Aug/Sept Wrap up

O.K. so this shall conclude my "being behind" in the blogging world. Here is the rest of it all in one shot!

August is such a busy but fun time for our family. We always enjoy looking forward to the fair! We are there everyday, having fun on the rides and enjoying the entertainment. We also cater all the meals for the entertainers so it is busy as well. This year we had the treat of having PaPa from Tennessee join for the last 3 days of the fair. You see PaPa is a huge fan of Chicago and has gone to many of their concerts. So he decided to combine a visit with us and see Chicago in concert and because of some close inside connections he was able to meet the band, get a photo with them and hang out a bit. He was so thrilled and we were glad to share the experience with him. We always enjoy our time with him and are thankful he took the time to come and hang out with us! We love you PaPa!!! (sorry it took so long to get this blog up)

This is a picture of us with the Newsboys....awesome concert!

PaPa and Brian with the kiddos

Daisy and I on her favorite roller coaster!

Brian going on a "pukey" ride with the kids!


Some sprinkler fun before PaPa had to leave on Sunday.


Run Daisy!


Some random dancing in the rain....



Quarterback #12 Jake Poag starts football season in August...




A couple of weekends ago our children decided to become entrepreneurs. It was the last really warm nice weekend we had in September. The neighbor boy across the street set up a lemonade stand as he has often done before. It was a Friday night and it was early evening and I had a friend and her two boys over for pizza. Before we knew it all of our kids were across the street making signs to help the neighbor sell his lemonade. After awhile they asked me to contribute some juice so I did. That stand shut down and the remaining kids came over and set up a little stand with stools on our side of the street in front of our house. We wrapped it up for the evening. The next morning our kids were full on about doing their own stand. So we obliged and I went and got a two gallon container from the hardware store and lemonade from the restaurant. We set up a table, made signs, added a tablecloth, had fresh cut lemons, a cooler with ice, red solo cups and bags of chips. It was a beautiful day and these guys stayed out there till dusk selling lemonade and chips. They made 40 bucks!!! I couldn't believe it! Their were some very generous customers I might add. I did let a few people in on the event so they would be sure to get some traffic, but they had plenty of passerbyers without my help. The thing I loved the most about this wasn't that the kids made some money.....it was the learning experience that went along with it and they were so receptive to that part of it. I helped them understand the investment part that was the two gallon container I bought for 20 bucks and they understood that their first 20 dollars had to go to repay for the supplies. They willingly without complaint brought me the money, I was so proud of them that I decided to gift that to them and they kept their profits. Guess what Jake wants to do every weekend he is here now?? Yep..... it doesn't matter if it's cold or raining.......

These two three year olds were adorable! (notice Daisy's upside down sign)

HA HA HA!!

The stand at the neighbor's

Uncle Chad was thirsty and needed a bag of chips...



Oh yea....I almost forgot....and Tennessee football started.....my enthusiasm lasted for the first game.....apologies to my "T" family, I tried!!

Daisy 1st day of preschool....X2

This week was so busy and so EXCITING for Miss Daisy! She started pre school on Thursday!! She has been waiting so long for this day! I have been wondering for so long how she would do....beings she is unlike any other child I have ever raised! To our surprise she was wonderful! I walked out of her school and looked in the window and said to Brian, "Who is that child?" We certainly didn't expect her to walk right in and over to the kids and start playing. You see she plays this "shy" card all the time and it drives me crazy, because she is far from shy at home! Anyways we had to tell her to hang up her back pack and she breezed by us and to the hooks as if she was a veteran at this school thing! I guess the normal question with sending your last and youngest off to school is if I was sad? One word answers that....NOPE! Now that sounds cold, but honestly, I know that this is probably what Daisy needs and will be very good for her and mom...so sad for something that is good, nope.
So I had been tossing around the idea of putting her in a 2 1/2-3 1/2 Friday morning class that my sis in law is teaching at our church. I decided Friday morning an hour before class started that I would give it a shot. So she is actually going Tues and Thurs. mornings at the Gingerbread House and Fridays at Tiny Treasures.

Orcas Island

The next highlight in our summer was our extended family gathering on Orcas Island. It was so much fun....the weather was incredible.....the time spent around family was pleasant.....soaking in God's wonderful creation was a blessing beyond measure.....celebrating birthdays, and anniversary's.....being blessed by the generosity of our loving grandparents who made it possible for us all to enjoy a wonderful time away from home! Here's a recap of the fun in pictures....it's a rather long slide show as it is all the pictures I took while there, so beware!!

First Day of School!!

It just doesn't seem possible, but the kids had their first day of school today! What seems even more impossible is that we have two in fifth grade, one in third, and one starting preschool!! Where or where does the time go? The girls love school, and always eagerly anticipate the first day....what they're going to wear....who's in their class....what are the teachers going to be like.....and so on. Jake on the other hand, it's not really his thing, I think if he could just play sports everyday all day he would be just fine with that :) Daisy will start school next week at the Gingerbread House. This is the preschool that both Kelsey and Madison attended when they were her age! It will be fun to see her in this environment too!


The girls before we left....

And Daisy looking on at her sisses...

We got lucky this morning, as Jake was getting dropped off for his first day of school we were able to snag him for a quick picture and walk with the big middle schoolers to their classes....

Kelsey getting her locker prepared ....oh this is so exciting :)

Madison excitedly posing by her desk(she's surrounded by boys where she sits)

And her lil sis helping her organize her desk!

Ooops......I forgot about Alice!

Oooops! I need to back up a tad. Here I gave myself credit for still having my mind about me, but I forgot the actual next highlight before our Moses Lake trip! While I was gone in Honduras, Kelsey and Madison started their first of a two week theater camp. For those that have been following my blog for at least a year, you may recall them doing this last summer. So for two weeks they practice 4 hours a day with a group of about 40+ kids. This year and last they do a rendition of a Disney play. This year it was Alice in Wonderland. So upon my return they finished up their last week of practice and then they have 2 performances on the weekend. It really is so amazing how these kids and directors can pull this off in such a short time. The kids are solid in their lines and it is quite entertaining! Kelsey, I might add, is so comfortable on stage, it blows me away! It is so fun to watch the kids find their area of giftedness.....enjoy a recap of our two little stars on stage!








Can you find them?

Moses Lake Vaca Getaway '08

Yep...still not doing too well "catching up"! My husband noted the other day that I have been averaging one post a month...thanks for the reminder, hon! Well at any rate, thankfully I still have a fully functioning mind in which I can recall the next event in our summer. Shortly after I returned from Honduras, the girls, myself and Brian went to Moses Lake over a long 4th of July weekend to cheer on Jake and his team in the Cal Ripken State Baseball Tournament. It was so beautiful there. We stayed in a hotel that was right on the lake, it was hot and the pool at the hotel was so enjoyable. The team did very well, ending up in third place. So enjoy some pixs of our family get away.

The girls dipping their feet in the lake...

Strolling through a park on the lake.

Chillen in the hotel room


The girls!

J.P. playing right field

Up to bat...



On base....

"Catch up" time.......starting where I left off!

Seriously, look at the date of my last posting......seriously this is killing me. I have procrastinated in such a way that the task of "catching up" is daunting. Daily I think I should do it, but do I?.....NO! I don't know where to start or what I should skip or if I should just start over. But so much has happened in the last month with so many pictures that I can't just start over. So this is the start of my attempt to "catch up". All two of our vacations happened in July, so the fun of our summer can't be left out. So feel free to begin this journey with me....hoping that I stay on task to actually complete it.
I will begin where I left off.....Honduras. After giving this much thought and letting so much time escape, I decided I would not give a detailed blog entry on my trip. If you are interested in more details I have a couple of links on the side in which my fellow team mates have done an incredible job of giving an account of our trip. I will however show some pictures with captions that will capture some of my trip. Still the most amazing experience I have ever had, I will never forget this trip. It's interesting how the impact is heightened even more after my return home and still a month later. I am so blessed to have had this opportunity.


The men on the team....

Chad,Verly,Matt,John,Jim

The "sisters" on the team

Angie,Trina,Tanya(me)

The bunk house where we slept. Girls on right, boys on left.

Inside of our sleeping quarters....

The director of the mission our host and guide; not to mention the most amazing, Christ like man I have ever spent time with in my entire life. This man had such an impact on my life and my time in Honduras.

The one in blue is Nellie, Alvin's wife, and an amazing woman herself, she had such a God given spirit about her. The girl at her feet is one of their two daughters, and the gentleman behind is Bent, he works for the mission and was our guide on a few occasions.


Typical surrounding scenery....words or pictures do not describe what our eyes saw day after day.

Massive amounts of garbage consume the land everywhere.


Typical house for a Honduran family.

Street vendor.


The kids would do anything to be embraced. Literally, these kids at a place called Tiny Houses which was a government run facility, would mob you, jump into your arms with smiles that melted your soul and just hold your neck and squeeze as much love out of you as they could in the short amount of time they had with us.

This little boy in particular for me tugged my heart like none other. He ran up to me and grabbed my hand and started running with me through the grounds. I had no idea where he was taking me, nor could I understand him, but it didn't matter. We ran to a swing set where I pushed him on a swing and we just smiled back and forth at one another. He rarely left my side. I would hold him, he would hug me, hold my hand and just absorb every ounce of love I could give him. After a few short hours of being at Tiny Houses this little boy referred to me as mama on a couple different occasions. I wanted to take him home with me, I couldn't obviously, but I hope he feels Jesus' arms around him at all times.

Here I am trying to free my hand from his grip :)

This boy is 5 years old, he was taken off the streets. He has been addicted to sniffing glue(which is the drug of choice) for most of his life.

This breathtaking statue of Jesus was amazing....the view was incredible too.