August Already

I can't believe today is August 11th!  The last 8 months have FLOWN by.  BTW tomorrow is our 20th Wedding Anniversary!  Talk about time flying.......where did 20 years go??   It's amazing to me how sometimes time stands still and you think you will never move on from this moment - like when you are stuck at a border crossing or you are sitting up in the middle of the night with a feverish, vomiting kid, then you turn around and another year has zipped by.

In this last crazy-fast month we have done a lot of traveling.  We left Tete on Monday July 27 and traveled to Malawi for our annual missionary meeting.  It was held, once again, at the lovely Club Makakola.  One person at the meeting kept talking about how this place looked like Bali, Indonesia!  It's that beautiful.  The meeting was a good one.  I'm not fond of meetings and sitting for hours and hours looking at Power Point presentations, and this meeting was no different - we had hours of that.  But our sending agency - imb - is going through a lot of changes and there was a lot of information given about that.  Most was presented in interesting ways.  My rear ended tended to get tired faster than my mind did, though.  Thank goodness for tea times and long lunch breaks.    

A team of volunteers from Oklahoma and Kansas took care of our kids this year.  The kids enjoyed doing VBS and my teens enjoyed their class - doing cool drama, kayaking on the lake, volleyball and swimming.  The volunteers gifted us the last night with lots of American goodies - candy, drink packets, gum, and other snacks.  This was a wonderful addition to our car snackies for our trip home.

The trip home was four loooooonnng days.  Thanks to our friends who loaned us a portable dvd player (ours died long ago) and other friends who loaned us dvds (Home Improvement, Remington Steele and Hogan's Heroes!) to watch in the car.  That and listening to audio books made the time pass for all of us.  We were thankful that God provided bathrooms or adequate bushes for all of our potty breaks, food when we needed it, lodging in secure places, our luggage stayed on top of our car, and the only animal we hit this trip was a pigeon. His timing was off and only his buddy made it across the road.

We celebrated Abby's 8th birthday on road.  Unfortunately both of our camera batteries were dead and we had no way to recharge them so we have no photographic evidence of her special day.  She did get to lay mini-golf at the Milpark "hotel" in Chimoio which made her very happy. We will celebrate with friends this coming Friday.

Now for the photos taken when we did have camera battery:

Celebrating Abby's un-birthday with the Nalls in Tete.

Katie contributed the lovely 2009 glasses.  

Abigail Nalls was asleep and the daddies were in Beira.

On the way to Malawi.  We were using the 

bush-potties.  It was quite funny to go back 

among the tall reeds and see little wads of 

toilet paper laying around. And FYI we use

hand sanitizer ALL the time on trips!

This was during one of our break-out meetings

with our colleagues from southern Moz.  

This was before things started to fall apart.

Charlie is trying to be very serious.

Karla and I were trying to behave.

But then she started to get silly.

And it rubbed off on the rest of us.

That's my friend Janet Hooten.  

She's always up to some mischief.

Luke enjoying his tea at tea time.

Charlie leading in prayer on the last evening.

We always have a worship service on the beach 

on the last night.

My big boys.

Will being chased.

Coleson hanging with his homies.

(Sam, Reid, Daniel, Coleson, Zach)

Abby being prissy on the beach.

Gorgeous sunset on the last night in Malawi.

Sights from the trip home.

Or at least until the camera battery died.

I love baobab trees.

Tomatoes anyone?