I have an amazing opportunity this February to serve in an orphanage in China. It is called Morning Star Family Home. An American couple, Bill and Lynsay Lewis, run it and take care of babies that have medical and surgical needs. The goal of the Morning Star Foundation is to provide each child they touch with the best medical care available, treating each child with the same love, care, and prayerful thought as we would our own children when making decisions that affect their daily life, health care and future. They provide the children a home with medical care they need, including raising money for their care and any procedures or surgeries they might have. In China, this is harder than it sounds. Sometimes the children are even taken out of the country to get the care they need. Recently one of their children had heart surgery in Israel, because they had no one who had the expertise to do it in China. If you want to, you can find more information at www.morningstarproject.org or visit their blog which has links to their website at www.morningstarproject.blogspot.com .

My opportunity to serve with them comes in February. February is the Chinese New Year and their staff all go home to celebrate with their families. They have volunteers come and take care of the babies and that is what I will be doing. I will be going from February 8 – 17.

First, I would like to ask you to pray for me. I know the trip will go more smoothly if I have many people praying for me back home. I would also ask that you keep Morning Star in your prayers. I will also need to raise the funds for the trip. The main portion of the cost will be the airline ticket, which is approximately $1100.00; I will also need to get a visa that costs $130.00. The remaining cost is only about $45.00, which is $5 a day for food. So the total cost is about $1300 total for this trip. If I raise any extra money I will use it to buy supplies to take with me. If you would like to donate to my trip please make a check out to Flipside church and mail it to me in the enclosed envelope. I will then turn it in to the church.

I would like to thank you for taking the time to consider being a part of my trip. I know God has great things in store for me during this trip!

Carmel with Paul

Paul and I went to Carmel for our 12th anniversary. We had a great time. My pictures are backwards sorry. I'm still trying to figure out how the downloading works. It was beautiful and we got lucky with perfect weather. We went to the Monterey Aquarium and the next day we went to Pebble Beach and the 17 mile drive. The last day we drove down the coast on the way home. I feel so lucky to live in such a beautiful state.




















































This is what we came home to. The kids worked very hard to make our homecoming nice. Devon especially has a hard time when we leave but she wanted to make our homecoming special. She cut out all the letters herself and Nicole and Merrick helped with all the signs. Devon also made us a card that poured on the guilt. She told us how she cried and cried when we were gone because she missed us so much. I just have to remind myself that one of the best things I can give my children is a strong marriage. I also have to keep reminding myself to enjoy the fact that she wants to be with me and Paul because, we don't have many more years before she doesn't want to.

Look at the fancy food which was really good by the way. It was nice to go to restaurants that we usually wouldn't because there would be nothing that the kids would eat.

Merrick never wants to leave...

During the summer I turned 16, in 1988 I went on a short term mission trip with an organization called Royal Servants. I think it was an 8 week trip and it was a huge defining moment in my life. I think that is the summer that God became really real to me and my faith became my own and not my parents. I went again the summer I turned 19 (1991), this time as a discipler which is like a counsler. I had 3 girls in my tent, Noel, Cydil, and Jessica. I lost touch with Jessica and Noel a long time ago, but I knew what Cydil was up to due to yearly Christmas Cards. When I joined facebook I tried a search and I found Noel. In fact she and her family came to Disneyland for a couple of days last month and I met up with her and got to meet her family and introduce her to my kids. If you look on my facebook profile there is a picture there of us and our kids which are coincidently the same age as mine. Probably a week ago I was contacted on facebook by my discipler from my 1988 trip and since then have gotten back in touch with around 5 other people from that trip. So I have been talking to my kids about my trips and showing them pictures of those trips. I was sitting with Merrick at the computer on Friday looking at a newly found friends facebook page and explaining to him who she was and how I knew her. I made the comment that I would really love if he and Devon were able to go on a trip with Royal Servants when they were older. He got a worried look on his face and asked how long the trips were. When I told him they were about 6 weeks now, which is about a month and 1/2, his eyes welled up with tears and he said he didn't want to leave me and Paul for that long. I assured him that he didn't have to leave, but that when he got older he would probably want to. That thought is unbelievable to him. I enjoy moments like this when both he and Devon want to stay forever because I know that in not too long they are going to be teenagers and they will be dying to leave. So I guess this is kinda a double post. I wanted to write down a little laugh I got from my son and my excitement with finding old friends.

New link list

I have to send a Thank You out to Carrie. I noticed on her blog was a list of her friends blogs and it had when the blog was last updated and the title of their new post. I finally remember to ask Carrie how she did that. She told me how she did it and I came home and did it. Yeah! Now I don't have to click through my whole list, I can see who has a new blog ready to read.

San Clemente

We went camping to San Clemente on the President's day weekend. Our kids had friday and Monday off. We left after school on Thursday and we took Lauren and Gracie with us. We were a little worried since it was forcasted to rain all weekend but we figured we'd try it. We were only an hour and 1/2 away if it was too miserable we could always go home. On Friday we went down to the beach and the girls almost immediatly ran to the water. They were only suppose to get their feet a little wet, but of course that didn't work out all that well and those waves are sneeky, so it wasn't too long until all 3 girls were soaked. It wasn't sunny, it was overcast and
cold. That water must have been cold! (I, of course did not test the water). Merrick mostly played (rolled around) in the sand until it was almost time to go, then he too ventured into the water where a sneaky wave got him soaked too! That was a fun walk back to the trailer.







We also did a lot of bike riding and some hiking
too! Did you know that if you ride your bike when it is raining or through puddles the back wheel kicks up mud in a stripe along your back. Did I mention the kids rode through every puddle they could find. We had a ton of wet muddy clothing. I had brought extra clothes and I wasn't sure that we were going to have enough dry clothes. It rained lightly off and on Friday, but Sat was beautiful. The sun was shining and there were a few fluffy white clouds in the sky. In fact everyone got a little sunburned on their faces. Sun was overcast and cooler but no rain. The only day it really rained was Mon. Paul sacrificed himself and went out in the rain to put everything
away and hook the trailer up. The rest of us stayed dry and warm in the trailer. Our only casulaty was our awning. It was windy and rainy on Sun after we all went to bed. The awning, while not the original one that came with the trailer was pretty old and starting to rip at the pressure points anyway and the storm was a little more than it could take. I'm hoping we will have a new one in time for family camp at the end of April. So if you are at family camp you can come and see our new awning.

Tagged

I was tagged. You have to go to where you store your pictures and pick the 4th picture from the 4th folder. I got 2006 Christmas pictures. The 1st one is my 4th picture but it was a test picture when Paul was still setting up the lights, so I added a couple other pictures from the folder I liked. Merrick is posing like he saw Devon posing, we have a few of him posing like her until he realized that boys don't pose that way.











Devon has always been my fashion model. She can be grumpy and mad but when Daddy pulls the camera out she is smiling and posing.















Merrick is not as excited taking pictures and I'm pretty sure Devon was trying to get him to do something he didn't want to. I have so many more pictures of Devon because she loves to pose and smile but Merrick is just not that in to it. I love his face in this picture.













Photo shoots with dad are always fun. I think we ended up using a picture like the last one with them dancing for our cards.

It's that time again...

So a couple of years ago I was really unhappy with my weight so I joined Weight Watchers, and I did really well and I lost a little more than 30lbs and I felt great. I wasn't down to my goal weight, but I figured I knew what to do and I could save the money I was spending on WW. I kept the weight off for a while but I have gained it all back in the past year. So, once again I am unhappy with my weight, my clothes don't fit right any more, and I am not feeling all that great anymore. So I'm heading back to WW. I need that accountability of stepping on the scale every week. When Paul tries to keep me accountable I despise him (lol), isn't it funny how that works. I will go to my first meeting next week and I am dreading stepping on the scale. I am also dreading the first week. It was not fun last time because I felt hungry the whole time, and I am not looking forward to that this time. It only lasted about 1 week, but it wasn't fun. I am looking forward to losing the weight again. I am not brave enough to give everyone my starting weight or post one of those before pictures in a bikini (I seriously doubt anyone wants to see that), but maybe I will post an after picture (I can pretty much promise that it won't be in a bikini). So wish me luck on my weight loss journey!