Motivation to clean the Garage

I have found my motivation! We have been in our house almost 2 years and it seems that if we have no where to put something it ends up in the garage. As you can see many things have piled up over time. So what is my motivation you ask?

Mission is my motivation!! Chris and I are presented with an opportunity to go with our church, Trinity Lutheran Church of Ventura,  on a mission trip to Ambergris Caye, Belize in January.

 

 

 

We will be traveling down to work at Holy Cross Anglican School. The school was built in 2006 to help the children of San Metao on Ambergris Caye have  a place to go to school. Before the school was built there was not enough classroom space for all the children that needed to go to school. This school was built so the children would have a low cost and some a no cost opportunity at an education. Here are 2 videos that tell about the history of the school, video 1 and video 2 they are very touching to watch. The school has been a great asset to the community of San Metao because they have been working hard to give the children skills they can use as thy grow up. The school has a computer lab and a sewing room and what we are planning to build is a workshop that will be used for future construction projects around the school as well as teaching the kids how to use tools for new skills.

 

Along with updates on the family in general I am going to use my blog to share my journey preparing for the mission trip as well as the trip itself.

 

My first step is to start raising money so we are able to participate. We have a goal of $2,500.00 so that we can get to Belize and house us and feed us while we are there. We as a whole mission team will also be raising $3,000-$6,000 to build our project. Any money Chris and I make over our $2500 goal we plan to either add to the project fund above the $6,000 or use the money to purchase supplies we can take down to the school. In order to raise the money we will be holding some garage sales in the next few months as well as saving a portion of paychecks will go toward the mission trip, I am looking into other ways to raise the money to go as well.

 

Check back for more updates on the progress of the garage/garage sale and other fundraising avenues I will be undertaking.

New School Year, New Schedule Juggling

We begin our new school year at the end of Summer. This picture was taken at El Camino Pines, an amazing summer camp both Chris and I were lucky enough to attend and work at in our youth. Heath went up for a week of camp with several other Middle School Youth and our new youth director at church Sean. He had a blast, and Chris and I were so excited he was there we decided to surprise him on the last day and pick him up! He showed us some fun things he did while he was up there and Kaylee was really excited to be out in the wilderness.

Chris and I kept talking about how much we love being up at El Camino Pines that we are planning on taking the kids back to a family retreat in November. I am really excited about it because the theme is Full.. Not Busy which I hope will help us become more intentional with our interactions to create and authentic life.













The new School Year started for Heath first, He is in the 7th grade now! I can't believe how grown up he is starting to be!

Kaylee is now in Kindergarten and both kids start around the same time so that has been fun juggling the two of them. Not to mention Chris is back at school so between all the school classes and my job we do a fair amount of creative scheduling to get through our week. I don't have a picture of Chris on his first day of class but here is one of Kaylee as she begins her adventure of school.

Kaylee has also started soccer this year and is doing pretty good, She has had one game and almost scored a goal, which is pretty good since she hadn't been to a single practice before hand!

I would like to give credit to my sister Malyssa for this awesome collage that she made of Kaylee's first game!

Back in action

Back on the blog here. Not sure if anyone reads it since I haven't posted in a long time. I am working part time and doing a lot of work at my church. I have become a member of the social media team and we just started a blog for church so I thought it might be a good idea to get back to this blog and do some writing. Updates on the family... Chris is going to school and to do a little bragging on him he just got a 99% on his latest math test! Today is our 6 year wedding anniversary. Heath is in 6th grade and involved in church and track. Kaylee is in her last year of preschool and will be headed to kindergarten in the fall.

Same Old Same Old

Life has been much of the same for the last couple of months. Chris is out of the Navy, we are back in Ventura and it is summer which means there is not much in the ways of scheduling. Heath has Benn going to day camp and even spent a day painting with Grandma Marlys and Great Boo.

Kaylee continues to prove herself my daughter and has taken up coloring on the walls. I have however decided to make her clean up her messes... well at least a little :)

One Day Without Shoes

How many of us have more shoes then we want to admit? or even count? I am guilty of an obsession with shoes and I have way more then I can ever need. There are so may people around the world who don't even have 1 pair of shoes! Can you believe that some people DIE because they don't have a pair of shoes, and I don't mean "oh I will just die if I can't have those designer shoes!" No people who don't have shoe can get cuts and sores on their feet which open them up to disease and infection that can be dibilitating nd even cause death! Today TOMS SHOES is asking everyone to go barefoot to raise awareness that this is a problem. Toms Shoes is a company that donates a pair of shoes to someone without when you buy a pair from them SO the next tme you get the urge to buy new shoes Check out http://www.toms.com/ there you can help someone else out with your purchase. So today I am supporting the day without shoes come join me!

Update on life

Last weekend was a great Easter/Birthday party for Grandma Ginger. Chris being off work for a few days was excited to get the heck outta dodge. We arrived in Arizona at 3 or 4 am, we weren't sure beacuse the helpful cell phone changed to mounitan time but then I was reminded that Arizona is strange and we really didn't change time when we entered the state. So I guess you can't always trust the phone!

In Arizona Chris worked on his Golf game like all the men in the family do when they get together. He did pretty good for sporadic golfer and he looked like he fit right in on the course.

The Easter Bunny was good to the kids and thi
s year Kaylee was able to actully hunt for eggs. She figured out how good chocloate eggs are and kept eating them with the foil on. I'm surprised she didn't turn to chocolate wit how much she ate last weekend.

We did get a nice family picture while we were thereso that is a good thing!

Like Mother Like Daughter

While we are watching a movie in the livingroom I hear the clinking of silverware in the kitchen and out walks this.... She has knocked the cake off the counter and decided she needed the whole thing :) the only bummer is that since it had been on the floor after I took the picture I had to throw a good chocolate cake away!