Away We Go!

This summer is our scheduled furlough time to go home and visit our partnering congregation in Louisville, Kentucky (the Westport Road Church of Christ). We had been planning to go in late summer but due to the unexpected arrival of Piersen's passport earlier than we had anticipated....and a number of other factors, we quickly changed plans and rescheduled our travel plans to begin now. Benjy is currently in Abilene, TX taking a short course in his Master's work. Me and the boys are with our very good friends in Tulsa,Oklahoma - Scott and Melissa Smith. Our departure from Mexico was fast and furious as it was a last minute change in the plan....but we are thankful for safe travel on the roads and for good, hospitable friends to take me and the boys in for a week!

The plan from here is to leave for Canada sometime next week to visit my family! It will be a long drive but our boys are really quite good travellers and we are thankful for that! We will fly on to Louisville in mid-June and spend several weeks with them. We will vsit Benjy's Mom in DC and then begin the journey back to Texas to see more of Benjy's family on our way back to Mexico.

In all of this crazy travelling, we would love the chance to see you! Contact us for more details and hopefully something can be worked out. Please pray for our many hours on roads and in planes....for the flexibility of our sweet kids, and for great time with important people in our lives and for rest and renewal for our family.

Maybe We Should Play the Lottery!

Reece's school was recently selling raffle tickets and I was presented with the request to "help out" as the other parents are. Well, I wasn't too interested but also am not really good at saying "no" so I said I would take 3 (I didn't have money on hand but they said I could pay later). I came home and mentioned it to Benjy. The next day Benjy came home with 5 more raffle tickets because he said the prizes were great - a flat screen monitor, a portable dvd player, and a karaoke machine (and he apparently wasn't listening very well to the fact that I already spoke for 3). OK - whatever. Then a few days later, we realize after actually looking at the tickets that the raffle is not only from the school but rather a nationwide raffle! We thought, ya right - forget it.......until they called me on Friday morning and said we were the thrid prize winners in the nationwide Mother's Day raffle!!!! Ha! What are the chances!!! I have never won anything and so was quite surprised. Unfortunately our prize wasn't the portable dvd player which we would have liked most....but does anyone wanna come over and karaoke!!!!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all of you Mom's out there...and most especially my own beautiful Mom and Mother-In-Law! Here is a little message from your grandsons.



Mom, you know how much I love and respect you. There is always the return of a very comfortable feeling when we get to be around each other...I love that. I always sense your unconditional love and a mother's pride from you - and I need that in my life. As I have often said before, I do thank you for my childhood - we all have very special childhood memories. Thank you for your example as a woman of faith that you have modelled for us, as your kids, and now to your grandchildren. I appreciate you for always making the effort to keep in touch and to express your love for me & my little family. You are wonderful and I love you.


Mothers's Day really has become a two sided thing for me. Yes, a chance to reflect on my Mom and other great women who have been examples to me but now, thanks to God's grace, a chance to realize what an honor it is to have children (not like I only do this once a year, but...)

As I think about the blessing of being a Mom, I have a pretty big smile on my face. To be honest, at this stage of the weekend I am also thinking how much the blessing of being a Mom coincides with the blessing of having a loving and helpful husband who likes being a Dad too (Benjy left early Friday morning to suprise his Mom in DC for her birthday and Mother's Day.....he gets back tomorrow - we have missed him and I have realized how much he does around here with the kids...wwhheewww). But, really - I love what it means to be a Mom. Yes, with three very young boys, life can be crazy - and it is best not to think too hard about the tremendous responsibility to raise your kids (that can be overwhelming!). But the night time wakings from bad dreams or a hungry baby, the constant request for snacks, the never ending laundry, lots of saying "no","be nice","share","say you're sorry", trying to be consistent with boundaries and discipline, and on and on don't matter much in comparison to looking into the eyes of your little ones and understanding that they are yours - something so incredibly significant that you were part of in creating. Their little precious lives and personalities are amazing and I really feel thankful that I have the opportunity to experience all of this thing called "being a Mom". My boys are very sweet and affectionate and I love each of them more than I ever imagined possible.

5 Times in 1 Day!

I believe we just might be the only family that can say they were stopped by the police 5 times in 1 day......yes, that is right - 5 times! Mexico City has a law that prevents cars from driving on certain days, based on the last number in your license plates, as an attempt to cut down on car pollution (no comment on the effectiveness of this law!) Our "no drive day" is a Monday BUT Mexico City also has a law that allows you to buy a permission sticker that permits you to circulate your car every day of the week if your vehicle passes the emission test. Months ago we passed the test and purchased the permission sticker and have been driving on Mondays ever since (occasinally getting stopped by the police with the reputation for corruption and going through the hassle of proving that we are "ok"). Today we had to drive way up north in the city and it was a special day I guess as we got pulled over 5 different times! It was unbelievable because although they see the sticker on our windshield I guess they think they might get a little heftier bribe when they see our white faces and so they try and try and try to convince us that our sticker is expired. Frustrating but such is the life at times in Mexico City! Thankfully we drove away from each encounter in the right - even though we saw many looks of disappointed on the officer's faces.

My Cutie Patooties

 

Ok, so they are cute...but it doesn't stop there! Look at their amazing talent! (they know how to make breakfast fun!)