Monday, November 29, 2010

Blankets for GAIN

Back on November 9th I had the chance to work with MCA's high school students on their community service project for the quarter - making no-sew blankets for GAIN International.
GAIN is the relief and development aid arm of Campus Crusade for Christ International, and they span the globe helping to meet physical needs in areas of poverty and despair and provide hope through evangelistic outreach. I joined them on a trip to Jamaica last spring and this coming March a group of our students will be headed to Ukraine under GAIN leadership.
After a devotion by a GAIN missionary, the students spent the entire day measuring, cutting and tying the blankets.
When they completed one, they would often fold it up, lay their hands on it and say a prayer for the child and/or family that would be receiving the blanket.
They're 14 - 18 year olds, so of course there was no shortage of silliness :)
But it was awesome to see the students really take on a challenge, think about who was benefitting from their hard work and product 150 blankets!

Saturday, November 20, 2010

The Homestead - FINALLY

First of all, a big apology to all of my "loyal blog readers" (and their friends who read the blog as well. hahaha)- I know that I have been crazy behind in my blogging and I'm going to try my hardest to be better! (Also, I'm semi-fearful of what Shay and Rachel may resort to doing if I don't update more often). :)
The first week of November, Dave and I headed off to Hot Springs, Virginia for a few days of relaxing. Dave loves to golf, I love to relax :) and we both love Fall so we decided to take a short trip to The Homestead. Our trip started off with a flight to Charlotte and then we had to get on another smaller plane to fly to Roanoke, Virginia... ... the little plane made me nervous, but the flight was less than an hour so it wasn't bad (the pic above and the next couple of pics were taken with my cell phone... sorry they're kind of blurry)
We landed in Roanoke, picked up our rental car and set off on the hour and a half drive to The Homestead. We followed the route provided by my iPhone maps app and ended up on this tiny little one-land road that went up and over a mountain. I was freaking out and Dave was being the calm one, but he told me later than when we were going around all the "hairpin" turns he felt like the car was going to flip over. Nice. When we got the resort I was on TripAdvisor looking for a local restaurant recommendation and came across a review where a Homestead guest advised people NOT to take the route that we had because it was a "bear infested death trap".

This is the view from our car as we pulled into the resort... ... and the view from our room (this is the pro-shop, pool house and first hole of one of the golf courses).
The resort was built in 1766 and though it's obviously been renovated and updated, they have kept alot of it's original "charm"... the windows behind the shutters were all original and really cute :)
There was also a table, two chairs and walk-in closet behind me in these pictures. After we got settled in we headed down to the teeny-tiny downtown area. You can see The Homestead in the background...
We walked passed a real-estate office and I had to take this picture for my mom... we always joke that we could totally live on a family "compound" in the mountains somewhere and so I was tickled to see a sign offering just that for the low low price of $3,250,000. :)
This is the spa, indoor pool and bowling alley...

The grand lobby on the way to dinner...
This was one of my favorite parts of the resort... it was this 2nd story walkway leading from our "wing" of the resort to the spa and pool (which is fed from a mineral spring). The floors are all heated and it was such a cool little place to hang out and read.
On Tuesday we headed out to play a round of golf (well, I hung out in the cart, read a book, drank hot chocolate and took pictures, Dave played golf) and this was the view from above the tennis courts...
There were all kinds of historical "references" around the resort, but this was definitely one of our favorites...

What I did :) And yes, it was COLD! I'm wrapped in Dave's coat and wearing his gloves and was still chilly.

As I was waiting for Dave to tee off I was using my camera zoom to check out some of the scenery and found a house that I wouldn't mind living in...
My view for pretty much the entire round of golf...
That's the resort WAY off in the distance... We were awkwardly trying to take a picture together with my big giant camera when a really sweet groundskeeper came by and offered to take one for us :)

Different hold, same kind of view...
My attempt at golf... doesn't my form look awesome?!?!?! When we moved to Texas (I was in the 8th grade), my dad said he was going to help me earn a girls' golf scholarship for college and took me to the driving range... while we were there we both realized I was hopeless (apparently I have rubber wrists) and I asked him if I could please get an academic scholarship instead and not have to play golf again. I kept up my end of the deal and I think that this is the first time I've swung a club since that day at the driving range :)


On Wednesday, Dave went out and played another round of golf and I opted to stay inside, shop a little bit, read a little bit and experience "high tea" in the grand lobby :) Dave finished golf just in time to catch the end of tea and call me an old lady.... I don't have any pictures from Thursday... it was raining and so we couldn't partake in any of the resorts outdoor activities (croquet, horseback riding, falconry, fly fishing, canoeing, etc., etc., etc.) and instead opted to sleep in, eat a late breakfast, take a nap, eat lunch, and lay around playing gin and watching movies. PERFECT!!!
We packed up Friday morning and I took this picture of about 1/3 of the hotel's front porch...
Each time we left and returned to the resort I swooned over this one house right by the entrance so on our way out we had to snap a stalker picture. I mean, really?!?!?! Could it be any more picturesque??? If I had to draw up what my "dream house" would be this is totally it. Complete with smoke coming out of the chimney, pumpkins on the front porch and golf-course style front lawn. It was for sale and I told Dave that I would love it for Christmas... we'll see :)
There were lots of other cute, historic homes along the way as well...


Thankfully we took another way back to the airport and avoided the "bear-infested death trap" route, and instead of fearing for our lives we got to stop at a few scenic spots and take some pictures...



It was really cold and still pretty early, so there was A LOT of fog as we were coming down the mountain...

You probably guessed it from the pictures, but we didn't take Luke with us on this trip. He stayed at Gibi and Haha's house and didn't miss us AT ALL!!! We got lots of rest and relaxing time and area already talking about going back with Luke when it's a little bit warmer and partaking in a lot of the fun activities they have for kids and families.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Last Halloween Post - I promise!

I promise that this is my very last Halloween-related post :)
Luke and I made cupcakes celebrating the season (Luke in his underwear, of course!) We carved pumpkins on Halloween morning and thought Luke would love it - he was as disinterested in helping as he was in having his picture taken with the finished product.
Disclaimer: please ignore the fact that my son is wearing fuzzy crocs, polka dot socks, maroon sweatpants, his skull and crossbones pj shirt and a hoodie - it was early :)


Thursday, November 18, 2010

Trick-Or-Treat Scrapbook Style




Trick-or-Treat 2010

On Halloween night we headed out after dinner to go trick-or-treating. We ran into Aiden next door and tried to get a picture of the boys together - neither of them were very interested: We headed across the street for Luke's very first house...
And he trick-or-treated like a pro! AFter that house he had his routine down...
1) ring the doorbell
2) say trick-or-treat
3) say thank you as he's walking away
4) start yelling "need more treats!"
Homeboy definitely had the Halloween spirit :)
He was sooooo focused on getting "more treats" that he didn't have time to stop and take a picture with his mama... I have 9 pictures and, believe it or not, this one is the best :)
On the way back to our house we ran into Ebby Lee & Nixon and Kensington & Smith!
We came back home to peel off his hot monkey suit and sort through the candy. The only candy he was really interested in was dum-dum suckers.

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