Special Days

Happy Anniversary - hubby and I have been married 13 yrs! Wow...that sounds like a very long time, does that mean we're old?

I am blessed to have awesome "Dads" in my life! Thanks to all 3 of you for all you do for me and our kids!! We are blessed to have you!!Doesn't Papa Gene look cool on this roaster bike he got 'for John Mark' ha ha!! He's a super Grandfather!!
Daddy in Honduras with Eric, the boy they sponsor. It's neat to share our passion for Honduras with my Daddy. Many family dinner conversations center around Honduras.

my hubby has been a father to not only our two 'birth' children, but other children along the adventure of foster parenting. He is wonderful to every single little one placed in his arms...it makes me love him even more. I am so blessed to be able to call him my husband!!

"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood"

So remember the other day I was bragging on my neighbors? I'm telling you, I can't tell you how blessed we are, and as proof that I'm not just saying that.... Today MaryKyle will be playing at one neighbors while John Mark is playing at another's so hubby and I can get some stuff done and so they get to go to the pool and have some fun without begging and such while hubby and I are busy with preparations. Another neighbor shows up this morning with this wonderful basket for the kids (and us!)

It's loaded with the perfect airplane things and other things needed for the trip - it's really great. And while here they asked if they needed to mow or anything else while we were gone. Oh yeah and last night another neighbor entirely offered to do whatever and is willing to just stop by and visit our Sydney on the days no one is staying here so she doesn't get too lonely. And other neighbors will be coming and feeding her and in charge of her regular care, etc too. Each and every instance is a completely different neighbor. I can't tell you how many times I've been told "just let us know, we'll do whatever we can" It's just wonderful! I strongly advise if you don't know your neighbors, bake some brownies (or cupcakes!!) and walk over and introduce yourself. It's great to know you have people around you that you can call on when you need them!

This is our Sydney, our oldest baby...yes, she's a proper lady with good manners and always crosses her legs when she sits! We will miss her while we are gone.

Also, my father in law sent us this really cool coffee/tea set! The kids especially like to have tea parties (the passion started by hubby's Mom who let them as toddlers use a 'real' tea set). They already have an awesome set that my mother in law bought in China, plus one she got for MK to paint herself. Gene found this somewhere and thought of us. There is a little plate to match each color cup. Too cute!! The cups are larger than a 'tea set' cup, and will even hold Mommy and Daddy's coffee!! Yipppee!! I enjoy a cup of hot tea for sure, but coffee I'm all about these days!!

Smelly Poodle Girl!!

That's my new name in our house...yep I went against all fashion and current trends and GOT A PERM!! When you are going to spend 5 weeks in a country that regularly turns off electricity and water and you have half curly half straight hair (my sister was blessed to get a head full of gorgeous natural curls) that must be blown dry - a back up plan is a must!
Allison (my stylist and friend) and I laughed the entire time. She had to go actually purchase a perm for me as she doesn't even keep them on hand at the salon...ouch!! I have to say, the smell took me back to my middle school years. Anyone remember the spiral perms?? Come on admit it, you know if you're in your 30's you so had one or wanted one!! Fortunately I'm pretty adventurous with my hair. I'm not a crier. I like to try new colors and styles and if it doesn't work out my theory is it will always grow out (my hair grows super fast). The two things I stay away from are bangs and perms...ha ha ha!! when I called Allison to tell what I was thinking about she reminded me perms take much longer to grow out than a style I don't care for or an odd color....good thing hubby actually likes it. And yes, he'd SO tell me the truth and knew this was a purely functional decision so he was safe to give his fully honest opinion...although my hubby would anyway, and that's fine with me.
MaryKyle took the pictures...even though you can get it wet, you can't put conditioner on it and it needs some, so tomorrow with conditioner it will look less frizzy looking. We didn't do a 'tight' perm by the way. More 'body wave' so I can scrunch and go. And where there were highlights it didn't take as well, but she told me that would happen.

Feel free to laugh if you see me, I'm getting some good chuckles about this memory lane adventure myself!!

Honduras on my mind

...well changes in plans are a way of life on trips to Honduras. This trip will be no different. When we decided to go the buddy pass route we had a couple people check the flight and the history of it to ensure that they thought we could get on the flight easily to San Pedro Sula. We moved our trip up a few days so that we could fly in the middle of the week as those flights in over six months had not filled. But then the plane crash in Teguc. occurred. Now that airport has been closed to international flights and all of those passengers that would have flown into Teguc are now flying into San Pedro Sula and all the flights are not only booked but largely overbooked! So....we're having to tweak our plans a bit. Although it seems we will end up on the winning deal of that. We will instead fly onto the island of Roatan. If we get on the flight we want, then we will make it early enough to take the afternoon ferry to La Ceiba where a friend will pick us up and we will make it to Trujillo by nightfall. That would be the ideal situation. We've also been told of a 3 bdrom house we can rent for a very reasonable price while we are there. We got that call today. So now we must pray that it's reasonably clean, as it's in the most ideal location for our work in Trujillo for sure!! So we need some prayers that we have no problem getting on the flight to Roatan and that this townhouse works out for us to stay in for the month +.

Yummy!!

UPDATE 7/22/2010 Did a more recent post about this recipe HERE 




MaryKyle asked for blueberry muffins this morning. I found some recipes and used them to come up with my own. MaryKyle and I LOVE the results Yummy!!!
So here is the recipe we came up with...Keep in mind it's totally flexible...more sugar, less sugar, turbinado or granulated, lemon extract or not, all whole wheat, all AP flour, just whatever!

Blueberry Streusel Muffins

1 cup milk
1/4 cup cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup turbinado sugar
1/4 tsp lemon extract
1 Tbsp Honey
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup fresh blueberries

STREUSEL TOPPING
1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 Tbsp packed brown sugar
2 Tbsp butter

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees
2 grease bottoms only of 12 cup muffin tin
3. Beat the milk, oil, vanilla and eggs appx 2 min
4. Stir in flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, lemon extract and honey (will be lumpy). Stir in blueberries.
5. divide batter among muffin cups.
6. Cut butter into flour and brown sugar with pastry blender for topping
7. sprinkle each muffin with appx 2 tsp topping
8. Bake 20-25 min or until golden brown.