Bloggers Block

My 3 or so weeks of blog silence has been due to a severe case of bloggers block (BB)!! Even though it may seem like we are exciting missionaries, I personally have not been doing much out of the ordinary during our time here in Idaho (except for the first 2 weeks which I pretty much blogged about already).

Daniel might be able to blog about some exciting things he's doing and learning, but he's too busy being in class and studying to sit down and type out some thoughts. Maybe I'll get him to contribute to the blog on our THREE day weekend!!

My BB has can also be attributed to the fact that my two wonderful, darling children have had a super serious stomach virus for the past week!! Okay, so maybe it wasn't super serious as in they had to be hospitalized, but super serious in terms of crying and complaining of tummy aches all day, lots of PBS kids to distract from the pain, toddler lying on the floor, no sleep, diaper changes or bathroom trips every 15-30 minutes (around the clock!!), fever, no sleep, a very stinky house, no eating, and did I mention NO sleep??!! Daniel and I have been fighting off a very mild form of the virus, too, but nothing like our poor kids.

They are getting better every day, and I am truly thankful for kids that are normally well. I really have been praying for mommies and daddies who have to take care of chronically sick kids all the time. There is nothing worse than a child in pain and no way to help them.

Anyway... on to the true topic of this post. BB.

I figure if I have nothing much to say about the past 3 weeks, I'll give it to you in pictures because I know all of you are dying to see my beautiful family! :)

We got a package from Grandma Val with a beautiful quilt she made for Joe and he loves it already! (This pic is really only the back-the front is super cute.) Reece already has her quilt from Grandma, which she loves and usually takes with her most places we go! :) My mom also send us a really fun cat and the hat game, which Reece loves, and I birthday cake toy for Joe since he loves to sing "Happy Birthday to You." (I've been trying to get that on video, but you know how toddlers don't like to perform on command!)

Daniel posing with his stack of flying and maintenance books. He has been studying a lot lately!!

Joe reading at a desk in an old used book store we found. It's called "Twice Sold Tales" and it has TONS of books and children's books. It is a really fun place to look around. We've been there twice and found some fun (and cheap) books.


This picture speaks for itself...I think...

Is it too early to start driving lessons??
(Obviously the car is parked for those of you who are freaking out right now!)

Random: some omelets I made for dinner.

We went to a parade right here in Nampa. It was fun, but no Macy's Day Parade if you ask me.

Lots of candy was had by all.

The fam waiting for the next talented high school band to walk by. I think Joe's favorite part was the tractor (he says "Whoooooaaaa" to all tractors, dump trucks and things like that...I'm trying to learn all their proper names!)
Reece's favorite part: the teen Miss. Nampa (princess) and the horses!

We also got a lot of stickers for political candidates. Our favorite was the one for "Crapo" :) We were sure to stick lots of those all over Joe's shirt! :)

A trip to the duck pond. Nice braiding job if I do say so myself! :)

Cute!

"Sad Reece"

I can't remember exactly why she was so sad. Was it because she missed her Daddy? Or was it because she couldn't find a fishing pole (long stick) to fish with in the duck pond like her friend Gabe had? Or was it because I wouldn't let her eat any more of the duck bread??

Okay, the story here is that the weird looking brownish-gray duck is the one who is constantly bullied and the nice looking white duck is his protector. If the outcast duck gets too close to flock (I don't know what a group of ducks is called??) then he is chased away, but his protector always sticks with him. Sad, but funny to watch, too.

Me and my smoothie by Reece the photographer.

Reece and her smoothie.

Playing on the big rock with buddy Christopher. He's so sweet to play with Reece and her princess dolls! Although, he is usually the mice or the prince. And, with him, they usually end up crashing or hitting each other! (The dolls, not the children!)

So, that's our life in pictures. This ended up being a long post for someone with BB!! Hopefully next time I can come up with something more meaningful to blog about.

Goodnight from Nampa, Idaho! :)

How's the Weather??

After 2 1/2 weeks of crazy weather, today we made a trip over to the MAF coat closet! Renee hooked us all up with hats, gloves and bigger coats for the kids (the coats I brought were getting WAY too small...Joe's was a 12 month jacket and Reece's was from 2 winters ago, size 2T!)

So, we finally got to get outside without freezing our tails off. Okay, I say freezing, but it's really more like 50 degrees and sunny today. But the WIND is BRUTAL to these Houstonians! Yesterday our big double jogging stroller kept tumbling across the lawn because of the wind!

When we first arrived here, the first two days were sunny, breezy and around 70 degrees. Perfect, right!?! Well, it was all a trick. After enjoying those two days outside, the weather turned windy, rainy and COLD! And, it even hailed once! (see below)

This picture was taken THIS MORNING (MAY 4th!). I know some of you Texans may be jealous of this, but I'm longing for shorts, running in the sprinkler, baby pools and trips to the pool, NOT coats, gloves and hats!

"WHAT'S HAIL??" says Joe.

Daniel holding a sampling of the hail that pounded us a few days ago.

Craziness! I still can't believe it was this cold! I think it even snowed/sleeted a little bit later on this day.

But to make up for it all, God gave us this wonderful gift in the evening.

This was taken right outside our apartments and my friend, Erica had to splice it together since it was such a huge rainbow.

2 Week Re-cap

Well, our "non-tech" orientation has come to an end. We had a great 2 weeks full of so many helpful seminars, classes and speakers. It was a FULL 2 weeks, but so much valuable information was given. We are very thankful that MAF has provided us with this training!

On our last day, we had an authentic Indonesian lunch. It was really a feast with some wonderful food! We are going to love the food in Indonesia if it's anything like the meal we had here!

In this picture, you can really only see the fruit (which is what Indonesians have for dessert) but also some cookies that weren't Indonesian, but really good!
I cannot really remember the names of all the different kinds of food, but the rice was called nasi goreng with an egg on top and then the chicken had a really good peanut sauce on it.

They had a "commissioning chapel" for us at MAF where they prayed for us and basically turned us over from the training phase to the "operations" phase. Now all we have to do is raise 25% more of our support, and we're off to Indonesia!! :)

There was cake with BLUE icing at the chapel, and Reece was lovin' it!



Here are the boys of our group right before chapel looking out the window towards the runway to see if they could spot any planes taking off.

I will update more later about some fun times we had these past two weeks. I'm back to being a full-time mom tomorrow and I'm excited about that! Daniel starts ground school tomorrow in the MAF hanger, and then next week he'll start flying.
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