For Sara and Chris

Hey, Sara and Chris - I thought you would like to see your kids and that all is fine on the home-front. We are having the time of our life.... I am posting some pictures for you, as you will notice I am not in these pictures, but believe you me...it's not because I am not doing anything! I just am the one taking pictures. Grant is at his first "play date" right now with Samuel Henry and Mason is sleeping. I heard that the Ohio River Valley is supposed to have the "storm of the century" on Fri, Sat, Sun (which is the days we are to travel home) and so I came to the library to check out the rumor. (I think we will be fine going home, it doesn't sound that bad.)

Know that your Grandfather has had to keep busy, and it has been very cold here in Florida. So he has straightened the garage, unplugged sinks, changed light bulbs, cleaned the back porch, washed windows, and he is now touching up the paint in the kids room! He wears me out, but is so funny.

Here are more pictures of your kids...we hug them and kiss them all the time for you. Grant seems to know that Mommy and Daddy are "taking care of sick people". He is okay with that until he sees Mommy holding some other child's hand, or Daddy talking to someone in your pictures, then he says he "doesn't want to share his Mommy and Daddy".

Your Grandfather talked to your pastor yesterday and emailed him your blog address, etc... Grandpa follows your blog religiously...he cries every time he reads it. He was very moved by Chris's comments and every time he talks about it, he still cries.

Love you both...wish we could see what you are seeing...and experiencing what you are experiencing. We so look forward to the next posting and pictures when you get out of the "bush country" and back to some semblance of civilization. Mom

Christmas Season

We surely had a very very busy Christmas season. It's too bad that "busy-ness" is such a part of Christmas. Our "hulla-ba-loo" started on Dec 18th with the Andrew Peterson Christmas show - where over 600 people came for a most moving Christmas presentation beginning with Genesis through Easter... I got goosebumps when they started singing "salvation has come"..."salvation has come".... and the drums got louder and louder and then on the overhead screen there appeared Jesus hanging on the cross and the song "behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world"... It made my Christmas... Christmas eve held over 800 people and then Sunday Services...along with all kinds of family parties! The night before Christmas both Steve and I were totally exhausted.



































My Christmas did not really begin until New Years eve when Jason, Kendra, Kinsen, Jaybin, Stephanie and Daniel, Steve and I (along with Steve's Mom, Dad) gathered in the Great Smokey Mountains. Steve and I rented a 4 bedroom/bath log home for a week on the top of a mountain overlooking a gorgeous valley. We opened gifts, played games, and more games....the kids taught us "Poker", knowing that their parents do not play any gambling games...so they disguised it by calling it "Rekop" (which is Poker backwards). We actually enjoyed the game... Hummmm. We all went into Pigeon Forge to a place that is called "Magic Quest". We had so much fun - it took us 2 days to complete our quest. The children had magic wands and had to solve puzzles, fight dragons, talk to gnomes... I had never seen anything like this before. It was incredible. We had so much fun

The kids all left today (about noon) and Steve and I are sitting here in the great big log cabin, with the fireplace lit, holding hands, talking about the wonderful week we had with our kids.















Sara and Chris left for Africa the day we arrived in Tennessee. She is having quite the cultural shock. For those of you who wish to follow their medical missionary trip, her blogsite is http://www.grantworley.com/ and then she has published her pictures (and there are even some of her kissing a giraffe) at http://www.masonworley.com/ We missed the Worley family terribly - but they are so happy. Sara said that Chris is loving it so far...he always wondered if he was called to be a missionary doctor...this will be very interesting to see if they also go to the mission field. I know that our youngest daughter and her husband want to go into missions. They are currently paying off Daniel's seminary schooling and then I figure they will go. It would be terribly funny if both of our daughters went on the mission field as I always told the Lord he could do anything with my children but send them overseas!

2 weeks of pure entertainment

Sara and Chris came home for Thanksgiving from Jacksonville FL to spend a couple of weeks in Indiana before they take off for their month's missionary work in Africa in January. We really enjoyed having them at home...we were so busy. Chris left after 3-4 days, but Sara and the boys stayed for 2 weeks. Which was good because I will be watching them for the month of January, and they do not know me very well.

We sure did alot of fun things while they were here... We went to the zoo, to a gymnastic club, we played on a zip line and played in the leaves... My yard has so many leaves... it takes forever to rake them but the kids thought raking leaves was a real treat, so one day we raked the entire yard and jumped in them for 2 hours... Kids make work so much fun!

It was rather sad to see them leave for Florida again, but it won't be long and I will go down to Jacksonville for 2 weeks to watch the boys while Sara and Chris will be on a month long medical mission trip.

Our entire family came to our home for Thanksgiving. I was so excited to use my brand new Dining room table and chairs.

When Stef and Dan moved back to Indiana, they needed a dining room table and chairs. We had been using Jayna's great-great grandmother's Dining room table and chairs for 33 years . I was afraid if Stef purchased a table/chairs, then in a few years when we are ready to scale down our posessions, no one would want this family heirloom, so we gave it to her now.

I pulled out my china and I had a wonderful time getting ready for our party.

This will be the only time this holiday season that we will have all our children and grandchildren together since Sara and Chris will be going to serve as Missionaries in Africa over Christmas.

This year is supposed to be getting better...

The week after the birthday party, I was running between the church and the office complex, tripped over a post and landed on my chin... Off to the emergency room for a few stitches and then many trips to the dentist as I had sprained my jaw and my teeth were out of alignment. Talk about alot of pain! Ibuprofen was my best friend for a couple of weeks. A piece was fit for my mouth...the whole while I am still teaching 2 bible studies, and doing special music for the United Methodist Women's conference meeting the day after my fall.

A week goes by and I thought I had a sore throat, but it kept getting worse. I started running a high fever. Could it be the swine flu? Oh, no a trip to the doctor said I was fine, so a couple more days of misery that would not end, I made my way to the dentist's office and wouldn't you know it...I had developed an infection that caused me to have to have a wisdom tooth extracted the day before Sara and Chris came for Thanksgiving (which was Nov 20th). By the time I finally got around to going to the doctor the infection was pretty advanced. I was taking 2 different anti biotics - which we all know causes other problems intestinally... How in the world am I going to be able to host Thanksgiving dinner for my family of 14 while on pain killers and strong anti biotics -- Man do I feel old...

Nov 6th

In the midst of getting the animated light show up and running, I planned my step-father's 80th birthday party! I asked what kind of party Daren would enjoy...Mom said "let's have soup beans and corn bread". Oh, my. I have never made soup beans...and how do you have a beautiful birthday party while serving soup beans? Yes, it was a challenge...but we managed to pull the party off beautifully!

Wow, it's been a long time

Woah - it has been a long time since I've written in the blog. Life has been so busy - hardly time to breathe. Life should not be like that... we need to slow down...

In 2007 Steve had the brainy idea that Grace UMC needed to begin an animated Christmas light show on the outside of the church building. Everyone said that "It can't be done"..."we are an older congregation"...."there isn't anyone who can do this kind of thing"...well, don't say it can't be done to us... Jayna began researching the programs, did a lot of calling around, visited other animated light shows in the area and ...last year (right after Steve's heart attack) we strung, hung, and lit over 30,000 lights on the side of the church building. So, once again, come November, the process began. You cannot imagine all of the hours it takes to produce something of this magnitude. Not only did it take a cherry picker, professional "hangers" and expert electrical engineers, we utilize computer guru's and sound techincians...all overseen by "yours truly". I never imagined that when I became a pastor's wife that I would be going to town hall meetings to get streets closed and learn computer software, but here I am today - stretched beyond my capacity and loving every moment - okay I didn't love it when I had to call support to get the thing up and running again, but other than that, once the lights began dancing...it made it all worth while.

Right after Christmas we are going to begin the process of programming an animated portrayal of the birth of Christ..I'm very excited about trying to do this. It's going to be great! Okay I think it's going to be great ...if we can figure it all out. This year we tried to figure out how to put our list of songs in groupings and we fried the monster brain and had to order a new one..ugh!