Brazil

I said I would be talking about Brazil! Two summers ago I joined a group of 30 people from our church on a mission trip to Brazil. We are going again! I think there are 30 of us again, and I am really looking forward to the trip. We will be going in June for 10 days. I am planning the VBS again for the kids, and it seems like this year will be even bigger and better! We may have the opportunity to see 600 kids in a three day period! This is huge for us, and it makes me a little nervous but very excited. This is what I want to ask you to pray for ----that we will have this opportunity. Our missionary in Aracaju, Randy Warzecha, is working very hard to get this chance for us. He is working with two schools in Aracaju to see if we can do our VBS at their school. They have to request permission from the department of education for us to do VBS at the schools. Doing it at the schools will allow us to see so many more children, and they will not have to find (pay for) transportation to come to VBS. This is huge - we are talking about seeing 600 kids instead of 60. Please pray that permission will be granted for us - the schools are willing, so we are needing permission from the government! Please pray for the mission trip to be a huge success and that God will work through us to bring many people to the School of the Bible in Aracaju.

Easter Weekend

We started getting ready for Easter on Friday. We decided to dye our eggs Friday and hunt on Saturday since it was nice on those days, and it was supposed to be a little chilly on Sunday (it is). It is always chilly on Easter! Here is Jacob showing the egg before it gets dyed and a couple other pics of egg dying.

We did our little "hunt" on Saturday after Morgan's volleyball games. Here is Jacob eagerly anticipating the major event!

Here are all the kids (neighbors and Mark included) before the hunt.

And after...enjoying the candy! I didn't post any of the hunt...not too exciting!

Here are the kids Easter morning right before church.

Not a lot going on today - just resting and enjoying Easter. We are still out of school Monday to celebrate Good Friday - it's nice that we get it off still since Good Friday was over spring break. Starting Tuesday I will be working with a very "unique" kindergarten student that had to be removed from his classroom. The plan is that he is out of his regular classroom for the next 3-4 weeks to see if his behavior can change and her can earn his way back. This is a very violent and angry child, and now he will be my responsibility. Please pray for me (and him) over the next few weeks - we will need it. I am trying to look at this in a positive way; hopefully I can make a difference in his life. Hopefully all will go according to plan, and his behavior will start to improve.

Spring Break

Spring Break...we didn't have a single thing planned! Friday night the girls each had a friend spend the night. Morgan had 2 volleyball games first thing Saturday morning - they won both games! They were down in each game by one round, but they fought back to win 2-3 in each game. Morgan did much better this week. She got a number of serves over, and she even helped win the first game with a 4 serve streak! (The serves are what really seems to count in 5th grade volleyball)! Saturday night we spent with Mark's family going through old pictures and remembering his mom. We are gathering pictures to make a special scrapbook of her life. We spent the night there on Saturday night and went to church with Don and Twala on Sunday. That was nice. We ran into John and Lindsey Shuttlesworth and Russell and Sarah Smith. It's always nice to see CDR friends! After church on Sunday we went over to Mark's sisters house, and they invited us to join them at the Dallas World Aquarium on Monday. That sounded like fun, so I took the three best looking kids in town...I think their names were Morgan, Haleigh, and Jacob!

I took a million pictures, but I will only share a few of my favorites. Here are some cool stingrays we enjoyed looking at. Jacob liked them so much I got him a stuffed version from the gift shop.

The coolest part of the aquarium, by far, was the shark tank. You walk through a tunnel that is full of sharks and stingrays. You can see them swimming around you and over you! Here is a picture of Mark's sister Mandy (green shirt), her son Jack, Haleigh, Lauren (cousin), and Morgan (backs to us). They were amazed.

Here is a stingray from the same tank. He was directly above me in the tunnel.

Here is that same tank from the top! This is cool to see because you can see some of the sharks, but you can also see the people walking in the tunnel under the water. Pretty neat!

Here is an octopus - so gross looking when you see it in real life. It always seems cooler in the movies! I guess the giant head is what grosses me out. The tentacles, with the suction cups, are pretty cool. I was truly amazed at the number of sea creatures that God made. The way that the fish can blend in to their environment was amazing. The place itself wasn't really worth the ridiculous amount of money that we spent for 2 1/2 hours, but it was a great teaching moment to my children (and me) about how amazing our God is. So, for that I was thankful that we went. I'll just never go during spring break again...too many people, and for me to say that, it must have been crowded!

The rest of spring break has been pretty boring and uneventful - just how I wanted it! Today I am going to redeem a gift certificate that Mark gave me for Christmas - a massage and a facial. Yeah - I can't wait until 10:00! I'm not really looking forward to the end of spring break, but I know it's time...my children are starting to get on each others nerves! That is always the sign that it is time to get back to school!

Bible Bowl, Snow, and Volleyball

Our church hosted a Bible Bowl competition for surrounding churches since we aren't going to LTC. LTC (which is always Easter weekend) happens to fall during spring break this year. That really stinks because everyone will be out of town, so we are not taking kids this year to the competition. We still did pre-convention events like Bible class teaching, bulletin board, etc. The kids still prepared very hard for Bible Bowl, and we decided to host a competition so that the kids could still "participate" in Bible Bowl. Morgan worked really hard this year, and it paid off! She was 15th overall, so she received a gold medal for her individual score. Her team came in 4th place, so they recieved a gold medal too. She was really excited and very proud of herself! She has her medals on her backpack! Here she is with her two gold medals.

This is a picture of the Taylor version of a slumber party! The kids were watching a movie in the living room last weekend, and they fell asleep together. It's so nice that they can all still fit on one couch (and that they don't mind being that close to each other)!

It started snowing Thursday morning, and by lunch time it was sticking to the ground and roads. School was let out early - that was a mess, and we were out of school on Friday. It was nice to see a good snow - it snowed about 5 inches. We haven't seen that in a long time. The kids had a great time playing in the snow (except Haleigh - she doesn't do cold)! Here are a few pictures of the lovely snow.

On Friday the snow started to melt. The snow was sliding off the roof of our house slowly but surely. Here is the first picture...

second picture...

third picture...shortly after this, it slid off on Morgan! That was good times :)

Here is the snowman that Mark, Morgan, and Jacob built.

As quickly as it came...it was gone :( We had fun while it lasted.

As I mentioned before, Morgan started volleyball. The team is full of beginners, so it is a good learning time for them. The girls don't have their uniforms yet, so they had to wear their basketball jerseys. So, Morgan is still #2 - here she is going for the ball (along with 2 other girls). They are working on communication!

Last week Morgan didn't get a serve over the net, but this week she did! She got two serves over. Here is one of them!

Getting ready for the ball...

Speaking of volleyball...our church team got 2nd place in the church league. They played hard, but fell just short of the big trophy. Mark was able to play since his ankle healed enough, but he is taking a couple of weeks off from basketball. Hopefully no more injuries!

There's not a whole lot else going on right now...I want to talk about Brazil, and I will do that next time. So long for now!