My Last Summer Adventure

The last week in August, I was able to take one more summer trip and visit my family and friends in North Carolina. 

The main reason I wanted to go home was to meet my sweet litte neice, Reegan Nicole.  I loved getting a chance to bond with her while I was home! One of my favorite memories of the week was when I got to take care of her for a whole night.  I got just a little taste of what it would be like to have a new born, although, I did get to go home and sleep, afterwards, which was nice :) Another favorite memory was getting to play with Taylor.  She came home with mom one night and we played memory and took Peaches out for a walk; she loves Peaches!!

A few other wonderful memories: coffee with the Perezs and their sweet little Lucy, coffee with my cousin Britt(the first time we've really hung out in over a year), dinner and girl time with my favorite ladies in Charlotte, and getting to meet Jess' new class(she has some real cute kids this year!).  All in all, it was a wonderful week. 

Now, just alittle longer and my Love will be home.  I've not started the countdown yet, that will come at day 50, but it's getting close!  God has been so faithful to give me the strength to get through every day without Isaac.  I am so thankful for His grace on the hard days and even more thankful that with every passing day, He is bringing me one day closer.

Here a just a few pictures from my trip home:

Me with both my sweet neices :)

Taylor just loves helping me with Peaches!

I love the quiet peacefulness of having a cup of coffee on my parents front porch

One of my favorite views of home, other than the mountain

Adventures with 3:16.

A few weeks ago, I was able to travel with out youth group to Camp Willow Run in North Carolina as their camp nurse. 

 I was told before I left that I was going as just a precaution, and mostly to give out medications if needed, but otherwise, they didn't suspect that I would really be needed as a nurse.  I don't think I'll ever believe that if I'm told again.  One of the lessons I learned was that if a nurse is there, a nurse will be needed.  The kids(and counselors) kept me very busy in the 3 days that we were there.

Nonetheless, it was some of the best 3 days of my summer. We have an exceptional group of teens at our church.  I enjoyed, so much, getting a chance to get to know some of them.  I was very impressed with how they led worship, prayed for each other, included everyone, and all around, seemed to be on fire for the Lord. 

The three days we were there were filled with tons of fun stuff for everyone to do.  There was canoeing, a high ropes course, archery, volleyball, soccar, a lake to swim in and the red shark...although i was not a fan of the red shark because that was what kept me pretty busy on Thur afternoon. We also had group devotions every morning, morning and evening worship(which I loved), camp olympic games every morning, and all ending with the big skit night, which I got to be a judge for.  The skits were very imaginative and creative!  I laughed most of the night while watching them. 

All in all, it was a wonderful few days! I hope I get to join them again next year.

Here's a few of the pictures from the week.

Rancho 3M 2012

Ok, this is gonna be a long blog post with tons of pictures, so bear with me.  I just fell in love with this place, so it's hard not to just talk and talk and talk about it :)

About 2 weeks ago, I had the blessing to travel with a wonderful team to Rancho 3M in Guadelupe, Mexico.  It was by far, one of the best weeks of my life.  As we pulled up to the ranch around 9ish at night, the kids were so excited to see us that they started running towards our vans, and as soon as the doors opened and we could get out, they were jumping into our arms, taking our hands and leading us to the playground, and entering our hearts in a way that none of us could have imagined. I was completely overwhelmed (in a good way) at how excited the kids were and how quickly they attached themselves to us. 

Throughout the next week, our team was able to serve the ranch in several projects.  I was on the painting team, where I had the privilege to help paint almost an entire house for one of the staff families in preparation for their new baby who will hopefully be here very soon :)  We were able to get 5 raised beds planted in their orchard with vegetables and complete with a compost heap.  One of my favorite ladies, and best friends, Alicia, was able to serve by cutting the girls hair while several other girls on the team spent time curling and styling the girls' hair and painting their nails.  We had a team install ceiling fans in the school, and fix swamp coolers.  And we were able to do crafts and projects with the kids every day.

Night time was my favorite, when all the projects were finished and dinner was done, we were just able to spend time with the children playing tether ball, swinging on the swings, running around, playing various sports, playing cards( and getting very badly beaten in these card games) and just generally loving on the kids.  Night time was also the time when our pastor, Eric, did a class with the older kids.  The topic was on dating, and why, when you're so young and like each other, it's still God's plan to wait until your married.  A few of us were able to share our stories of how God has worked in our lives in this area with the older kids during these classes.

Sunday was probably my favorite day.  We went to the Sovereign Grace church in Juarez, Mexico with all the kids.  I was able to ride the bus with the kids which was so much fun, listening to their music and singing and dancing with them.  The church was wonderful, in my opinion a little taste of what Heaven will be like, different nationalities, coming together as one to worship God with all we have.  Eric preached a wonderful message on Holiness that I was very thankful to hear.  Then after church, we took the kids to Carl Jrs.(Hardees) and ate lunch and played with the kids in the play place for hours.  Again, it was so much fun to get to spend that time with the kids.  On the bus ride home, they all crashed.  A sweet little girl slept in my arms the entire bus ride home.  It was a perfect day.

This ranch touched my heart in a way that I definitely didn't expect.  I loved getting to spend time with the kids.  God showed me while I was there, that there is much more to live for than the weak American Dream that so many people are striving for.  It's something I've been thinking a lot about lately, but this trip solidfied the fact that I don't want that to be all I live for.  God has put us here for much more than to work and earn money for ourselves and our own enjoyment.  I'm thankful for that realization.  My prayer is that I will continue to be convicted of this long after the high from the trip ends.  I'm also praying that God will lead me back to the ranch, hopefully next year and for years to come.

Here's a few of my favorite pictures from the week :)

 This game is much harder than it looks and the kids are pretty good.  I lost every time I tried to play



Nate had fun demonstrating the correct way to burn our trash. 

This cute kid jumped in my arms the first night and told me he loved me.  He stole my heart right away :) 

I enjoyed so much getting to know these 2 girls more, it was a privilge to ge tto work with them. 

We taught the kids how to do Chinese jump rope, they loved it and played it for the whole week. 

These girls made pies and pizzas to sell to us 

This cute kid beat me in tether ball about 20 times in a row and just laughed at me the whole time, it was so much fun to play with him! 

My dear friend, Alicia, serving the girls by cutting all their hair and making them feel like princesses for a day 

The kids loved being spun around and around on this tire swing. It made all of us adults sick every time we got on it, I have no idea how they weren't sick, they woudl just laugh and scream in delight. 

It was a blessing having some 6'5" or taller people on our team to help us with the ceilings. 

Juan is getting ready to show everyone how Chinese jump rope is done 

My buddy Christian and Ramon, 2 awesome older boys at the ranch 

Team America definitely got killed my the kids, but I think they put up a very respectable fight 

Morning devotions 

Our painting team 

the beautiful landscape we were able to see every day 

Summer Visitors

This summer has been such a fun and busy summer.  God has blessed me in so many ways.  One of those ways has been the many summer visitors I've gotten to host in the past 2  months.  I love being a military wife, but one of the hard things about it is leaving all my friends and family behind.  So it has been such a treat to have some of those friends and family choose to take their vacation up in Va Beach. 

At the beginning of the summer, my dear friends Brandon and Ashley came up here for his uncle's retirement ceremony.  It was so fun to get to show them around my new home city.  We went shopping, mostly cause Ashley always knows where the good sales are :) and we went to the aquarium.  I had never been to one, so that was a lot of fun.

Then a few weeks later, my mom and a sweet friend from church, Courtney came up with her daughter, Nora.  It was great to finally show my home to my mom, who's been wanting to come up here since we moved.  And I was thankful for some much needed girl time with her and Courtney. 

Then most recently, this week, my long time friend, Brenna came and brought her beautiful daughter, Lucy to visit.  Brenna is one of my best friends from forever and a day ago and it was so nice to spend a few days catching up on life with her and getting to know her sweet daughter more.  We went for coffee at my favorite coffee shop here in Chesapeake, Cafe Moka, and yesterday, I took her on her first touristy beach trip down to the Va Beach oceanfront.  It was also Lucy's first beach trip ever.  While the water and waves were not too impressive to Lucy, she did love the sand and getting to eat it :)

All 3 visits were so wonderful to have and such a great way to make the time fly as I'm waiting on my husband to come home in a few months.  God definitely blessed me with some sweet friends.

Here's few pictures from all the trips:

This is Lucy, such an adorable baby!! 

This is Brandon and Ashley.  We went down to the peir at the aqaurium and got yelled at, but at least we got a good picture out of it.

This is Courtney and Nora.  It was so great time them here along with my mom!