ton from this group! Even if you aren't local, you may benefit from some of the great info posted to this group's Facebook page. A website will be started soon too!

The King's Speech - Just saw this movie this weekend...a bit behind the times for the Academy Awards. Obviously we've heard good things about it! We went with some friends who have been visiting from out of town and I loved it. Particularly I loved the message the movie gave of 1.) perserverance, 2.) unity, 3.) confidence and 4.) success of the underdog. Plus it was a bit of history I had never known!

Our Personal/Ministry Website - My family is preparing to move to Puerto Rico in a few months to serve in ministry to struggling teens and young adults. This link will take you to our personal family/ministry website. We are excited about it, though the next three months will be quite busy as we prepare to go. I wrote more about this journey HERE.

Ripe for Harvest - This is the 'sending agency' we are partnering with to help us in the fundraising and administrative details involved in serving in this capacity. We met with the Field Director this last week in person and love what RFH is all about.

Misty Meadows Farms - In my quest to make healthier and more natural choices for myself and my family, I have learned (through the Christian Health Cooperative, see above) about Misty Meadows Farm. It is a local farm where the farmers raise organic, grass-fed, free-range cows and chickens that can then be purchased for a healthy all natural meat source. We bought our first meat order from Misty Meadows Farm this past week...and the farmers themselves delivered it! We are excited to use it in our meals this week...I'll update you on any fave recipes we try. It feels good to be serving my family food that was raised and processed naturally before making it to our table. I love that it is local too. I hope that we can find farms like this in Puerto Rico!

Mama-Arte-Eco Blog - This is a blog I accidentally stumbled upon...you know, from clicking on a link that led to another link that led to another link. That kind of thing. The cool thing is, the writer of this blog is a 'puertoriqueña' (meaning 'a woman from Puerto Rico) who is a homeschooling, natural food eating, creative free spirit mama. Her blog is in español, but I've been able to read it pretty easily...and it is great practice for further language acquisition. Bonus: she and her husband own an old school VW camper bus...which has long been one of my 'dream cars'.

Tropical Traditions - Do you use coconut oil? Did you know that coconut oil is one of the BEST oils to cook with? Or, actually, to use for any multitude of purposes? I was floored when I learned recently that olive oil is actually a very poor choice of oil to use when cooking at high temperatures because the beneficial qualities of olive oil break down at high temps and actually begin to release toxins instead. According to THIS informative article, olive oil should never be heated past 200 degrees. Use olive oil fresh or for very low temp cooking instead. BUT coconut oil is great for high heat cooking. It is also great for use in baked goods, using for homemade beauty products and even taking a scoop of straight from the jar! Tropical Traditions specializes in coconut oil and other tropical products. YUM!

Young Living - I listened to a demonstration this past Tuesday about using pure (as in therapeutic grade A) essential oils for treating everything from snoring to strep throat. After learning about the many uses for pure essential oils and reading further about their healing properties, I am excited to invest in some commonly used essential oils and build up my knowledge for using these for my family.

How To Make Tostones - This coming Thursday, my kiddos and I are teaching about Puerto Rico for the Cultural Studies classes in our homeschool co-op. We are excited to share about the island we have come to love. The kids will be teaching a demonstration on how to cook tostones...a common Puerto Rican treat. Juancho & Laura have made these tostones many times in our home and every time they are DELICIOSO! We fry them in coconut oil, which adds to the flavor! This tutorial helped me understand all the steps in making tostones. It's actually quite easy...give it a try!

Puerto Rico...Coming in June 2011!

2011-03-13T00:18:00.001-06:00

Puerto Rican flag painted on the wall at Crash Boat Beach in Aguadilla

Recently I shared about our family trip to Puerto Rico in January of this year. What a wonderful time it was! But it was more than just a family trip. It was a preparation trip for the upcoming move we will be making to the island! We have been called to serve in Christian ministry to teens and young adults in Puerto Rico and we are excited to do so!

There are many things to do as we prepare for this big move. The first has been to get the word out about our upcoming ministry. If you'd like to learn more, visit our website: www.robertandholly.com. This ministry will be funded entirely through donations and we have been connecting with individuals and churches as we raise funds for this endeavor.

Kiddos in the town square in San Sebastian

Another big aspect to our preparation to move will be selling nearly everything we own! We will be renting a small shipping container to send some household supplies to PR when we move, but we won't be taking any furniture with. We aren't taking our cars either. We've already sold one car and moved down to being a one-car family. We haven't had one car at all since we've been married! So this is a new 'adventure' and so far it is going great. Good thing too. With gas prices on the rise, it is nice on our pocketbook and on the environment to limit our gas intake to only one vehicle. We'll also be hosting a 'Friends & Family Sale" at our house in mid-April in the hopes of selling most of our furniture and household items to people we know. However, anything we can't sell will be put on CraigsList or something similar to sell before the move.

The biggest part of preparing for our move is getting ready spiritually and mentally. Arming ourselves with the Word of God is something we should be doing daily, regardless of whether or not we are working in ministry. Practically speaking we are also preparing ourselves to move to a different culture (though for our children this will be very much like 'going home'), and strengthening our grasp of the Spanish language (again, probably easier for our children than it is for us). And so much more...

The plan, as of now, is to make our move to Puerto Rico in late May or early June of this year. Much of that plan rides on our fundraising efforts right now and will be more clearly determined the closer we get to summer.

Niños walking along the beach near Quebradillas

Eagles Wings

2011-02-28T05:50:00.001-06:00

Eagle.

Rhymes with Regal.

The National Bird.

Patriotic.

Endangered. Powerful. Beautiful.

I drove to Wal-Mart to pick up soup, crackers and huge stock of OJ for my crew of sickies. On the way there I was thinking about and praying for my friends who are going through some tough stuff at their workplace. I had been feeling tensed up about the situation my friends are in, and nervous about what was going to happen in their situation. Before I got out of the car I ended my prayer with

"I'm confident you are present in this situation Lord. Please show yourself."

I opened the door, stood up and something in the sky caught my eye. TWO bald eagles were soaring and swooping just fifteen feet over my head. Bald eagles aren't rare to see around here, but they aren't super common either. One thing is true...I've never seen two eagles together like that before. I watched them soar and swoop and play together as I smiled to the sky saying

"Thank you Lord, I got it..."

"But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings

like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

Isaiah 40:31

I am a...

2011-02-26T05:50:00.001-06:00

PROMISE

I AM A POSSIBILITY

I AM A PROMISE, WITH A CAPITAL 'P'

I AM A GREAT BIG BUNDLE OF...POTENTIALITY!

AND I AM LEARNIN' TO HEAR GOD'S VOICE

AND I AM TRYIN' TO MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE

I AM A PROMISE TO BE...ANYTHING GOD WANTS ME TO BE!

I CAN GO ANYWHERE THAT HE WANTS ME TO GO

I CAN BE ANYTHING THAT HE WANTS ME TO BE

I CAN CLIMB THE HIGH MOUNTAINS

I CAN CROSS THE WIDE SEA

I'M A GREAT BIG PROMISE YOU SEE!

All pics taken during our January 2011 trip to Puerto Rico

Fear...no longer

2011-02-25T05:50:00.001-06:00

“7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.”
2 Timothy 1:7 (NLT)

We all have an issue or area of life that we are not as confident in as others. If we are honest there are topics and situations that cause us to worry from time to time too. Often these issues and concerns are valid, but other times they are not.

What has caused you fear, gut-gripping worry, or anxiety-producing uneasiness now or in the past?

With my children being sick with the flu recently, I found myself becoming irrationally worried and fearful about the ‘what-ifs’ with their health. What if their fever spiked in the middle of the night or they hyperventilated from coughing too hard and I didn’t realize it? What if they didn’t have the flu after all, but something much worse? I knew deep down that my fears were irrational and everything was going to be okay.

Then there are the rational fears. A ministry organization I have long cared about is going through a very challenging time and it is affecting people I care about very deeply. My fear? That these dear friends will experience more pain and difficulty before the challenges disappear.

But what about when the very foundation of life gets ripped out from underneath you? You or your spouse lose your job? A loved one becomes seriously ill, or dies unexpectedly? A legal issue that you never could have imagined hits you squarely in the face? What then?

As a human, you will likely be devastated, grieving and possibly gripped with fear. As a believer you may experience those same things, but here is the great part, it doesn’t end with that fear. That fear, that timidity, can be traded in for something amazing!

Through Him we can have the self-discipline to propel ourselves out of the trappings of fear and timidity. Trade in your fear for God’s POWER! Trade in your timidity for a hefty dose of God’s LOVE!

What areas of fear or timidity do YOU need to trade in today?

My Favorite Links Monday

2011-02-21T05:50:00.000-06:00

I love to read blogs, and often I find good info on them...that I use for our homeschooling, in day to day life, or just because I found something inspirational. So each Monday I will post here with some of my favorite links from the previous week. If you have a link you'd like to add or that you think I might enjoy for a future Favorite Links Monday post, leave a comment with your link (just keep in mind that this is a family friendly blog...so only post links that are 'family friendly'!) Thanks!

My Favorite Links, February 14th through February 21st

Free E-Book "Healthy for Life" from Weston Price Foundation, via The Nourishing Gourmet (scroll down and click on 'Download Now' for the free e-book version. Not sure how long this will be available.)

Logee's Tropical Plants via The Homeschool Classroom - I've been daydreaming about planting a garden for quite a while now and since I'll be moving right around the start of MN planting season, I've transferred my garden dreams to TROPICAL garden dreams since in Puerto Rico I'll be able to have a year-round garden! But I know next to nothing about tropical plants and tropical gardens. So this link provided from The Homeschool Classroom will set me on my course to planning my future tropical garden. Yahoo!

Pocket Your Dollars is an everyday savings blog written by a local woman. There are a lot of great blogs out there on how to save ridiculous amounts of money on groceries, etc. I've always been a little overwhelmed at the idea of figuring out how I could save 90% off my grocery order using coupons and strategic planning. Plus many of the savings blogs I'd read in the past would go on and on about savings that were found at stores that didn't exist in my area. I like Pocket Your Dollars because it makes the idea of pursuing savings seem more manageable and do-able. Granted, I haven't done it yet, but I have been saving coupons lately! Plus I like that this one is written by a Twin Cities based author, so I know the deals can be found around me!

I've heard about Groupon for a while now, but I've just signed up to get the 'daily deals' sent to my inbox. Based on what I've read and understand, I (or you!) can save 50%-90% on various items because such items are being offered for a short term on a 'group rate' basis. So the idea is, if a certain number of people buy an item that Groupon is offering, you receive it at drastically lowered prices. For example, today's deal is for a ticket to Timberwolves vs. Lakers OR Celtics PLUS another ticket of choice PLUS a Season Yearbook...all for 50% off of the retail value. (note: the link takes you to the Mpls/St. Paul version of Groupon...but if you are located elsewhere, just click the drop down menu at the top by where it says "Minneapolis/St. Paul to find your area.)

Shutterfly...I'm a new Shutterfly user and so far in the past two months I've gotten links for 200+ free prints. I like that. I just ordered 101 free prints of our Puerto Rico trip using a code that Shutterfly e-mailed me for the 1-day deal. I like free.

Blogs getting my attention this week:

REAL FAT - Keelie, the writer of REAL FAT was an inspiration to me last spring when she and I were pursuing more active lives and losing weight at the same time. But I fell off that wagon AND off the reading blogs wagon. I just went to check in on her and that girl lost 60 pounds last year! She looks FABULOUS! And she has inspired me to 'Try, Try Again' (blog post on that coming soon...). You are Hot Stuff Keelie!

Cold Antler Farm - I've been a lurker on this blog for a long while now, after reading the back jacket of one of author Jenna's books at Barnes and Noble and seeing the address for the blog. Couldn't buy the book at that time (bummer!) so I remembered the web address for her blog and have been following along ever since. I vicariously live through Jenna's posts...I'd imagine if I ever attain the dream of living on a hobby farm, I'd approach it with the same simplicity and joy of life as Jenna.

I've loved The Crafty Crow forever...every time I check it out, I'm inspired.

War Fallout

2011-02-15T05:50:00.001-06:00

Actually, I know little about the military and the impact of war. I'm completely ignorant to it. My father was not in the military and missed being drafted back in the Vietnam days. I do have a cousin involved in the military now, but thankfully he's never been stationed in current war-torn areas.

Tonight the hubs and I watched a movie called "Brothers" starring Tobey McGuire, Natalie Portman and Jake Gyllenhal. It isn't a war movie per se, but it addresses the atrocities of war and the fallout that impacts the loved ones and family members and military servicemen/women once they are back home. It was a sad movie...an unfathomable one, really. What would I be like if I went through the POW experience that McGuire's character "Sam" did? What would be our experience if it was my husband who went through something similar? How would our family cope?

It left me thought provoked...and burden for our soldiers that see and experience far more than we can imagine in their tours of duty. It made me realize in a deeper and more profound way than ever before how much we need to pray for our soldiers...AND for their families.

Lord Jesus I lift up the American soldiers around the world putting their lives...both physically and emotionally on the line for our country. Lord only you know the internal turmoil and pain that some of these soldiers, especially those who have undergone some of the most dire circumstances, are going through. I cannot fathom their pain, confusion, hopelessness, despair. Lord meet them where they are. Infuse them with your love, truth and hope. Bring people into their lives that will speak truth, who will exemplify your love O Lord. Protect our soldiers Lord...AMEN

Older Child Adoption and Attachment Issues

2011-02-09T05:00:00.000-06:00

The kiddos and us on Christmas Eve 2010

Before we adopted our kids, when we first started talking about adoption, we talked about the possibility of adopting older children instead of an infant. My husband had worked in orphanages all around the world. The older kids were significantly less likely to be adopted and he really had a huge heart to adopt older children and a sibling group. I, however, was initially hesitant. I had spent my professional career mentoring and counseling high risk teens...many of whom had experienced neglect, abuse, abandonment and more from their biological families...which experiences were the root of some significant emotional turmoil those youth were facing. I wasn't sure if I was ready to open the door to the many unknowns (and potential serious emotional struggles) that could come with older child adoption.

But God knew what he was doing and was faithful to change my heart and instill in me an overwhelming desire to adopt older children and a sibling group too! As we started in on the process, we were blessed with a great resource! A friend of ours had worked for a local therapy office that specialized in international older child adoption and specifically attachment issues. We were able to learn a ton from this friend and resources she provided us with before we even left to receive our children. We learned what to watch for, games to play to help foster attachment, how to talk with our kids about sensitive subjects and even how to discipline to promote attachment rather than work against it.

Thankfully we have had absolutely no issues with attachment or any other significant emotional distress or turmoil with our children. God really protected our children in their early years and while they faced some difficulties no children should have to endure, God protected them in the midst of those difficulties!

I read this article, posted on 'Hang On...' a blog from a fellow adoptive family who adopted an older children sibling group from Colombia as well. I thought it was a fresh perspective on a topic that one often hears only the "other" side of. It is refreshing to hear the word being shared that older child adoption can be a wonderful blessing and joy for both parents and children!

Read the article HERE

Exercising My Way...

2011-02-07T05:55:00.000-06:00

...to Puerto Rico!

(I'm just going to gloss on by the fact that I haven't updated this blog in forever...and move right into this post as if I haven't been gone for months on end...)

Crazily enough, my family and I will be moving to Puerto Rico around the end of this school year. We are super excited about it! Through a long journey (and a very cool story that definitely deserves its own post one of these days...or rather, series of posts!), we have found ourselves with a wonderful opportunity to partner with a Christian organization in Puerto Rico where we will help, amongst many things, to develop and run youth programs for teens ages 13-18.

In August 2010 my hubs and I traveled just the two of us to Puerto Rico to check out many things, including this organization. And to celebrate our 5th anniversary. It was awesome, as the pics will show...

Hubs and I on Crashboat Beach...crystal clear waters behind us!

Colorful boats on Crashboat Beach

Me after climbing to the top of the observatory at the top of Britton Peak

in El Yunque, the rainforest. We could see 3 sides of the island from up there!

Me in my snorkel gear on Vieques island

Though we were able to enjoy many of the 'vacation' aspects of The Enchanted Island, our purpose there was to check out some various ministry opportunities. One such opportunity was clearly the right fit for us and we began to make plans shortly upon our arrival back to Minnesota in early September (after being delayed by Hurricane Earl that sideswiped Puerto Rico and delayed our return home by two days) to move to Puerto Rico within the year.

So that is the back story to my 'Exercise My Way..' plan for 2011. I needed an attainable, yet challenging goal to focus my exercise this year. Last year my starting goal was C25K, or 'Couch to 5K'. It was a great focus, and indeed I ran a 5K in May, my first ever. But after that, my motivation waned. It became hard to stay focused on working out regularly. Within a few weeks my regular workout routine had stopped altogether and within a few months I gained back the pounds I had worked so hard to lose. So for 2011 I wanted to give myself a goal that would be really tough to achieve in one year...but to strive to achieve nonetheless (though being okay with it if it takes longer too...as long as I stay consistent!). Curious, I decided to see how many miles it is from Shakopee to San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. 2,403 miles was the answer. Flying by plane, that is about 5 1/2 hours. Walking (or jogging, swimming, on the elipticall, etc.) is sure to take many, MANY times that amount!

So far I've covered 30 miles...including some mileage that I actually did IN Puerto Rico (the fam and I just came back from our 2nd trip to the island...this time we took the kiddos!). We did a lot of active things while we were visiting, including hiking in a rain forest!

But most of my mileage (being that it is winter in Minnesota...) have come from the treadmill, elliptical or cross trainer at the gym.

At this point I've barely made it out of the Twin Cities metro area, so at this rate it's going to take me a LONG time to "Exercise My Way" to Puerto Rico. But I'll be starting to step up efforts a bit more this week. I'll keep you updated on mileage from time to time here.

THANKS for cheering me on!

Tackle It Tuesday: Decorating for Fall

2010-09-29T01:17:00.000-05:00

I love the theme of this new meme I found! Tackle It Tuesday! Just what I need...something to help me keep on track to complete a task that I have on my to-do list and blog about it! At the end of this post I'll let you know what I hope to tackle for NEXT Tuesday, so ya'll can keep me accountable!

I had it on my to-do list to get the house decorated for fall LAST weekend (the 17th/18th), but it didn't happen. Probably b/c I didn't have a Tackle It Tuesday meme to keep me accountable! ;)

But on Sunday, DH took the two older kids to help a friend clean out his garage, so it was just Sassafrass and I around the house. And since our house has some showings coming up (we have it on the market) I knew I needed to get some deep cleaning done. In the process of doing the deep cleaning, I decided it would make sense to pull out the fall decor and get that put up at the same time.

I really like how it turned out. Makes me start to embrace fall a little more (though the changing leaves outside are a paradox to me. On one side I love them because they are so beautiful and such a great symbol of God's handiwork. On the other side they signify the soon (very soon!) coming of winter...which lasts so long in the frozen tundra of MN!).

Here are some pics...enjoy!

Our little Sassafrass monster...she is a stitch! The other day, around the dinner table, we were discussing the adventures of the day. Sassafrass says "Mommy & Daddy, I am collecting something!". I say, "Oh, is that right? What are you collecting?" She smiles and matter-of-factly says "I'm collecting roof.". My husband nearly chokes. "You're collecting what?" "Roof" Sassafrass replies again. She goes on to say that she plans to sell the 'roof' she's been collecting to people that might have holes in their roof. Turns out that after a recent thunderstorm, several roof tiles off of the townhomes in the area have fallen to the ground...and today Sassafrass brought in her roof collection this far to show me today. As you can see, she is quite proud of it!

This is linked to Tackle It Tuesday at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Weekly Wrap Up: Sunny World

2010-09-28T00:05:00.000-05:00

I am quite late on my weekly wrap up...this should ideally be done on Friday or Saturday...BUT we were actually still finishing the activities for the week on Saturday afternoon. And there's been no downtime since then. But, without further ado...here is my weekly wrap-up from last week.

Kindergarten

Last week was S-Sun week for Kindergarten. We had a lot of fun! Ironically though, outside we didn't see much sun during the week. It looked mostly like this all week:

On the one sunny day, we talked about all the good things the sun provides to us. We went outside and practiced walking blindfolded to see what it was like to walk in darkness as opposed to in the sunlight. Poor Sassafrass took off running in her blindfold and ended up falling and skinning her knees. She was okay though...and that led in perfectly to what we talked about next. We equated how walking in darkness physically can be scary and cause owies, it is the same when we try to live life without God. Since "Jesus is the Light of the World" (the theme words for this week), we talked about how we need His light to shine us to help us through life and to keep us from dangerous things.

Another day we kicked it off with homemade pancakes...complete with a letter S pancake!

Some other S-Sun learning included:

coloring her "Jesus is the Light of the World" page

painting a sun, using alternating colors for the rays to reinforce the concept of patterns

Making "Sun" cookies!

Exploring Countries & Cultures

This was the last of the first two world overview weeks to kick-off this curriculum. We had a lot of fun with it and ended the week with a field trip about the Civil War...a perfect way to kick off our next unit about North America!

Here are some things the older two did for ECC this past week...

They learned about xylem and phloem. Here are some celery xylem.

Doing a celery xylem experiment

On our 'Nature Notebook' day (Wed.) we visited several parks and did many bark rubbings on various trees and collected leaves (which are currently being pressed)

To highlight and celebrate world cultures, we did a "Hands Around the World" art project. Sassafrass, Lala & Juancho looked at various books about kids around the world, and then decorated their own multi-cultural kids on their paper chain. They are now hanging up in the school room. We really enjoyed this activity.

We did our world cakes on Saturday due to our all day field trip on Friday (see below). The kids were supposed to each pic a hemisphere to design on their cakes, but instead they each picked a continent. Juancho is displaying S. America and Lala & friend highlighted Africa.

A few other things from our week...

It was another harvest week at the garden! We popped over there to see what was ready to pick after our Nature Notebook time. We filled the trunk with mini pumpkins (we had nearly 50 total!), a couple swan gourds (they're huge!) and some watermelons. Angie was thrilled with the teeny tiny pumpkin and teeny tiny watermelon.

Field Trip: Fort Snelling

On Friday we went to Fort Snelling for their "Homeschool Days" along with others from our homeschool co-op. Fort Snelling was built in the early 1800's to be a frontier outpost and military training camp. It was actively used for training soldiers in the Civil War era. Costumed re-enactors told about life at Fort Snelling during that time. It was a very active event that we all enjoyed very much! We just wish the weather had been just a bit warmer and less windy that day! Here are some pics...

And finally, not related to homeschool at all, but definitely related on keeping a home, I was quite pleased with the way my Chicken & Dumplings dinner turned out! It was loosely based on this recipe, but I greatly modified it (namely, it was made with chicken, less broth (simply because I didn't have more), no potatoes (didn't have any of those either), and I used store bought rolls (I need to cut time expense where I can!). It was yummy...though I plan to do some spices in it to increase the flavor next time...plus cook it a bit longer in the stove...perhaps brush the tops of the rolls with egg whites first? Anyway, here it is!

This post is linked to Weekly Wrap-Up at WUHS.
(actually, no it is not! I was SO late with my wrap-up that the linky is closed! Well, click above to read other bloggers weekly wrap-ups too...and I'll get on there next week!)

Rollercoaster

2010-09-22T19:37:00.001-05:00

Last night, for the first time in 23 years I nearly threw up. TMI? Probably.

I've prided myself on the fact that I have not vomited since I was 12 years old! I have an intense paranoia of it. And of anything that causes it. Ask my husband...if a food item is one day past its expiration date (though he tells me it is a 'sell by date'), then I refuse to consume it. I used to throw it out the day after the 'expiration date'. But that caused total uproar in our home, and truthfully, I have a husband and three kids that have all consumed milk that was up to several days past its 'expiration date' with no consequence. I'm not a fan of buffet restaurants because the possibility of food poisoning seems greater in those establishments. You never have to worry about me drinking too much, I'm afraid of the hangover! And if raw chicken juice gets anywhere in my kitchen, it is immediately washed and disinfected.

I would love to live the rest of my life and never throw up. But I came remarkably close last night...I'm still amazed I avoided it!

Why do I tell you this gross story? Because of what I believe is behind the near-puking moment. If you read back to the beginning of this blog you'll see that I started 2010 working out, eating right and determined to get to my goal weight once and for all. And I did good for several months! I had great accountability and inspiration via online friends, I set goals for myself and met them, losing over 20 pounds and training for and running my first 5K. I was on my way to that elusive 'breaking the 200 mark'.

But then...

Those of you who are in my court...you know if you are...the ones who start a new endeavor to lose weight, get in shape, and get healthy finally...and then seem to always run into the 'but then...' moment. I've had 'but then's...' that are dramatic and life altering. But this 'but then...' that threw me off course was simply a season. SUMMER! My routine changed with my kids done with school, and one week of 'taking a break' turned into three months of all out lack of discipline. I didn't even blog. So my regular readers...you can be fairly certain that if I fall off the face of this blog for several weeks, it almost always is synonymous with me falling off the healthy living wagon too.

Last night before going to bed I made a series of poor food choices. It started with some sweet treats I found in my desk...a hidden stash that I discovered and decided to consume all of on the spot. Was I hungry? No...just craving sugar. Not too long later I ran to the store to pick up a few ingredients that were missing for the meals for the rest of our week. My husband requested that I pick him up his favorite ice cream treats. Of course, there are several in the box, and when I got home, I helped myself to one, despite the fact that it was 11 pm, I wasn't hungry and I knew I'd be heading to bed soon. But my husband went to bed before I did, so I went ahead and helped myself to some more snacky foods...almost subconsciously. Snacking even though I wasn't hungry just because it is habitual when winding down in front of the TV. But I was tired and soon dozing (something to do with the combination of the late hour and the load of sugary fatty food in my tummy ya think?!). Two hours later I woke up choking, running to the bathroom afraid I wouldn't make it in time. But in the end, once I got vertical, the feeling like I was going to throw up started to go away. It was reflux of some kind that happened...no question caused by eating too much crappy food and right before going to sleep no less.

Though I've been feeling convicted to reign in my eating and re-start my exercising lately, I knew after this late night episode that I needed to make the change.

I gotta admit...I'm feeling a lot of shame about my major lapse. I was doing so well and totally undid 6 months of great work in just 3 short months. And this is not a new story. In fact, it feels like it is a story that has played over in my life 2 billion times. To the tune of over 100 excess pounds. I got back into blogging this fall with a benign post about homeschooling. Yes, I will post a lot about homeschooling here, since it is a major part of my day. But this blog started as "Making Over Me", and that is an ongoing process. Clearly. I've started back reading some of my favorite inspiring blogs so far. And they are still inspiring...and I'm so proud of these inspirational women! I don't think any of them would claim that their journey has been perfect. But they've been continuing on the journey despite the ups and downs. I doubt any of them have had a 3 month 'down' like I, because they are all looking FABULOUS! But 3 month lapse or not, I'm going to keep on keeping on with my journey too.

So, here we go! I won't be posting every day...but at least 3-4 times a week. If I start to fall behind, please e-mail me and kick my arse, will ya?

MFW - getting started...

2010-09-19T18:25:00.000-05:00

Hi Friends! Have you missed me? I've missed you!

I got WAY into our summer with the kids and family and TRAVELING (more on that later), so blogging fell off the priority list for a couple months there. But now we are getting back into a routine with the school year, which feels good. While I loved the carefree 'fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants' flow of summer, it does feel good to be back into a schedule too.

Wednesday, September 8th we started school. This was AFTER our now annual "Hooky Day" though! (We play 'hooky' on the first day of public school in our district. Then we start our homeschool the next day). For 'Hooky Day' this year we were trying to save funds and utilize the outdoors as much as possible. However, the weather somewhat foiled our outdoor plans. It was cold, rainy and SUPER windy. So we went to an indoor park, which ended up being a ton of fun. After that we met up with Daddy and saw "Nanny McPhee Returns" which we loved. The kids loved figuring out who the old lady was from the first movie at the very end of this one (no spoilers here though!).

We are using curriculum this year! Last year was my first year homeschooling and my two oldest kiddos were all over the board in terms of what grade level they were operating at in various subjects. So I pulled together various resources and made my own curriculum. It worked last year and it helped me to find my 'homeschool style'. But it was preparation intensive and I found that I tended to bounce all over the place rather than have a good flow for the year. I began my search for a curriculum that would work for our kids and for me. I really like unit studies, hands-on learning, assimilating our faith into academic learning and I was looking for something that would be pretty well laid out, but not cost a fortune. After much research, I decided upon My Father's World, because it seemed to have all of the above traits. So I purchased the Kindergarten curriculum for Sassafrass and the Exploring Countries and Cultures curriculum for Juancho and Lala.

And so far I love it!

Here's a glimpse into our first week (and a half)...

KINDERGARTEN

Sassafrass was super excited about her first day of Kindergarten! Here she is standing in her Kindergarten Corner!

She really loved making her Creation Poster and Creation Book during the week. For Day 5 (birds/fish) we printed out some bird and fish coloring pages online and then colored the birds/fish and cute them out and pasted them onto the page for the day. Sassafrass has loved showing her Creation book to every one who comes over! Bonus: At Sunday School right now they are also teaching about the story of Creation...so she is getting that reinforced in multiple environments!

We did a lot of other activities too...like practicing writing letters, matching uppercase and lowercase letters, cooking together, going on a walk to find as many "1's" as possible and more. What a fun week (and a half). We also fit in our first day at our homeschool co-op (which Sassafrass was super excited about) and at the end of the week we went on a field trip to the zoo and plant conservatory to see all of God's awesome creation. The MFW curriculum has the Creation unit spanning 10 days, but we reduced it to 7 days (including co-op and the field trip). I think trying to drag it out another few days would send Sassafrass into meltdown mode. We are excited to move into the S-Sun unit next week! Our book list for the Sun unit is the last pic in this set. Click on it to make the picture bigger and see the titles and authors for your own lessons! I'll let you know next week which were our faves!

EXPLORING COUNTRIES & CULTURES:

Juancho and Lala started Exploring Countries & Cultures from MFW on Sept. 8th too. Sassafrass sits in for our Bible lesson too. For math, Lala is doing Math-U-See Gamma level and John will be starting Math-U-See Epsilon level once he finishes up his math program from last year (he's almost done...yay!). We are doing Primary & Intermediate Language Lessons, Spelling Power and Writing Strands for some of Language Arts too. We are also doing Rosetta Stone Spanish. The first two weeks for the ECC program focus on a general world overview. The kids really enjoyed the addition of a nature time and a nature notebook...much more than I thought they would. Our schedule has been running pretty smoothly so far too...I'll post that one of these days! At our homeschool co-op the older two are taking Cultural Studies (should fit in quite nicely with MFW ECC), Studio Art, PE and General Science (focusing on the days of creation). Here are some pics of the older two getting started on their year!

It was really stinky over by the primate house (go figure...) and Sassafrass couldn't stand it!

The beginning of this week, we'll finish the world overview, and then launch into North America. I'm excited to use this video for US History that I just received FREE from The History Channel. Gotta love FREE educational stuff!

HAVE A GREAT WEEK! You'll be 'seeing' more of me here!

Vote for KidSave!

2010-07-07T15:30:00.002-05:00

UPDATE: KIDSAVE WON! Thank you for voting for a tremendous organization! Not only does KidSave win the Reader's Digest $1500 award, but another voter pledged to donate double that award...so a total of $4500 is being donated to this great organization! Read more about it HERE.

Have you ever heard of Kidsave? It is a wonderful organization that really impacted my kids' lives...and indirectly brought our kiddos to us 3 years ago...changing our lives forever!

From the 'What We Do' page on the Kidsave website:

What We Do

Kidsave gives kids who are hidden from public view in foster care and orphanages the opportunity to visit with families and build relationships. We work as a catalyst for change, training social workers, orphanage workers and volunteers to help kids find permanent families, and change practices, laws and public financing to increase permanent family care for orphans and youth in foster care.
Since 1999, more than 2700 individual children have found parents and lasting connections with adults because of our programs. Thousands more orphans and children in foster care around the globe have parents and lasting connections because of our training and advocacy efforts.
Kidsave is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization working to move older children out of orphanages and foster care and into permanent, loving families.

My children participated in the 'Summer Miracles' program that Kidsave runs. They got to spend a month with a family in California, experience swimming lessons, camp, and having their birthday celebrated for the first time ever! Though we didn't meet our children then, someone from our adoption agency did and just knew that these were the children for our family! And they were...once we got the referral we never looked back!

Kidsave is one of five non-profits chosen by The Good Muse to be voted upon to potentially receive a $1500 grant from Reader's Digest if they win! Knowing that all non-profits are hurting during this economic down-turn, and that all five non-profits selected are doing significant work in the world, I challenge you to head on over to The Good Muse to leave a comment for your fave non-profit.

Being biased to Kidsave, I would also say that by saving the life of an orphaned or abandoned child by placing them in a secure, stable and loving home also saves many other world issues for that child. VOTE FOR KIDSAVE!

Where Have I Been?

2010-07-06T22:13:00.000-05:00

Hi Friends! I'm sorry I disappeared for a couple weeks. I actually didn't go anywhere! But my husband did, which meant that this mama of 3 had much less "me" time than usual. I was a busy girl the past 2 weeks! Here's a brief "Weekly Wrap-Up" (even though it is on a Monday and it covers 2 weeks...does that even count?)

Week of June 21st

After seeing my husband off at the airport (he went on a mission trip to Egypt, btw) on Father's Day...

...we kicked off our busy week of VBS at our home church on Monday. It was called "The King, The Kingdom and They Key". My son & I served as table teachers in the 1st grade classroom and it was a ton of fun. It was my son's first time being in a serving and leadership role...he had a table of 4 first grade boys he was in charge of...and he did great! I was really proud of him. It was Sassafrass's first time at VBS, and she loved it...made a new friend with a fellow redhead! And Lala enjoyed her time immensely as well. A highlight was the ending program that Friday night (complete with tornado sirens going off, causing all 500 or so people to huddle in the basement of the church until the storm cell passed (with no tornado touch down in our area)) and the opportunity to get 'autographs' from the cast of characters for the week. Characters like...

Karman, the King's Head Guard

"Bix Baxter", the famous Game Guy!

And of course, the evil villian! (notice the 'blood' on his hands?!?)

I also continued to tend our community garden plots. We were there every couple days, weeding and watering and admiring the rapid growth. The gardens were small then...but there is a gardens update post planned for later this week...where you can see that our corn was indeed "knee high by the Fourth of July!" Here is what our two plots looked like back on this week in June...

The "Kids' Garden" (which ironically does not mean that the kids do the actual work in the garden, but rather that they picked what they'd like to plant in there). Planted with pumpkins, gourds & sunflowers.

The "Nourishing Garden" planted with all sorts of stuff to eat...peas, corn, peppers, carrots, spinach, broccoli, beans, and some herbs. (tonight 2/3's of our dinner was from this garden...which gives you an idea of how much it has grown in just two weeks!)

As a licensed real estate agent (but minimally practicing) I took over my husband's real estate business while he was gone. So I spent the rest of our time managing that...which was fun and stressful all rolled in to one. It definitely made me very thankful for all the work my guy does for our family!

Week of June 28th

This week settled down a bit since VBS was over, which had taken up over half of our day in the previous week. We all started to feel my husband's absence more, including little Sassafrass. One nap-less afternoon, Sassafrass was on the verge of meltdown with every situation that didn't go exactly the way she wanted it to. Being the 'no-nonsense' mama that I am, she was becoming increasingly frustrated that her attempts to get me to change my stance on a household rule weren't working So she stomped up the stairs to her room in a huff. She came down about 10 minutes later, with a backpack on and two other bags in hand...along with a picture of her daddy. A picture that used to be of her daddy and I together, but I had been ripped out. She said to me "It's too hard in this house, so I'm going to live at a hotel in Egypt". And she proceeded to walk out the back door (and get as far as the neighbors driveway...where friends were playing with sidewalk chalk).

These were Sassafrass' bags...packed with several outfits (even undies!),

some lipgloss and her Cubbies handbook! (notice the Egypt bag?)

The rest of the week was pretty low-key. We didn't do a lot of outings because I was tied up being a working (from home) mama for the week with the husband's business. As a gift to my husband I also decided to organize his home office and beautify it a bit. I wish I would have taken a Before picture! But the task inspired me to get my own superbly out of control office/school room under control as this week's project, which is currently underway. I did take a Before picture of that...and against my better judgement (speaking of judgement...don't judge me!) here it is:

And this is only part of the room...

The end of the week was definitely the highlight! Daddy came home from his Egypt mission trip on the Fourth of July. The kids made posters and we greeted him at the international arrivals gate at the airport. More on our actual Fourth festivities in another post, but here's a pic of the kids anxiously awaiting their Daddy!

So Patriotic!

Weekly Wrap Up: Strawberries, Skateboards & A Gun...

2010-06-19T02:24:00.001-05:00

LAST WEEKEND

I finally got to our local Farmer's Market! Unfortunately I only had about a half hour to explore because the rest of the morning included some time-sensitive errands. But it turned out perfect because as we were finishing our loop of the Farmer's Market, the raindrops started to fall. We did get some DELICIOUS strawberries from one stand, a HUGE bunch of green onions for just $2 at another stand and a dozen farm fresh free range grass fed chicken eggs from Farm On Wheels - a vendor I plan to purchase meat and eggs from more in the future. I love their farming philosophy and the huge health benefits of eating free range and naturally fed animals for meat. The farmer directed me to the website for Eat Wild to learn more about the case for grass fed meat. Interesting stuff!

Sassafrass has been begging to get her hair cut...but I just can't get those beautiful red locks chopped off to her chin as she had desired. So we struck a compromise. She still got about 4 inches cut off, but her hair remained below her shoulders which kept this Mama happy!

Before

After

Can you see a difference?

We celebrated the first birthday of our friend's son on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately the rain (it's been raining every day for a week...) dampened the park party, but the birthday boy still had a great time!

Digging in to his first birthday cake!

The husband got commissioned at church on Sunday for his team that will be leaving soon for a mission trip to Egypt for two weeks where they will be doing many humanitarian projects.

MONDAY, JUNE 14TH

We woke up this morning to steady rain. Bummer since it was supposed to be Juancho's first day of skateboard camp! The session was cancelled and the boy was majorly bummed. We came home and worked on school for a couple hours before lunch. They completed phonics, math, spelling, and handwriting. Then they each did a 1/2 hour of silent reading. The youngest (Sassafrass) worked on several pages of her comprehensive curriculum preschool workbook that we've been working through all year. She wants to have EVERY page done by the end of this week! After lunch I made our weekly menu plan and grocery list while the older two alternated doing 30 minutes of their Rosetta Stone Spanish and playing Monopoly with Sassafrass. (Side note: Overheard during Monopoly...Juancho says to Sassafrass - "You need to pay a fee of $25". Sassafrass asks "How much is that?" Juancho pulls a $20 and a $5 from Sassafrass's money pile. After he pulled her last $5, she says "Awww...bummer! I wanted to use that to buy a $5 foot long!") After that we all went to the library to sign up for the summer reading program and find out how much I have to pay in library fines (yikes! that's another area I need to work on...basically all the areas I need to work on come down to one thing. Organization.) We went to one of the two grocery stores I shop at for our weekly groceries and got what we could there, then back home to make dinner before Bible Study group. At Bible Study we took a spiritual gifts inventory. It had been a while since we had taken it and I was curious about what my results would be. #1 was, with a "perfect score", the gift of "missionary" (aka-the ability to feel comfortable with and relate to those of other cultures, heritages and countries). This did not surprise me...I've done a lot of short term missions, including a year overseas. But I've put the idea of missions on the back burner for the past 10 years. Recently I've sensed the knocking on the door of my heart. So has my husband (who had "missionary" as his #2 incidentally). We have no idea where God may be leading, but we are walking by faith down whatever road He may lead us!

photo credit

And I can't leave this out...upon taking the dog outside to his biznass Monday night before bed, he nearly instantly found a frog in the long grass and had it in his mouth in a split second. I saw the poor froggie's legs sticking out of my dog's mouth, but despite my frantic efforts to free the frog from the death clamp, my pooch decided to completely eat the frog instead. I heard bones crunching and everything...ewwwww!!!

TUESDAY, JULY 15th

YAY! The sun and blue skies were out for the first time in a week! They ended up being short-lived as thunderstorms rolled in that afternoon, but the sun was around long enough for Juancho to get his first day of skateboard camp under his belt! By the time we picked him up three hours later, he was rolling down those mini half-pipe thingys like a pro (can you tell I don't know my skateboard lingo?)! He only got a couple minor road rashes, but we figure that goes with the territory! They've got him outfitted in a helmet, elbow, wrist and knee guards too, so he's pretty safe! While he was at his camp, I took LaLa to get some minor cavities filled, sealants on her teeth AND to get a tooth pulled! The tooth has been loose for a while, but not loose enough to pull at home...and an adult tooth is growing in behind it. The dentist did great though and little LaLa didn't feel a thing! We got back home from our busy morning in time for lunch, then started school after lunch. Kids didn't complain about needing to do school in the afternoon (when we are usually done for the day) and they worked hard. In between giving direction I got the last flowers planted along with Angie's Magic Touch plant (and got to cross it off my to-do list!) Later the kids and I piled in to head over to a rental property my husband is working with an investor on. The investor needed the place cleaned and was willing to pay good money. So I volunteered! Me and my mini-crew. I offered the kids $10 of the cut each ($5 for Sassafrass...and you guessed it! She wants to use her $5 to buy a $5 foot long!) if they wanted to help. They were all over it!

photo credit

SCREEEEECH. Back up. I left out the part about the red SUV, a guy with a major road rage problem, and a gun. Yes, a gun! When we were driving to the rental property, we were on a highway with a speed limit of 65. I was going 70 in the left lane when the red SUV came flying up on my tail. I went to change lanes, but the right lane had several cars right there and I couldn't move over. Eyeing the driver of the red SUV in my rear-view mirror, I could see that he was yelling and flipping the bird. And I was already speeding! I threw my hands up saying "Hey buddy, calm down!" (saying it in my own car with the windows rolled up that is...) and then I saw him reach over into the passenger seat and suddenly hold up a handgun and cock it with his other hand and point it at me! Yes - I did get his license plate number and I did call 911. I hope they followed up on it! (PS-more on this in a post soon to come...)

Later that night we went to see the new Karate Kid movie as a family. We really enjoyed it! It was a good family night activity...and we were glad we were able to get it in since the husband is leaving soon for 2 weeks in EGYPT!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 16TH

Wednesday was one of the only kind of "down" days for us this week...every other day seemed to be 'run, run, run!' The day started out with the boy going to skateboard camp. He learned how to "rock the fakey" which I guess means dropping in to a half-pipe, riding his board up to the opposite edge and then hooking his wheels on that edge before dropping in again. Don't I sound like Tony Hawk with all my skateboard lingo?

This pic says "Seriously Mom? You're gonna take pictures of me? SO not cool..."

Oops...slow down honey! I missed getting you in the picture!

Okay...I'll settle for this as an action shot.

For school later in the day we worked on the main subjects we've been trying to drive home all school year...phonics, spelling, math, handwriting and reading. We also did a chapter from Story of the World and the older two worked on their Rosetta Stone Spanish. In the afternoon the girls played outside with all the neighborhood girls. Poor Juancho...there are only four boys in our neighborhood. Two of them are 5 or less years old and the other is 9. There are no boys close to Juancho's age at all in the neighborhood! But he got to have fun later in the evening when I took him to his junior high youth group event at the Waterpark of America. Meanwhile I did some work on the homeschool portfolio and got a few more things crossed off of my To Do list for the week (which I was quickly realizing was way too ambitious of a To Do list!). I also watched "America's Got Talent" with the hubs and girls...and was both awed and horrified by the various performances!

THURSDAY, JULY 17TH

This was going to be a busy day from the get-go! Hubs and I have talked about the 'what if' of adding another one to our brood in the next year or two. Today I got a taste of having four kiddos because I took care of our friend's 3 year old daughter all day. It was a lot of fun but it was definitely hard work too! While Juancho was at skateboard camp I took all three girls to a great park in town where they ran, slid down slide, swung and got all pink-cheeked in the warm summer day! Back at home later I helped the older two get through their 2nd to last day of school! Then Sassafrass and friend watched the Leapfrog "Letter Factory" video for 'quiet time'. They were singing "the M says /m/...the M says /m/...every letter makes a sound, the M says /m/!" the rest of the afternoon. Later there was some painting (our guest was quite the abstract painter) and I was able to get some homemade laundry soap made (post coming up soon!). After our precious guest for the day was picked up, I got dinner made and realized time was pretty tight to try and get to our community gardens to water the plants before heading to our VBS training meeting that night. I checked the forecast and saw that there was a 100% chance of thunderstorms starting in just an hour or so. YAY! God would water my garden for me! (Little did I realize that those thunderstorms would produce over 39 tornadoes throughout the evening. Some did some major damage to communities like Wadena, Albert Lea and Almora. Three people also lost their lives in the deadly weather...keep their families and those that suffered other losses in your prayers!) None of the tornadoes were near our community...and after the storms passed the sky looked as if God had painted it with His own paintbrush. He is quite the artist!

FRIDAY, JULY 18TH

Last day of skateboard camp! Juancho came away with: 23 new skateboard stickers (that now decorate his helmet and board), 7 new 'road rash' battle scars, and a dozen new skateboard skills (like 'rock the fakey', 'dropping in', turning and 'riding goofy'). He loved skateboard camp and asked me how I'd feel about him becoming a professional skateboarder. I said I thought it'd be awesome...and that I recommend he get great health insurance if he does follow that career path! :) The kids zipped through their schoolwork in no time and were rewarded with being able to watch a couple episodes of "Mythbusters" (counts as science, right?). I ran errands with Sassafrass while the older two watched their shows. Got home in time to switch laundry loads and a dishwasher load and then we all left to visit the graduation party of a great young man who recently graduated from high school. Afterward the kids went with the hubs while I went to meet some girlfriends and go walking. These four girlfriends and I have decided to get together every couple of weeks during the summer to exercise together, perhaps prepare healthy meals together and generally keep each other on track with our fitness and weight loss goals. I was able to push my friend's daughter in her stroller...upping my workout factor! We covered almost exactly 3 miles and got to chat about health, fitness, our weaknesses in those areas and our goals for the summer. These are all awesome dear friends and I'm looking forward to spending time with them regularly this summer! Later I came home to help my husband start getting packed for his trip to Egypt and to tuck in the kids to bed. Now I'm staying up later than I should because I want to finish my 'Weekly Wrap Up' post!

I've decided to add a new feature to my Weekly Wrap-Up posts...and that is a link list to my favorite posts from the week. It'll probably be a hodge podge of all sorts of stuff...for your reading pleasure!

My Favorite Posts This Week:

MckMama related her gardening methodology to her parenting, and specifically DISCIPLINE methodology HERE. Really helped bring a renewed perspective to discipline for me.

I found this post on Living Charlotte Mason in California via WUHS's Homeschool Showcase #49. There are some great ideas in this post and it has my wheels turning to start something similar in my neck of the woods!

"Beauty from Ashes" - a poignant post by MckMama...and boy do we know what it is like to experience beauty from ashes around here!

I'm living vicariously through Jenna at Cold Antler Farm...click on over and you'll see why!

Keelie at 'Real Fat' equated the new body that comes with losing weight to that 'new car smell'. Thanks for motivating me Keelie!

Kat's comments on the G8/20 summit coming to her hometown resonated with me. "Truth & Reconciliation..."

This post is linked up to the Weekly Wrap Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers!

Have a GREAT weekend dear friends!