Thursday, May 29, 2008

All Is Well That Ends Well

Laura arrived home safe and sound from Argentina at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday night. She figures that she and her friend Natalie had traveled for 30 hours by the time they got home using plane, van and car. She said the trip was "perfect". Everyone got along fine and everyone worked very hard. The people in Argentina were in tears when the team left. They said that they are leary having college students come down and "help" them, but that they would have the group from Maranatha again because they worked so hard and the Lord really blessed their efforts. A great testimony I would say.

The girls were full of stories and we (Natalie's Mom got here about the same time they did) got to bed about 1:30 p.m. Natalie and her Mom left here the next morning. Keith and the younger girls arrived home from Virginia later in the afternoon. They and Josh, Mary and Matthew had gone to visit great grandma in Virginia for the Memorial Day weekend. I waited at home for Laura to get here. I didn't want her coming home to an empty house. Besides, there wouldn't have been room for me at grandma's house anyway and someone had to feed the animals here at home.

We had a cookout Monday evening. The weather was suppose to get bad but we never got it which was a good thing considering it was part of the storm system that caused the killer tornadoes out west.

We are trying to get the house ready for Bek's graduation party at the end of the month. There is always so much work to do for these things. It is good to fix things up though. If we didn't have a major event every one or two years, the once and awhile things would never get fixed. We always seem to get caught up in the day to day maintenance and overlook the big things. Could it be because it costs money? :)

The younger girls have been complaining that we never go on family vacations. I try to tell them that when they were little we went all different places. When the kids started college, vacations just seemed to take a backseat. It was just a natural progression for us, but the girls feel short changed. They travel alot for sports and missions trips and I try to tell them that those are their vacations now. They weren't exactly satisfied with that, but I gue$$ it will have to do for now.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Mother's Day Weekend

Keith and I went over to Indiana to visit Sarah and Donald last Friday night and then we came back on Saturday.

Sarah's church was having their Ladies Banquet that night. It was held at Fuzzy Zoeller's Covered Bridge Golf Club in Floyds Knob, IN. (For your info: Fuzzy is one of only three professional golfers to have won The Masters in his first appearance in the event. He also won the 1984 U.S. Open.) You learned something new today. :)It was a nice place and we had a good meal. Mrs. Ball, (Sarah's Pastor's wife) gave the devotion. It was really good. Donald and Pastor Ball did a comedy skit about the use of certain "hillbilly" words for the women. It was funny even if you were "Tard" tired.

On Saturday, Sarah, her friend Carrie, and I hit the garage sales in a few subdivisions. It was a lot of walking but we had a good time and found a few little bargains. We then had a cookout with the Pastor and his family. We got home about 8:00 p.m. The girls had cleaned the house for me for Mother's Day. That is one of my favorite gifts anytime of the year.

On Mother's Day we went to church and I ended up with three corsages from Keith and Josh and Mary. I also got some roses from Sarah and Donald and a digital picture viewer for my purse from the younger girls. I can keep up to 60 pictures on it and show off my grandbabies. Josh & Mary also had Matthew's dedication service on Sunday. Mary's Mom, Dad and brother, Pete were here for that. We took pictures, but Josh & Mary have them and will have to put them up on their blog. We went out to eat at Max & Erma's later in the day after the crowds had cleared out a little bit. We were going to go to the Cheesecake Factory, but the wait there was about 3 hours. Keith and I will have to go there some other time. Most everyone else had been there before except us.

Uruguay Ole!

Laura has been in Uruguay since Wednesday so we haven't seen any new posts from the travelers. According to their leader, they went to Uruguay on Wednesday and are to return today. They traveled by boat across part of the ocean for three hours to get there. I am hoping no one got sick. That is a long boat ride. They should be back to their temporary home base soon.

I talked to Laura on Monday. She called to wish me "Happy Mother's Day One Day Late" :) She talked about where she posted on her blog that no one would let her sing a solo. (She was just trying to be funny since she will tell you herself that singing is not her talent.) So their leader, Mr. Trainer kept mentioning the fact during his preaching Sunday night that someone had posted on the blog that they hadn't been allowed to sing a solo. So he asked Laura to get up there and sing and of course she was terrified and tried to get someone to at least sing with her, but no one wanted to do it so the whole group just went up there and sang. However on the bus ride home, she and Mr. Trainer sang a duet together. I am sure it must have been hysterical. Here is a picture.


Here is what Laura posted on the blog on Tuesday.

13 May 2008

From Laura
Hey All! Just giving a quick update....Everything is still going awesome. Yesterday we had a nice rest day but then that night we did English classes and the basketball clinic again. I found a girl at the basketball clinic!! I was so excited! She was there with her dad because her brother played there but her dad asked me to teach her a few things. I was more than happy to do that =) God is so good and I have so many stories to write but I don't have time! I can't wait to see what the next few weeks will bring. I love you and miss you all!
Josh, Mary, Sarah, and Donald-I got somehting really cute for the new babies in the family....They are gonna look like cute little Argentines =)Laura

Monday, May 12, 2008

Laura's Hidden Talent :)

Here are a few entries from Laura's blog while she is in Argentina.

From Laura
Hey Family! Argentina is amazing! I wish you guys could see it. Everything has been going really well so keep praying! I found out that girls don’t play basketball here, so me and Nat can’t really do anything in that area but we are still helping out where we can. The people here are so awesome, their faith is so strong. Praise the Lord that I have found a few that speak some English :) Even when they don’t speak English it's fun trying to communicate with them. I have so much to tell you guys when I get back. I hope you all are doing well! I love you all! And I am praying for you. Laura



From Laura.....again :)
Familia and Amigos-Hey its Laura again...I'm in an internet cafe right now and i figured I should write when I have the chance. Today I found out I had the hidden talent of making animal balloons haha it was alot of fun....I helped make them for kids at a park that we were singing at. The kids are so cute here. The parks here are goreous. Tonight we are going back to the same park and this time the radio and TV will be there which is pretty exciting, so listen if you can! ......I keep telling everyone to let me sing my solo but for some reason we seem to never have time for it ;) haha (jk Ill stick to the animal balloons) . Next week we are going to Uruguay! Lots of people are hearing the gospel so pray that the people will clearly understand and that God will soften their hearts! And also pray that all of us will keep getting the rest we need :) I miss you all! Love you! Hasta Luego! -Laura Sorry if the punctuation is messed up...this keyboard is just a lil different :)

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Grandpa's Boy


Here is a picture of Matthew in a onesie that grandpa picked up while we were
out shopping a few weeks ago.

Posted by Picasa

Machitos Anyone?


We got a phone call from Laura late Sunday night. She landed safely in Argentina at about 11:oo AM her time. She said it was a loooooong flight. It was somewhere between 10 and 11 hours. Ugh! She is two hours ahead of EST. For those of you who don't want to add, she would have landed at 1:00 PM our time. They have a nice place to stay and she is sharing a room with her roommate from college Natalie. The team has a blog, but Laura hasn't written anything on it yet. There was one picture of her though. She looks good. (See above.) She is the fifth one from the right.

Machitos cualquier persona? (Cow intestines anyone?) The first day they were there, they were treated to machitos (cow intestines). Yum! Needless to say, she didn't like it. I hope that isn't a daily food because Laura will definitely lose weight.

I will update you when I have more information.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Hola Argentina

Laura is leaving on a missions trip to Argentina tomorrow. She will be gone for three weeks. The Lord really blessed and all the money that she needed for the trip came in. She even got a little extra that she will use for spending money and she also bought some things to give to the kids down there.

Last Friday during my devotions, the idea came to me to make up a prayer card. So I made it up using a picture that was in the missions magazine that Laura sent to us. I sent the picture off to the 1 hour developing at Wal Mart. I picked them up and brought them home and printed the prayer requests on the back. I handed them out at church on Sunday.

The neat thing about all this is that Laura sent me an email on Monday telling me that someone at her church had a photographer take a picture of the three that were going to Argentina from her church and made up a prayer card too. Totally a God thing. You can see them both below.

Please pray for Laura and the Argentina team. Pray that they will be safe and stay healthy. Pray that they will be spiritually prepared. Pray that they will be a good witness to the people down there and that the Lord will bless with their singing, teaching ESL (English as a second language)and athletic “camp” presentations. :)

Argentina prayer cards



This is the card from Laura's church



The card I made for our church
(It didn't reprint well to the blog)