Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Ode to Jim

Brandon is currently on his way back home for his grandfather's funeral. His grandfather's name was Jim and he was an incredibly enjoyable person to be around. We got to see him the day before we left for Virginia. I felt like posting a few pictures of him.













It's been about 11 years since I've (April) had a grandfather alive, so gaining two more after marrying Brandon has been a blessing. Grandfather's are some amazing people.

Friday, June 16, 2006

EESH B GEESH

What a whirlwind the past few weeks have been! We've been at orientation for about three weeks now and we've really enjoyed every minute of it...well except for a few which we'll address here in a little bit. The time has been full of learning about our people group and how to engage them but all the while being full of fellowship and fun!
The schedule usually goes as follows...
Wake up around 6:30 am (or earlier if we go run) get ready in time to hop skippy jump to the caf real quick to grab a bite for breakfast. The first session is at 8 am and we'll hear various speakers from then until noon. At noon we break for lunch until 1 pm then we're back in sessions till around 3 pm. (sometimes 5 pm) However...yesterday was a bit different. 1-5 in the afternoon was reserved for immunization time. It was well... you can see.

Man those suckers burned!! But...we're immune now from all kinds of stuff you can imagine. Brandon was a bit more brave:


But so far, these have been the only not-so-fun moments!

We're here for another 4-5 weeks and it's crammed with all sorts of activities. And lucky for us we only have one more immunization time. Brandon will be getting a total of 5 shots and April is getting a total of 12!
Sorry we've been so slack in keeping this updated, we'll try to update the blog a little more often now!

Friday, May 05, 2006

The move!

We have finally moved out of Plainview! Though it was ok most of the time, we were very anxious those last few months to get outta town. We packed everything up and it's spread out fairly evenly between Amarillo and Perryton. We've moved in with April's parents in Perryton and have been busy getting everything situated and actually helping them unpack their stuff! They moved into this house two weeks ago! So things have been pretty crazy, but we're glad to be here getting to spend time with the parents. We'll be spending a lot of time in Amarillo with Brandon's parents as well.
Anyhow...last week we had the final Kid's Club in our apartment ministry. It was incredible. We've spent all year with these kids and it was so hard to say goodbye. Halfway through the year though we thought it would be a good idea to inforce some rules. (I know...a bit late eh?) But we started this sticker thing where the kids get a sticker for each rule that they completely obey each week at Kid's Club and the kid who accumlutes the most stickers gets a prize at the end of the year. So last week was prize week and we were blessed with about $300 to buy prizes with! So the winner, a beautiful girl named Cierra, we surprised with a bike! Woohoo! We got the kids all kinds of cool toys, games, etc... And each kid got to take home something pretty exciting. It was incredible to see their faces. (keep in mind these are low-income apartments so these kids are pretty thrilled to get anything for free.) Here's some pictures of our prize giving extravaganza!

Jaden and Brooklynn getting very cute barbie dolls:



Andrew and his new baseball and baseball glove...and Brandon's weird face:



Cierra after being surprised with her new bike!



The entire Kid's Club group:

Friday, March 10, 2006

First Post!



Welcome to our Blog! You'll be able to read all about our journeys in East Asia at this website. We'll try to update it as often as possible and keep you informed of all that is going on where we are. Thanks for visiting our site!