Up, Up We Go!!

The kids and I were invited to the mountains this weekend by my aunt and my great friend and cousin Kara. It was the most relaxing and refreshing time away so far this summer. The kids were in heaven!!

There was a small creek behind the cabin which we visited every morning and it brought hours our imaginative play for Trey, Bre and Maddie. I was completely amazed at how well they all played together, worked as a team and made each other laugh. Such treasured moments!

Bre was in her adventurous and exploratory mode. She would wonder up stream on her own until I'd yell for her to come back. She just "needed" to see where the stream lead.

We also headed out to the "big" creek every afternoon for some water fun!!

And the highlight of every day was aunt Kara's chauffeured four wheeler rides around the property. (I'm pretty sure by day three Kara was rolling her eyes at each request.)

Maddie loved to read to the kids. (even when one of them was easily distracted)

We watched movies!

Roasted Marshmallows

It was a fantastic time. Thanks so much Aunt Sheryl and Kara for letting us join you at the lodge. We loved every minute of laughing, chit chatting and exploring!!

Oh, this is Spikey. Spikey was adopted by Trey into our family at the cabin and came home with us. He was a fun and accommodating member. I say "was" because, well, lets just say Spikey got a little too much sun exposure while we were in McDonald's chowing down our supper and he was waiting in the car. You had a good life little guy!

When I Grow Up!!!

I was informed last week that my little girl is going to be a cowgirl when she grows up. Ever since then her dress up attire has included this spiffy mixture of cowgirl necessities!!

Apparently bull riding will also be in her future. And who knew cowgirls wear shiny satin skirts while riding......bulls??!!??

To throw more confusion in the pot. During quiet time that day I found her fast asleep with her pirate patch on. I'm confused that's all!

Costa Rica

As many of you already know we took a missions trip with our church youth group this summer to Pura Vida Missions in Costa Rica. Amazingly enough the base we were staying at was just down the street from the Cowboys With A Mission base.

This trip brought back so many memories of our Mission Adventure days. The program our group went through was exactly like the MA program we ran at CWAM.

We had a hard, challenging, life changing, fun, amazing, hot and sweaty time during this missions trip.

This was our sleeping quarters for several nights during the training phase of our outreach. I ran for the bottom bunk. There was no way I was climbing up to the third bunk when lights went out.

Our outreach was at Jaco Beach with a Mennonite church that was just establishing their congregation about 1/2 mile from the beach. It was 95 degrees and 100% humidity while we were there. By far the hottest and sweatiest outreach I've been on.

Jaco Beach is a surfing town. Can you tell??
Arlan had a lot of fun kicking around the soccer ball with one of the kids from the church.

At the church we did several work projects. Fixing the moldy ceiling was one job that required you to drip in sweat.....no, let me rephrase that......get completely drenched in sweat. It was a mess.
Fixed some of the holes in the floor with concrete.Every afternoon we had kids club or vacation Bible school for the community kids. Everyone was involved with this and it was a great time to interact with all the people around us.

It was great to see the youth grow deeper in their relationship with God and go to many uncomfortable lengths to serve those around us. We are very proud of them and all they did and gave up during this trip.