Good Times!

Traveling in the truck! Thanks Mimi and Papaw for the loaner!

Mark's Psuedo Party!!!

After Austin, we drove to Houston for another great week of swimming and fun! Katie has finished her 8 books for her free book at Barnes and Noble!! She is definitely a fan of reading like her mom, grandmother and cousin!!! Go Katie!

Mark had also mentioned to Mimer the last week that he wanted a b-day party too! His b-day is in October and he wanted to celebrate with them. So, Mimer—being the great grandmother that she is—got a Transformer party together for Mark! He had “green” cake with green icing and green and yellow streamers! He loves everything(but Lettuce) that is green!!! He was stoked about his pretend –Birthday!!

Mark also lost his FIRST tooth!! How great is that---but that makes me feel that he is really growing up!!!

We are now off to Longview where we are excited to visit John’s sister’s church!

Homestead Living!

Homestead -Waco

Austin---family!









After Dallas, we started our journey down south---to an incredible place called Homestead---these are a group of people near Waco that seek the Lord and live very simply. That is the easiest way to explain their way of life. They are a community of believers that farm this huge piece of land, have their own gristmill, blacksmith, church, restaurant, etc. We stopped at this lovely place to meet a couple that knows our friends in Russia. We ate with them and enjoyed their home and homestead!
After this afternoon visit, we got to go to Austin to visit family—what a blast! We had our first experience with Barton Springs---a natural spring that is a swimming area for locals…it was soooo cold in the water—I believe the water was 69 degrees—just so you can feel the cold…a normal swimming pool is in the 90’s in Texas! Katie and John went off the diving board into the ice water! Brave or Crazy??
We also got to eat at Matt’s(Mexican) and Amy’s—Ice cream for dessert! Yum!

Summer Review---Big D!!

Our dear friend Tommie got married!!



Dancing Duo's

Home Group Kiddos



Fun with the Dahl's


Drop the kids off and off to Big D we go!

The grandparents were so nice and took two kids each during about a week and a half while John and I went to Dallas to visit our friends. John had been reading in Proverbs about not overstaying your welcome with your neighbor, so we were house hopping about every 2-3 days! We so loved seeing everyone and wished we had more time with everyone! It was really fun to eat with families and get to be with our Dallas family.

John spoke at our Sunday School class and to the Spanish church! How fun to hear him translated into Spanish and Russian! We reunited with our kids finally and they got to see all their buddies(or many of them!) and loved every minute!! Truly this time has been so much fun for them and they haven’t even seemed to be too “spoiled” in their actions.
As I type, we are driving through Moscow , Texas---how funny is that!!! Yep, I am typing in the truck!! Well, it’s a good use of my time, right! Gotta blog!!
During the time here Matthew has so improved in his swimming ability—he is jumping into the pool. Holding his breath, swimming a bit---this is such an improvement---before this summer, Matthew would not jump from the edge or leave the Little pool area! He has also learned to peddle on a tricycle! Mark has been swimming like a fish and has learned in one day how to ride a bike with out training wheels! The girls are swimming so well and floating too!

Summer Review--second week in Longview

Katie and Mo!


Brigg's b-day and Infamous sibling pose! Aren't they beautiful!




Congrat's Davis!!

Off for another week in a different place---East Texas here we come!

John’s family now all lives on one street---so the kids loved seeing their cousins, enjoyed ball games, swimming on the tire swing, and lots of dirt!!! The shoes from this visit will never be the same again, oh no!! Some we had to toss, but some were redeemed by the beloved washing machine!!

We had a great time on the fourth of July with John’s extended family that came down to celebrate together!

I got to go to two of my SIL’s classes—Jackie teaches exercise classes in the city and across the country and is amazing! I was so sore, but really enjoyed watching her in action. I am inspired and have intentions to start the exercising back up in Russia ---now that the girls will be in school and I will have more free time(well, theoretically, right?)! I will be home schooling Mark and Matthew, but Kindergarten is so much easier to teach than 2^nd grade plus!

One of the greatest things in Longview to observe was Mark with is cousin Grant!! They are so hilarious! They get along famously!!! Grant could have come to Russia with us if his family wouldn't miss him so!

Summer Review - First week in Houston...

Uncle Stephen and Java! and Snuggle time with Aunt Cristina!

Katie and Mary Claire & Water Balloon fun!!

Grand kids!

Goochie bug stories at night and Dad made the cake!

Matthew's 4th b-day party

We had a great time with Mimer and Papa—even with the hottest temps in Houston in years in June! It even got as hot as 107!! We enjoyed swimming—all our kids love swimming!! Our extended family came in during the week and the cousins had a blast!! All the fam got to be there—it was really nice to see everyone---it meant so much to us that they came in for a visit!

Matthew celebrated his b-day on the actual day and the following Saturday---He had asked for a robot theme, so Wall-E it was! He loved every minute of celebrating!!!

We Landed in Dallas

We arrived in Dallas on June 20^th and our plan was a couple hours late---are we glad or what? Our original plane had been struck by lightening and it would take the German airport a long time to fix the plane, so they re-routed another plane to take us to Texas! That was a long layover—but the kids ended up making friends that were returning from Iran and they lived in AUSTIN, Texas of all places! What a small world—sometimes! Our trip over was nice, each seat had its own dvd player. Mark at one time watched Bolt in Spanish—he said he wanted to learn another language and so that’s why he switched the language. Matthew, at one point, watched a movie with Asain subtitles!! HA!! The kids did fabulous and never seemed to have any jet lag! God did that miracle over the top!! John was the only one for a couple of days that seemed to have a bit of lag!

When we arrived at the airport, my parents and John’s parents had come up to welcome us home! What a delight to see my mom running toward all of us with the biggest smile ever! We went out to eat at Cheddars---not that any of us were hungry---because the airport’s goal must be to overfeed as much as they can!!! They did!!! We went to bed by 9pm and were up for church the next morning!

We got to see several friends at church then headed to Houston for a week.

My amazing friend Sarah had a ton of stuff for the kids that she had organized from so many friends of ours that included winter clothes, summer clothes, bathing suits, crocks, and so much more! We were so blessed by it all!!! Thank you all and especially Sarah!!

Right before we left for the states

These two young ladies were among many of the people John and I met on our 2007 Russia mission trip. Nelly and Liza are amazing young ladies who love the Lord. They are twin sisters that have lived over in the states for the time we were in Russia our first year. As we were flying over the pond, they were flying the other direction to the states. How sad---but God has a bigger plan than we do! Well, they are back in Russia and we were soaking up as much of them as we could before heading to the states for a visit. We had them over for dinner one night and they entertained our kids with a bed time story! The story was about the Daughter of a King--- The girls were hilarious while reading and acting out parts!

Some of our friends

These are some of our favorite people! Pam and Gary are super cool people working here in Russia with kids that need God's love. Nelly and Liza are our favorite Russian twins! Thanks Anya for taking the picture at church yesterday!

Interim ----- while I get it together and upload summer stuff!!

Ok, I haven't downloaded summer pics yet, soon~! But, my friend -Kay- sent me these you tubes and they are hilarious!! For all those questions that are asked of home schooling moms!

I'm going to keep this one for a bit then take them off---just for reason that I am using my blog for a scrapbook and the videos don't show up in 2-d!! I did order my blog in a book and it turned out great! I will do it again in a year or two!!

State-side

We are back in the states...so, no hope for many posts!!! We want to optimize our time with family and friends and thus...staying off the computer is inevitable! Maybe we will get to post some pics, but I don't even know about that.

We have spent a week with both sides of our family and now we are in our home town(well, our Bull Herd hometown). We are loving every minute of seeing our friends here. Time with the Lord always needs to be intentional, but now even more!! It's like being on a 7+ week vacation. But, as our pastor always told us, you can't vacate from the Lord on your vacation---if you do, you feel like you need a vacation after your vacation! We don't want that--we want time with Him and refreshment from His presence! Please pray that we are able to stay focused on Him and visit friends and family too!!!

Love to all of you! We will be going to Russia sometime in the middle of August...working with a new organization and waiting for that promised "open door" from the Lord!!