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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Reunited in Idaho!

Daniel got home from his 12 day trip yesterday! Well, I say he got "home," but he actually arrived at our new home for the next 2 1/2 months in MAF headquarters in Nampa, Idaho. We are really excited to be here for our 2 weeks of orientation and then the rest of the time for Daniel's flight/maintenance standardization (where they will pretty much teach Daniel the MAF way of flying)

We are in the same apartments that we were in last summer when we were here. It is fun seeing the group of people that we were with in our training last summer. We have all been doing the support raising thing for the last nine months, and we all have very different stories and experiences, so it's neat to see how God has been working in every one's lives.

The weather here had been amazing! Sunny and in the 70's in the afternoon and evenings. It's a little chilly for me in the mornings (but I'm a Houstonian, so I'm weird). We have pretty much been living outside watching the kids play and catching up with each other all weekend. We even had an impromptu pot-luck dinner tonight.

Reece enjoying some chocolate cake after dinner!

Joe eating his chocolate cake mixed in with a little pineapple and spinach leaves!

The whole gang eating dinner together.

Best-Buds, reunited! The kids will barely leave their Daddy alone. Joe wouldn't let Daniel put him down yesterday! So cute!

A lot of people have been asking us what we'll be doing during our 2 weeks of orientation, so here are some topics of discussion on our schedule:

Relationship Seminar (all day Monday and Tuesday)

Emotional health

Keeping yourself spiritually fit

Spiritual warfare

healthy living

30 days in another culture

problems of the world

embracing your adopted culture

cultural lunch

conflict resolution

"building your raft" (not sure what that one is about!)

safeguarding your children

"inside-out safety" this is a 2 day seminar also known as "emotionally based safety"

Looks like it will be a great 2 weeks. We are SOOOO glad to have Grandma Valerie here to take care of the kids while we're in class. The kids are having a blast with her.

Can't wait to update you all on what God is teaching us! Thank you all for your prayers and support. We would not be able to do this with out you!

Big Day for Joe-Man

Joe got tubes in his ears today.

He has had trouble with some ear infections, but really the main concern was the build up of fluid in his ears that just would never go away. This was affecting his hearing and speech, so we decided to go ahead and to the surgery now while we have access to all kinds of wonderful health care, doctors and hospitals.

I was against the surgery at first because I'm the kind of person who wants to wait and see if anything else will help with the drainage of Joe's ears (like a chiropractor or other alternatives). But, God really lead Daniel and I to go ahead with the procedure now, and I am grateful for His leading and provision for us to be able to help Joseph in this way.

I was so nervous about handing my little boy over for surgery, but he really didn't even cry when they took him. We were only apart for about 15 minutes total. 10 minutes after I left him, Joe's doctor came out and said everything went fine. He said Joe had "rubber cement" fluid in his ears that even clogged up the suction machine! He said the fluid would never have cleared on its own. That was nice for me to hear. It confirmed that we made the right decision!

Joe was pretty groggy after the surgery, but we only had to stay about 20 minutes and then we were on our way home. I thought he would pass out in bed with me, but all he wanted to do was jump and play on my bed! I ended up putting him in his crib and now he is on his 4th hour of sleep! What a nap!

It will be exciting to see how different life will be for Joe now that he can hear normally. Thanks to God who graciously helped Joe through this morning and has given him a new chance to hear the world!

Joe crawling through a tunnel at the children's museum.

Joe sleeping after a fun time at the childrens' museum.

Here are a couple things I just posted. I can never figure out how to re-arrange the order. Oh well.

Fun With Chalk

Rodeo

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABIGAIL!!!