Girls Camp 2008

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Happy Father's Day!

Father's Day brings back such emotions for me. First of all I'm so thankful for a Father in Heaven who loves me. I know that I'm a Child of God. I'm thankful for the Plan of Salvation that I can be with Him again.

I'm also very grateful to my Dad! He has taught me hard work, service, patience, unconditional love, how to have fun and so many more things. He was/is a great example to me. He lived as I want to live. I miss him so dearly and I'm not sure that pain will ever go away. I just try to do my best so I can be with him again.

I'm also very grateful for my Husband! He puts up with so much from a house full of women. Only a special guy can endure that. He is often home taking care of kids while I'm out serving others. He is a great Dad who plays with Barbie's, can play house, knows how to set a table for a tea party, can dress Polly Pockets & baby dolls. He can kill spiders/bugs with a single shoe. He rescues girls from top bunks in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm and they are too scared to move. He kisses boo-boos and gives great hugs. He is the best daddy! Thank you for being a great example to our daughters of what a great daddy should be--I love you!

Happy Birthday Chaia!

Yes, I'm a little behind on Blogging. Chaia turned 15 on June 12th. She arrived 15 years ago @ 4:28 am! It had been a long pregnancy 42 weeks and 1 day to be exact. I was induced and labored 22 hours to get her here. My delivery was not easy nor a good experience so I will not scare anyone who plans on having children by sharing the details. Chaia was a great baby from the start. She slept through the night from day one and didn't take too long to get her days & nights turned around. She was always happy and hardly ever cried. My mom told me that she was not a typical baby that all babies weren't as good as she was. Looking back she was trying to prepare me for baby #2 which I will tell you about next month. My mom stayed with us for the first couple of weeks. It was so great having my own OB Nurse to help answer all my 1000's of questions about birth, after birth & of course babies. I cried when she left and begged her not to go. But she assured us that we'd be fine. Chaia being the oldest has been our guinea pig. Despite all our mistakes in learning how to raise kids she has turned our GREAT-we couldn't be more proud of her. She is an awesome girl who is a HUGE help to us, she is smart, funny, beautiful and perfect! Chaia we love you and we are so glad your ours!!!

A little too close...

My friend MaryAnn sent this picture with this email today- "This is my friend's parents home at countyline rd and Morgantown road just behind you guys.
They lost their home. They were able to get about 80% of things out of the house before the walls gave way. I cannot believe this is a mile from our homes. How blessed we are. "

Flood Pictures

Got Water?

Well, I don’t know where to begin….Chaia and I left for Girls Camp Monday evening. We camp straight south of Indianapolis on Highway 37 in a town called Bedford next too the White river. It rained all night and at times it was pouring. We got up finished getting camp ready for the 80 girls coming. It rained off and on all morning. When girls arrived the storms were getting bad and the tornado sirens went off so into the lodge basement we went. We hung out there for 30-45 minutes then they let us out to go back to our cabins. The rain continued off and on but we went about or schedule. I and another leader headed into town to develop pictures we had taken of the girls for a craft later in the week. We headed into Wal-Mart and printed our photos on the way back out to camp is started raining which turned to pouring. The area we camp in is very hilly. As we are driving Mitch’s truck up and down these back roads- the water is rushing all over them I was going about 25 miles per hour just trying to see and stay on the road. We were almost back to camp when we made a turn looked ahead and a tree was down over the road no way around it. Fear of getting lost we headed back to town to go the only other route I knew off. As we are approaching camp again we came up over a hill and looked down there was another tree down in the road this time there was enough room to go in the ditch and get around it. Wednesday we dried out as well as Thursday but the 95 degree heat was what we had to live with both days. Thursday night it rained where we were but in Indianapolis it had been seriously raining. By Saturday morning, we had numerous calls that Indianapolis was having some flooding. The church building down the street from us was turned into a rescue center with fire trucks with boats attached to them. The street we live on as well as MANY others leading to it were closed including the highways we would use to get home Highway 37 & Interstate 65. The counties we needed to cross to reach home were declared state of emergencies and we were not allowed in them. So those that lived in other counties not affected could leave but 30 of us were instructed to stay at camp until further notice. The weather in Bedford was clear but they were expecting the rain waters from the White River which runs from Indianapolis straight down the state to reach us eventually. We finally heard word of a route we could take to get home but that it would be long. We basically had to drive way east then go north and back west over to Indianapolis. Today we heard that highway 50 that we had taken to leave Bedford had been closed the water from Indianapolis had reached there. We are expecting more rain in the next couple of days but at least we are all here together. We basically had to drive almost to Ohio to get back to Indianapolis. At one point we were closer to Cincinnati than Indy. In all of this it was nice to know that the pond behind our house did its job and kept the rain waters away- the flooding didn’t reach our property line—this time. Hopefully we will continue to be dry.



In addition to Mitch working from home and keeping Kaylie and Aneka busy while Chaia and I were away. A friend of mine was watching the kids to give Mitch a break- they played outside a little too long and now have sunburns with blisters and are just miserable. So needless to say we have had quite the week and are ready for things to slow down. This week we will be trying to get back to a normal route and hopefully stay dry. I’m really dreading going into work tomorrow…..I’m sure it will NOT be a slow day!!!