Remembering Daddy

It's been a year since we lost my dad.

I really wish he were still here with us.
I wish he could have experienced Africa with mom and me. He would have loved the land, the people, the purpose in it all.
I wish my kids could learn to garden from him. They still talk about the trees they planted with him.
I wish my kids could still go on four-wheeler rides with him. They loved that.
I wish I could call him and tell him all about my day. I loved that.

But he gave me so much before he left, and for that I am grateful.
He gave me a love for the earth.
He gave me passion for missions.
He gave me his love for people.
He gave me humor and happiness.
Thank you.

I love you Daddy, and I miss you so much!

Kids and Crawfish! That's Louisiana.

Since Katrina, the backyard that I played in as a kid has changed drastically. We never had grass when I was growning up. Now that there are hardly any trees/ treetops, there is a lot of grassy areas for the kids to run around. This morning we spent time enjoying the outside with Grandma and Grandpa. Mostly with Grandpa because Grandma is always in the kitchen. So the kids helped setup for the bonfire tomorrow night, ate popsiscles, played in the sprinkler and helped me with my special project for the week. Fun isn't fun unless you take pictures:





Since Grandma and Grandpa were gone this afternoon for Grandparent's Day, we relaxed until Aunt Missy, Uncle Josh, Regan, Claire and Marilyn (Josh's Mom) came over to eat crawfish and shrimp. After all it is Lent and its crawfish time! I'm not sure why I am surprised by anything anymore, but I don't ever remember Emily eating crawfish any other time when we were here. Well today was different for whatever reason -- I could not peel them fast enough for her to eat. Also George enough fried shrimp to sink a ship and in true LA fashion washed it all down with a ice cold beer (Non-alcoholic of course).


Like Father, Like Son


Guest Blogger and Kim's Husband - Leon

More Golf and Safari?

Every time we come to visit in Covington, Trey, Timothy and I have been going with Grandpa to the 9 hole par three course to play. Well, alas that course is now closed. So this foggy Thursday morning we headed for the Abita Springs Golf Club to play a little golf. After hitting some on the driving range and being warned that the kids should not drive the golf carts we headed out to the first hole at 10:00 AM or so. I'd like to say that we were working on breaking the course record but the highligt of the day was definitely Trey's only par of the day via a 20 yard chip-in. It was quite exciting. Timothy was an outstanding caddy and scorekeeper. Enjoy some pics:

So for most people, golf would be enough for one day, but we were just beginning to enjoy this day. We rushed home from golf and headed to Global Wildlife in Folsom for the tour and animal feeding. After Emily's experience with the alligators, I was not sure how George would react to the big animals coming right up to the door to be fed. Well I was not disappointed. We made it there just in time for the 3:00 PM tour (by tour I mean you ride around for an 1 1/2 in a big covered wagon looking at animals and stopping to feed them). It is really a lot of fun and well worth the price to get to see over 300 animals on the tour. The older kids all had fun feeding as I expected, but George was the real surprise. He absolutely loved it. In fact, several times I had to pull him back from jumping out of the wagon because he wanted to get closer to the animals. He really enjoyed all the animals, but especially the giraffes and the llamas. He even let one of llamas eat out of his hand! A mother would never let her baby do that, but she is not here! Enjoy these pics:

I am guessing that all the kids and adults will sleep good after all the excitement today.

I sure hope they are having fun in Africa. Our prayers are with them.

Guest Blogger and Kim's husband -- Leon

Who doesn't love a little golf and ballet?

So Wednesday morning, Emily went to Claire's ballet class. Given she is 2 years older than Claire, she looks like a giant compared to the other girls in the class. But Emily had a blast and Aunt Missy took these photos:

That afternoon, we all went to The Spaceport which is a mini-golf / laser tag / video game place. The only real difference from this and other places in Dallas is the size. In Texas, everything is bigger of course, so the kids thought it was kinda small, but they still had fun, because kids manufacture their own fun, no matter what the circumstances. And as always I am amazed at Trey's skills at using the claw games. He managed to get a watch using only 2 tokens. Maybe there is a future in that one day, or maybe it will lead to a lifetime gambling habit, I am not really sure. Enjoy the pics:

Another fun-filled day tomorrow.

Guest blogger and Kim's husband - Leon

Who is the Insta-gator?

We ventured out today to see an alligator farm. That's right Insta-gator Alligator Ranch. Apparently 50 years or so ago, the Louisiana alligator was almost extinct -- like only 150,000 left or so. Today according to our guide, there are over 3 million due to a LA Wildlife and Fisheries initiative to begin farming them like cows, pigs or chickens, except releasing them back into the wild when they are 4 foot long. Why 4 foot long you ask? Well that is apparently when they go from the bottom of the food chain to the top in the wild. So they are tagged and released. There is more than you wanted to know about alligators in LA.

I wish I could say all the kids had a great time, Trey and Timothy sure thought the gators were cool. But Emily was terrified for about the first 30 minutes or so and I am sure she thought we were going to dump her in a cage with them jut swarming on her. Luckily our "guide" turned alligator farming into an almost 2 hour adventure including feeding (Emily wanted no part of that), and petting the gators (suprisingly before it was over, Emily did pet the alligator). Here are some of pics to enjoy from today:

All in all, it was a pretty fun day!

Rain... Rain... Go Away!

It has been raining off and on since we arrived 2 days ago. Luckily it was not raining for the parade yesterday. Last night seemed like a pretty normal to me. Power outages were a normal course of growing up in my house especially when it rained. But they don't really occur in Dallas. So as I was putting the older boys to bed around 9:00 PM, the power went out. Nothing special right; well the boys certainly thought so. It took a good hour for them calm down and actually get in bed. But of course they did not go to sleep for some time. I am not sure if they were spooked by the fact that we were without electricity or that it was so dark but the power did not come back on until about 1:00 AM. I am pretty sure they were drifting in and out of sleep but never really went to sleep until the power came back on. The reason I know it was 1:00 PM was the rude awakening of lights coming on all over the house including the boys room and awakening everyone but the babies immediately. Sleep came pretty easy after that for them.

So morning was not much different than the usual spoiling that occurs when we are here at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Well if you consider normal breakfast is ice cream with fried bananas, chocolate syrup and whipped cream and cherries. Check out the pics below:



Since the rain had not stopped all day, the Wii got a lot use especially Mario Kart. George has learned from watching his older siblings. Emily changed clothes 3 different times an hour. She is sporting one of Regan's old swimsuits while George thinks he is playing the Wii in this picture:



So what do you do on a rainy day. Trey and Timothy have been after me for weeks to go see Paul Blart Mall Cop. I was truly amazed that was still playing in the theater. So Grandpa and I loaded up in the car and headed to Walgreens to get movie candy. Does anyone actually buy movie candy at the movies anymore when it is half the price at Walgreens? Well I have to say this Happy Madison production (that's Adam Sandler's production company) is pretty much like all his other films. For those of you who are fans of films like Big Daddy, Mr. Deeds, Little Nicky, and Don't Mess with the Zohan. This is right on par. One note, the bad guy in this one was Todd in Wedding Crashers. The kids definitely enjoyed it!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/paulblartmallcop/

That is all for now. Another fun filled day tomorrow.


Guest blogger and Kim's Husband -- Leon

Living it up in NOLA

So while Kim is in Africa with no electricity, no plumbing, no showers, no nothin'. I thought it might be fun to hijack her blog and talk about the fun her children are having on Spring Break:

Today Grandpa, Uncle Josh and I took Trey, Timothy, Emily and Regan (their cousin) to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Metairie. What a blast! Of course, the parade started out pretty tame with the marching groups. Although Regan and Emily did get to kiss some strange drunk man in order to get flowers. An experience that I partially captured on film with Regan, unfortunately I did not get one for future use in Emily's wedding video. Check out these photos:

After the floats started rolling, these kids had no idea how much loot we were going to bring in. They started out putting on all the beads they got until there were so many that their necks could not handle the weight. One hour later, we had 3 large garbage bags full of stuff -- including 20 heads of cabbage, 25 potatoes, 15 onions, 20 carrots, 2 apples, 2 lemons, 2 bananas, 2 oranges, bags of pretzels, chips, moon pies, stuffed animals, swords, spears, cups, footballs and other trinkets. We left before the parade even ended because we ran out of bags to hold all the throws. As we walked the one block with our bags of loot, I realized that none of our kids had ever experienced anything like a parade in NOLA. There is nothing like this in Dallas. Check out these photos:

Needless to say the kids were tired after all that work -- back to the house for movie watching and to have Grandma make her famous homemade egg rolls. You gotta do something with all that cabbage! Anybody have any good recipes that use cabbage.

Blog Hijacker and Kim's husband -- Leon

Kenya Tomorrow!

I really have a ton of stuff to pack and prepare before leaving, but I had to stop for a quick blog post.

We leave tomorrow!!! It will be the trip of a lifetime, filled with wonder, awe, and the glory of God. I have prepared for the sessions I will lead, knowing that I will be learning from them as much as they from me, and it will all be orchestrated by the Holy Spirit.

We've got bags full of school supplies, and gifts for school children we will work with, and gifts for our translators. My prayer is that these gifts will serve to lift their spirits, and let them know that we love them, and that the one God we all worship is big enough to love all of us more than we can imagine.

Thanks for all of your prayers for the team, for the people, for the work that will be done and the lives that will be changed. I'll post again as soon as I can after I return.

Blessings all around!