Carving it Up

Jeff loves carving pumpkins. Yesterday he and Drew and Joe worked on carving their pumpkins. He did a cool time lapse too if you want to see it, go check his blog.

Noah William Kunkle

Here is the before picture!

Ok... I just have to tell you that I am an auntie for the fourth time. My second nephew was born today to Nathan and Stacie Kunkle. He was 10 Pounds 1 ounce and 21 inches long. (Way to go Stacie!!!) I am so thrilled for them. This is their second child. Abby is 2 1/2 and will be a great big sister. I am so thankful that I am going out to Michigan in November and will get to meet Noah as well as Eliana who will be 6 months old! We are so rich in family!

I just have to add that we didn't know what sex the baby was for any of my nieces, nephews, or our own children! That is so rare anymore, and I am proud of all my siblings doing that also! It was such a joy to find out today that she had a boy!!!!

And Here He IS!

Family Photo

This photo is of my mom, her older sister and her parents. It is one I have never seen before. I love looking into the past and seeing a glimpse of my mom's life. I don't remember her mom. She died when I was four. I wish I could have known her. People say there is a family resemblance. What do you think?

Oh yea... today is my grandpa's 85th birthday and he just had a great grandson born today! What a day to rejoice!

October...???

Gina, Me, Christine

Can it really be October? Did I totally miss a whole month of blogging? I really don't know what happened there. Except to say that life is continuing to fly by at hyper speed. Most recently I went to Ojai for a whirlwind two days with Zachariah to speak to Life Design. (A women's Bible study that meets at Ojai Valley Community Church- the Church we attended while living in Ojai.) This Bible study group is sponsoring three missionary families that the Church supports. They have been sending us encouraging letters, they are saving their change to give us, they are making scarves to auction off and raise money for us. (And the other missionaries.) So I went down to speak to them and tell them a little more about what we are doing now and what we hope to do in Mali. It was a very encouraging time for me. I love being with my good friends down in Ojai. I was also impressed by the ladies at Life Design that really seem to have a heart for serving God and doing His will. It was so uplifting to spend some time there. Thanks for your hospitality ladies!

Autumn, Zach, Amber

Birthday Water

OK... so by birthday is coming up... (In case you forgot!) :) A friend invited me to help out this September project to bring clean water to people in Ethiopia. So in lieu of presents, I would like people to donate to getting clean water to people. Here is the link...

Aim Lower, Think Smaller, Give Up, and Go Have a Cup of Coffee!

Here is an interesting video that my mom shared with me this week. Watch it and let me know what you think. Pray with us about wisdom in challenging out kids to share Christ with the world! And for our faithfulness and doing it also!

Swimmin'

Wow... it's been so long since I blogged, the page actually looks different. :) So I must write about how proud I am of my boys. They went from being totally afraid of the water at the begining of this summer to being very comfortable in it and Drew is even swimming some. They both go underwater now. Here are some photos of their big accomplishment. Growing up I was a total fish in the water and then was on the swim team in high school and then life guarded in college, so I am thrilled to have them swimming!!! Enjoy the photos... and it's good to be back! :)

Going Green

Well I have been lamenting the cost of diapers for many years. Recently in Colorado I talked to someone who was using cloth diapers. Now I used cloth diapers with Drew when we lived in Cote d'Ivoire. It was a mess and I did not like it. Well they have some pretty cool cloth diapers now and decided to give it another try. Actually it is an all or nothing deal cause these are pretty expensive. But after spending about $80 month on disposables and filling up the land fills with our diapers, I decided it was worth it. So now here is our happy little Zachariah. Still smiling with his Happy Heinys and Fuzzi Bunz.

Fathers Day

This is Janessa, Zach's teacher for the last three weeks. He will have a new teacher for the next two, and he will miss her. She was such a sweetie!




We went to the air force chapel for Church this morning. It was an interesting experience. It was mostly tourists as far as I could tell that were there. Today was fathers day and they did have a nice message. Communion was taken up front in two long lines with the choice of wine or grape juice. I went with Drew and he chose grape juice.








The chapel has stain glass windows that go up all sides so when the sun hits them, it really shines through so beautifully on the inside.





We were sad to see most of our friends go on Friday. We are still at MTI, but our SPLICE program is finished and our PILAT program is begining on Monday night. New people have started to arrive and it is strange already to see new faces here. It is amazing how close you can get to people in three weeks.


The kids all went up to the train tracks with Jeff today and played in a huge dirt pile. They were all so filthy. After their baths I took this photo of Harley. Jeff got some good footage of the train. I'm sure he'll be making a great video of this place after we get home to share with you all.

MTI SlideShow