Day After Thanksgiving (in the U.S.)

Hi everyone. I sure hope your Thanksgiving was great. We had a wonderful day spent with friends and new friends. Bill didn't get called in to work until later in the afternoon ... yay! We were hoping to spend lots of good quality holiday time with him and we got it. A lovely couple from our church invited us to dine at their home & fun was had by all. We are so thankful to have the abundance we have in this country. Abundance was discovered and conquered yesterday as we stuffed and then waddled :)

Never underestimate the power of an invitation for someone to join you or your family for a holiday or even just an everyday meal. It meant so much to us to be able to spend our time with others instead of by ourselves or by myself had Bill been called in to work earlier. You never know what your invitation may mean to another person. So why not invite someone (or a family) to a meal this month, and/or, for Christmas?

I am also so very thankful for computer programs and generous friends who shared theirs with me. Because of their kindness I was able to create a 'work of art' (in my world of computer learnin') for my Craigslist ad. We are selling items in order to raise money for the mission trip coming up. See what I put together... it only took.. well, I am not telling how long it took, I was just glad to be able to get it done! :) I've actually had a couple calls on the items too! One man contacted me to say he didn't want any of the items but wanted to donate! How wonderful is that? God bless him!
Update on Craigslist sale: Jacket sold today and the buyer knew the cause and donated an extra $3 dollars. Yay! and God bless her too!

Faithfulness and Thankfulness

How cool is our God? We are truly seeing blessings as a result of our decision to go on the mission trip to Kenya. A friend was sharing about our trip to a neighbor of hers and this neighbor pulls some money right out of his pocket and gives it to her to pass to the Kenya fund! Wow! Many thanks to both individuals. There are many many stories like this that I could, and probably, will share.

I gotta go and get baking. We have a "spudraiser" fundraiser after church in the morning. Betcha never heard of a spudraiser before, huh? We are selling baked potatoes/fixins, dessert and drink for $6/adult and hot dogs, dessert, & drink for those under 11 years old for $3. We are also auctioning off various scrumptious goodies. One of my apple pies will be auctioned and I am hoping it will bring in a good donation.

If you are in the area of Loveland, CO stop in and you could be a part of the spudtastic extravaganza.
10am service starts and by 12pm the festivities will probably be underway at
Message of Life Ministries
605 S.W. 18th St.
http://messageoflife.com/

Come help us help the orphans in Kenya, Africa.

I have had success! The pie looks good! The crust was a bit ornery but I beat it into submission ;) I was a little bummed that the crust shapes got a little higglety pigglety as they were supposed to represent the orphans. Each one was a little person shape. Some got cracked and misshapen. As I am typing this I am thinking we are all a bit off from perfect? This pie is a better representation of the orphans (and those of us going to help them) than I thought. mmmm.

It's Never too early...

Anyone who knows me well (who am I kidding?.. anyone who knows me...) knows that I am not a morning person. This is not of what I speak...

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and I, for one, have many many things to be thankful for.

I must say I am thankful for pressies recieved from a friend. They are a perfect match for my dinnerware AND I was getting bored with my plain glasses. I will bless someone with mine and enjoy these new beauties.

I would be remiss if I didn't say I am also thankful for clean water right from my faucet inside the house. Apparently, in Kenya, the water is a lovely shade of brown orange! I can't wait!

I must remember to be thankful for computers... I must I must... I've just put the picture back in the post for the 4th time...now 5th time! I keep erasing it. I am sure there is an easier way to set the layout... If there is, I haven't found it. I keep erasing the picture with one touch of the delete or backspace button. DOH!I wonder if there is a limit to how many times the same picture can be loaded and re-loaded? I really do not want to find out Argh!

More to be thankful for in upcoming posts.

Dontcha wish you were in my kitchen today?

MMMmmmMMM did it smell good! We are fundraising for the Africa Mission trip and are hosting a lunch at the Sheriff's Office. Part of the lunch is a bake sale. So many lovely ladies helped me with baking (THANK YOU LADIES!) and my kitchen smelled so yummie while I was wrapping goodies. On the plastic wrapping note do I ever recommend the "restaurant" style plastic wrap you can get at Sam's Club. It comes in this ginormous roll and has a slider/cutter (no more sliced fingers or stretched wrap! wooo hooo!) It was so easy to package all the goodies into individual portions.

Some of my day sure was a challenge... I got cream cheese spread instead of cream cheese, I got waay too many rice crispies (note to self... rice crispie treats for me!), the pie crust dough sure was obnoxious!.. the list could go on. I must say I got a lot accomplished. I did succeed in not having the oven empty for too long. Yee haw!

Going to sleep now. sssssnnnooorrre!

Here are some pictures... from mid-event! It was a wonderful success and a BIG THANK YOU TO ALL WHO SUPPORTED US IN ANY WAY! We could not do this mission trip without you!

Aren't National Park Service Sites Great?

My hubbie & I enjoy spending time exploring the National Park Service sites. National Parks are his favourite & his goal is to get to each one. I think, at last count, he is half way there. On this last trip to KY we hit several sites .. 7.. I think. Here is some of the evidence. The park service does such a great job maintaining & preserving history & beautiful lands. I used to work for
the NPS & I enjoyed contribuiting to the mission.














This was our favourite park. There were surprise showers there. Yay for cleanliness! We were tent camping on this trip and didn't realize the campground we stayed in had showers and not only had them they were SUPER clean! :) To say the least I was very very happy.
We did a lot of things at this park. I wrote about puppie friends and the hike we did .. I think that was my favourite.














This is in the Louis area. It was a beautiful day and a neat glimpse into family life of a historical figure. We shared a tour with only two other women so we got to get lots of questions answered by our guide :)













Here is our campsite at Mammoth Cave NP. We did not get a picture of their sign. I do not remember why. We did a cave tour here and there was a great bike trail. Check it out if you are in the area.














Our next travel will be coming up at the end of January into early Feb. We will be traveling with a group from our church to Kenya Africa. Never been to Kenya before but we are very excited to go on this mission trip. I will probably post here more about our preparations. We need to get our shots... eeek ! Not so much a fan of shots... am more of a fan of not getting sick or dead... so must get shots! :) We are going to be working in an orphanage and with churches in the area. Pray for us as we are raising the money to go. Not sure where it is all going to come from but we are believing it will come in. :) More another day. 'til then.. ta tahh! Here is a link to a map of the area we will be in :
http://www.maplandia.com/kenya/rift-valley/nyahururu/
The town is called Nyahururu and I will have to learn to say it too!
More in the future...

Wow! Where have I been?

Wow. I have been in hiding apparently. Eeeek. We did finally return from vacation. Our time away was great and here are some pics.

This picture is us in our truck on a ferry crossing the Green River. The car ferry is needed because the road is interrupted by the river or vice versa. It was cool to go on. I wonder how many times the man who runs the ferry goes across in one day!? We were in Mammoth Cave National Park, KY.

This picture is of my doggie friends. On our last day in Cumberland Gap we hiked the White Rocks Trail. At the trailhead there was a man and two dogs and he asked us did we want them. It seems these dogs have adopted him and hike with him each day. They show up a the trailhead and hike with him or whoever gives them attention. They met up with us several times on the hike. The trail was recommended by a few people and rightly so, it was great! In many places it was steep but well worth it for the views.
Yup, here is the view from the top. It was a grunt to get there but you can see forever. It was really nice. There was one other person up there and we asked him to take our picture. This way we have evidence we were really there and this was not someone else's picture.

A little baseball anyone? On our way back thru St. Louis we got to see the last two Cardinals games of the '08 season. :( They didn't go into the post season but we did enjoy the games. This was our first time to the new Busch Stadium. It is very very similar to Coors Field in Denver. Obviously there is a different view. Check out the Arch in the left side of the picture. So cool!

The view from our seats was great. It was a beautiful day in St. Louis.