Saturday, October 24, 2009

Jet lag is contagious

Kevin's still not back in the same time zone he should be and I think I've joined him. I keep staying up late with him since he thinks it's the middle of the day at midnight. He's still not sleeping well at night which means I, the feather lite sleeper, am not sleeping well. I now feel like I have jet lag and I didn't even go anywhere!

Alyssa took the ACT today for the second time. She took Nathan's digital watch to have a timer for each section. It kept beeping randomly and almost got her kicked out. They did record her test number so we're really not sure if it will actually count or not. My $32 hopes so.

A week from Tuesday, Kevin and I will leave for a much-anticipated trip to San Diego with no kids! We haven't had a trip for just us in a couple of years and we are way overdue. It won't be all fun and games (for Kevin). He has a conference to attend and I'm along for the (free) ride. We'll have plenty of time together and I'll have some time to do things that I enjoy by myself. Moms don't have the opportunity to put their wants first very often so I'm really excited about getting to be selfish for a few days! Uncle Weve is coming to stay with the kids so they're all thinking '5 day party!' Uncle Weve will probably be thinking 'What did I get myself into?' before it's all over with but we appreciate him volunteering anyway!

Thursday, October 22, 2009

26 hours later....

Kevin made it safely home today around noon. I promptly fed him some Taco Bueno and he went to sleep for a while. It'll take a few days for him to get back on Oklahoma time. 12 hours jetlag is a lot to recover from!

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Monday morning news

Kevin's email for today is below. Thanks everyone for your prayers. Please say one for the kids and me also. I'm not sure why but no matter how long Kevin is gone, we all get a little crabby about the half way point and today is the day. The kids start back to school tomorrow after being off for fall break and I have to drive the carpool (which Kevin normally does). I also made 4 trips to the church today--2 Kevin would have taken care of and 1 because Alyssa locked her keys in her car. So basically I'm having a giant pity party about extra responsibilities while Kevin is trying to keep people from going to hell. Sometimes I have to remind myself of this to gain a little perspective!

We had a great day of worship yesterday... We had one service with the children at the orphanage, and then two more services out in the villages. It was raining again, but we managed to make it through. We drove as far as we could and then walked the rest of the way in the rain into the second village. I was soaking wet, but when I turned into the village, I saw about 100 people sitting there under a bamboo hut waiting on us.. Wow!! That got my batteries charged. These people are so hungry for the truth. I used the 23rd Psalm to talk to them about the one true creator God and the fact that Jesus is our shepherd. It was great to see so many adults trusting Christ and leaving the Buddah behind. Today, we are going to what is called "the dead end village." There is only one way in and one way out. This is one of the places we were supposed to go to the other day when we got rained out. When I say rained out, I mean that not even motorcycles could make it there. We heard that these people waited on us even though it was raining. So, we are going to go and see them today instead of our original plan. Thanks for all the prayers

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Just the Cambodian facts...

Not much news from the other side of the earth...

Friday's village visits got rained out by a major thunderstorm so Kevin spent the day at the orphanage playing with the kids. Saturday was spent visiting 2 villages. I only got a one line email tonight so not much other information than that. It is Sunday morning for him now and he is preaching at 3 different villages. I know he would appreciate your prayers.

Hope to have some more details soon!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Cambodia by Motorcycle

If good intentions materialized themselves into blogposts, then clever words would have appeared here everyday for the past 6 weeks. We've been adjusting to new school schedules, football practices and games, and husbands being out of town...which leads me to the real reason for this post:

Kevin left for Cambodia on Tuesday morning. Remember that as you are having dinner and settling in for the evening, he is heading out to villages to teach/preach. Please pray for open hearts for the villagers, safety for the team, and for the church planters/pastors to be able to absorb all that Kevin is teaching them.

Here's Kevin's email that he sent tonight.

It is about 6:30am here Friday morning. I think we are exactly 12 hours ahead of you. Yesterday, we made it to two different villages. We told discipleship stories to model them for the Pastor and to encourage the believers. Six people were saved in the two small villages yesterday. Today, we are going to pick up the pace. We are headed to more remote type villages. I think I am going to pull out Luke 15 today... The travel was a lot harder on me this time. My body was aching when I got off the plane here.

We just found out that the villages we are going to today are not accessible by car. We cannot even drive close enough to walk in some of the way, because the roads are so bad. Therefore, we are going to be riding motorcycles today. I am going to drive with Joe Pat on the back. There is a funny picture for the day...


I'm hoping someone really does take a picture and I promise to post it! Check back daily and I'll post updates as I get them.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Semi-annual growth check

Nathan went back to the endocrinologist for his 6 month growth check. He grew 1.2 inches and gained almost 4 pounds. That's huge amounts in the Nate world! So far we have avoided the need for HGH, but the dr. said if he is still behind when the teen years approach we may have to give him a jump start.

For the past year, he's been becoming more and more aware that he is smaller than other kids so please keep praying daily for him to grow. Someone asked him the other day if he liked girls. His response: "No, because they always just look at me and say 'Are you sure you're supposed to be in this class?'" He just doesn't realize that this is his first introduction to girls wanting to be in charge of everything!

Next growth check is in February!

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Just the facts

The past 2 weeks have been very busy at our house so I'll get you up to date on all the happenings then hopefully return to blogging on a regular basis with intentions of entertaining you with my wit and charm. But for today, it's just the facts.

*Zac and Kate have already completed 2 weeks of school. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is August 27 and they have been in school for 2 weeks. Remember the days of not starting till after Labor Day? Of course, that was back when bell bottoms and tie dye were acceptable but it just seems summer gets shorter and shorter every year.

*Zac and Kate are at different schools this year which totally messes up my simultaneous orthodontic appt. plans. Last year, I could drive to one school, get two kids and be on my way. This year, it's 2 schools for one kid each which requires an extra 30 minutes and some strategic planning to avoid pick-up traffic at all the other schools in between. Zac is enjoying high school but I don't think my brain has quite accepted that he is a freshman yet.

*Alyssa began her college classes last Monday. After I got over the shock of spending $313 on books which consisted of a paperback and a stack of shrink wrapped loose leaf papers, I am excited for her. She seems to be enjoying her classes. She even joined the Spanish club so she can practice conversing. There is the motivation of not having to take the final if you show up for a certain number of meetings but she actually wants to learn it, not just pass the class. Algebra has gone well so far with the exception of some of those pesky rate/time/distance problems that I would guess only 1% of America knows how to work. You would think the $100 calculator I had to buy would be able to do those for her.

*Nathan will start what will probably be his last year of homeschool next week. It is very strange here on M, W, and F mornings since it is just us at home now, but I'm enjoying the one on one time with him that I don't get very often.