thoughts from the deep recesses

Heat wave! I've been holding out for one last summer hurrah and it finally arrived! We had weather in the upper 70's over the weekend and it's supposed to be 82 today... I had to dig some summer clothes out of the basement... I'd already done the summer/winter wardrobe switch! Kyler placed fifth in his invitational race last Saturday... His team had 7 runners in the top ten... they're ROCKIN' it this year! Go Tigers!!! There were over 200 runners in the JV race, so I'm pretty stinkin' proud of a fifth place finish. Sometimes when I go to take pictures off my memory card, I find weird stuff that the kids have done... case in point: See that hat E. is wearing above? He's been wearing it non-stop for about three years. It's currently missing in action... and I have one devastated ten-year-old. Hope we can find it... makes me sad to lose it too - it's been such a big part of his life for so long, it's like losing an old friend. Last week was

Working hard lately on a new blog... eager to share it with you. It's a blog just for our trip... a place for people to connect to our story. It's taking more time than I expected, but it's going to be so cool. And so I haven't been here much. Watch for it soon.

I actually read a fiction book over the past week. I hated it. I mean - I loved it for the first half and then it just kept getting more and more ridiculous. The author left about a million questions unanswered in the most smarmy 'love conquers all' way. THIS is why I don't waste my time with fiction. Argh. For those of you who are wondering it was called "Sundays at Tiffanys". I highly don't recommend it. I have about three million things to do today. Asia's been gone this week... he's on a review team (like his old job) for a federal review of Washington. It's what he did when he flew to Kentucky last year. It means LONG days for him. He comes home tonight. I got my manual for being the team leader for our trip to Sierra Leone in the mail on Monday. I'm SO at peace about the whole thing. If feels VERY good to actually have it on the calendar. Instead of saying "Someday we want to take the kids to see Tejan" I get to say "We&

Kyler had his first invitational meet on Saturday. They split the boys up into grade level races - so he ran the sophmore race. He had a great race. Finished 12th out of 98 sophmores who ran. It was a 2.5 mile course and his time was 14:33. This picture was taken when he came around the last (super sharp) corner into the chute... I LOVE the look of determination on his face. He's got an amazing kick at the end of his races... he turned it on and passed this guy and another one in the chute... such an exciting finish. His team took first place of all the school's sophmore teams... they had four runners in the top twelve. That's how you win cross country meets. Having one or two fast guys is great... but having four or five who can consistantly perform like that wins meets. I'm so excited to see how these boys shape up over the next few years... it's going to be a fun ride. You can see his race results here: Meadlander Invitational Results

I love to read non-fiction. One of my favorite ways to spend an afternoon is perusing the new non-fiction shelves at the library, then bringing home a nice big stack... I usually read two or three at a time, leaving them on my nightstand so I can grab whichever one I'm in the mood for at the time. So here's what's there right now: This autobiography of George Muller was a gift from the pastor who oversaw my internship at church last year. He handpicked a book for each intern, based on what he learned about us over the course of our time together... he chose this book for me because George Muller believed great things from God in terms of provision... Russ (my pastor) knew that our trip to Sierra Leone is a huge step of faith in that arena... I'm reading it slowly - a chapter here and a chapter there... but loving the faith of this amazing man of god. Green Like God : I'm so excited about the church becoming more aware and active in the environmental movement... i

Off they go... Our second year with one in highschool, one in junior high and one in elementary school... Love these kids.