pictures of our life

Bryan's men's group of medical guys that has met every Tuesday night since we moved to Rochester. Raquel's group of scrapbooking friends that started as neighbors.
Our couples small group through the Koinonia Young Marrieds ministry at Autumn Ridge Church. They are our Rochester family.
Rochester Track meet for kids. Jaden with his favorite girl, Jenna. Clay just cried instead of ran but Jaden had fun.

Honduras medical supplies; 10 large boxes in total. About 3/4 came from the Rochester Medical Relief via Mayo Clinic donations and 1/4 came from our great friends in Rochester.

so much has happened

A lot has happened in the last week. We moved out of our house in Rochester and everything got packed up for storage. We are now spending our days around Minneapolis (Apple Valley and Bloomington) and a few days coming up in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Here is what has been happening and what will be happening in our lives.

June 18th - pack up everything
June 20th - move everything into truck and place in storage
June 19th - move up to relatives' townhouse in Apple Valley
June 21st - Bryan's family in Apple Valley and us at hotel next to Mall of America in Bloomington
June 24th - Bryan's family returns to Fargo
June 25th - we move from hotel back to townhouse in Apple Valley
July 1st - we pick up Bryan's sister, Kim, from the airport in Minneapolis
July 2nd-6th - we are in South Dakota with Raquel's family
July 6th - we arrive back in Apple Valley and stay in Apple Valley
July 7th - we pack up everything for our trip to Honduras
July 8th - we leave for Honduras at 7:20 AM from Minneapolis airport
August 6th - we arrive back into Minneapolis Airport and stay 1 night in Apple Valley
August 7th - all of our stuff will be delivered to our new house in Bloomington and we will officially move in

We appreciate your prayers.

my husband rocks!

I know that Bryan is a great dad but I think the world needs to know (or at least the few people who read this blog). He worked so hard all weekend to earn our family money so that we can pay for our Honduras trip and moving expenses. We all were up in Apple Valley, MN this weekend staying at Mel and Jackie's (Bryan's uncle and aunt) townhouse. Bryan worked overnight Friday night and Saturday night, each shift was from 7pm to 7am. He slept during the daytime and we even squeezed in some time with friends on Saturday to celebrate our friend, Sara's, birthday! Sunday came and Bryan slept more. I knew that he wouldn't get to each lunch on Sunday with us so we got Taco John's for dinner on Saturday evening. This is, by far, Bryan's favorite restaurant, so he enjoyed it. I do like it but not nearly as much as Bryan. This just shows that Bryan is a practical and down-to-earth kinda guy. He doesn't need some fancy meal or expensive steak to enjoy some food with his family.

Last year I tried creating a tradition of going out for steak on Father's Day but Bryan wasn't really into that so we ate at Taco John's instead. He does love a good steak and wishes that Ruth Chris' Steakhouse was more affordable. He will splurge occasionally for one of their yummy steaks!

This Father's Day Bryan would have liked to have gotten out with his family and done something fun with his boys, like take them mini golfing for the first time but we simply didn't have the energy for this. Instead he settled for measuring the kitchen and cabinets in our new home in Bloomington.

I think the best part of his day was laying around watching the US Open on TV. Tiger sure is entertaining and Bryan enjoyed relaxing with the boys and me for a couple hours in the late afternoon. We also go to have some yummy frozen custard from Culver's to end the day well.

I may not be posting so often for the next couple months because we have a lot going on. See previous post about the prayer calendar. The calendar also has the major stuff that is going on in our lives. We are packing like crazy--stuff for Honduras and our essentials for the next 7 weeks and the stuff that the moving company won't take and the stuff I don't want them to touch. We are off to another late night.

prayer for us and Honduras

We have setup a really cool prayer calendar. We really value and appreciate your prayers while we are in Honduras and as we prepare to go there. We would love to know that someone is praying for us every day we are in Honduras so we are asking you to sign-up for a day to pray.

I know that many of you will try to remember us daily or weekly or as often as you think of us but we would also appreciate you to focus on one day to remember us and the country of Honduras in prayer.

The prayer calendar website has instructions on the top of it for what you need to do and there is a list of things to pray for on the bottom of the website. You can read all about our lives and what will be happening soon for us.

Here is the website:
http://www.my.calendars.net/honduraspray

Thanks for your prayers! We know that God hears us when we pray!

Sunday Open House/Honduras Party

Our Open House/Honduras party went pretty well but I couldn't have pulled it off without our awesome babysitter, Christen, and her sister Katy coming to my rescue. We went to the store to get a few last minute supplies on Sunday morning and once we got back home it was 1pm and the kids still needed more to eat and get down for a nap. I had a lot of cleaning and picking up to do along with all of the food preparation. I realized at 1:30pm that there was no way I was going to get it all done by 3pm when we were expecting people. So I called Christen at the last minute to come help me clean and cook and she brought her sister, Katy. They were a lifesaver while Bryan was sleeping from working all weekend and the boys were supposed to be napping.

Christen and Katy picked up toys in just about every room, swept, vacuumed and did my dishes. They also helped me get the food ready. We had a lot of yummy food from Latin America and some served particularly in Honduras.

Here is the food list:
tropical fruit (fresh pineapple, mango and 2 types of papaya)
chips, salsa and guacamole (fresh salsa from Target, some with mango and some regular)
Baleadas (Honduran burritos) with avocado, tomatoes, sour cream, queso blanco (cheese), 3 types of refried beans, jalapenos and onions
Fried plantains (similar to a banana) with brown sugar and cream for dipping (I burnt these a little, oops, but I look forward to trying more in Honduras where they will be fried properly)
veggies and dip (carrots, grape tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers)
freshly baked Mexican sweet bread with cinnamon and nuts in it
homemade flan (vanilla custard with caramel sauce)
Tres Leche cake (three milk cake, very moist and yummy Honduran cake)
and apple soda (Manzana, my favorite from our experiences in Mexico City) and pineapple soda

We had about 25 people come by our house and it was a fun time. We collected about 2 boxes of stuff for the kids and the hospital in Honduras. There will be more goodbyes in the week and half to come. It was a fitting date to have the party because we leave for Honduras in one month from the party on July 8th! Wow, that is coming soon.

lots of tears shed

Today was a rough day because of many things going on in our lives.

We said goodbye to our closest neighbors, Teresa, Josh, Jack and Luke. They are moving closer to family in Michigan. Their move hit especially hard because it brings the reality of our move to light. Jaden and I cried in their driveway today as they left. Jack is 2 and Luke is 1 and my boys enjoyed playing with Teresa's boys. Teresa was a wonderful friend that I wish I could have as a neighbor forever but God had other plans.

We had a lot to get done today in preparation for our Honduras Open House/Goodbye/"Bring it if you got it" (we really just didn't know what to call it) Party that we are having Sunday (tomorrow) at our house from 3-6pm. I needed to get the food all figured out and bought. That ended up happening later than planned because of some extra internet research that had to be done on Honduran recipes and we wanted to spend a few minutes with our friends before they left. Anyway, we made it to the Mexican market and Walmart but that pushed naps a little late today.

While in Walmart, a nightmare of mine came true. Clay didn't want to sit in the front of the cart so I let Jaden but that left Clay to roam around. Soon Clay was in the back of the cart but just couldn't stay sitting. I thought I was being very careful to not move whenever he was standing but that wasn't enough. While we were stopped, he reached out to get something and tumbled out of the cart and hit the floor pretty hard with his head and his whole body. He was just sprawled out. I quickly grabbed him up while he was screaming, which was good because that means he is ok but just hurt (we hope). We took it easy in Walmart, hoping someone would come to our rescue to check on us while Clay screamed for about 15 minutes, but nothing until he stopped crying and an employee came over to say hi. He said he didn't see what happened after I asked but just heard the crying. I felt like a terrible mother and was very worried that it might have done a lot of damage to Clay. He seems fine now and I am sure prayer helped us both. I just wish things like this didn't have to happen but I have two very energetic boys that aren't very obedient.

This incident reminded me of the first (yes, I said first) time that Jaden fell down the stairs. I was terrified. He was fine and ended up falling down the stairs at least 4 more times in different circumstances. I swear I am not a negligent parent and from these experiences I have learned of many other parents similar experiences. They have definitely taught me to rely on God more and try to watch my kids more closely but I know it is impossible to always keep an eye on them. Accidents will happen and probably more with little boys around. I am just amazed that we haven't had a broken bone yet. I am sure that will come.

This evening was also difficult and more tears were shed. I went to our church's Saturday night service with the boys while Bryan is working some extra shifts to pay for our Honduras trip. (We are working like it depends on us to pay for our Honduras trip but at the same time trusting God and praying like it depends on Him to provide funds in miraculous ways to increase our faith in Him.) The service tonight was good but I was reminded a few times of our moving and how soon it is coming and the goodbyes have already started. That brought me to tears on the way home and I just let them come. Jaden, of course, became disturbed by this but he did seem to understand that moving is difficult. Jaden was sure proud of himself for making me happy again once we got home.

Now I have a lot of work ahead of me tonight and tomorrow morning in preparation for having people over on Sunday afternoon. Hopefully we will see some of you reading this. So many people have been such a blessing in our lives in Rochester. I just hope that we can express this to our Rochester family before we go.

"Bring it if you got it party"

Many of you have already received our letter in the mail about our upcoming Honduras trip for 4 weeks from July 8th to August 6th.

We would love to see our Rochester-onian friends before we leave for Honduras and move to the Minneapolis area. We would also really like to collect some more supplies to take with us to Honduras. So, we are having an open house at our place on Sunday, June 8th from 3-6pm.

We would love to say goodbye to you before we move so feel free to stop by and sample some Central American food. If you would like to donate an item or more from the list below, you can bring it by our house on Sunday. We plan on taking our maximum amount of luggage for our 4 tickets to Honduras and if we get more than we can take, then we will pay for extra luggage or ship it there.

Here is the list of needs from the Hospital Loma de la Luz in Balfate, Honduras (http://crstone.org):

• towels for patients
  
• diapers (all sizes and any brand)
• wet wipes
• enema kits (both Fleet and normal kits)
• OB/Gyn suction bulbs
  
• combination DVD/VCR player and TV monitor
• antihistamines or other cough/cold medicine (Zyrtec, Sudafed, Benedryl, Claritin/Loratadine, diphenhydramine, pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, etc.)
• antifungals, creams and ointments (Lamisil, Lotrimin, Lotrisone, Monistat, etc.)
• Ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) and Naproxen (Aleve) and Acetaminophen (Tylenol)
• children's ibuprofen and acetaminophen liquid and tablets
  
• steroid creams and ointments (hydrocortisone, Cortaid)
• rolled gauze, gauze squares
• rolled, stretchy gauze
• alcohol swabs
• cotton balls or cotton rolls
• marking pens for glassware (permanent, felt tip, i.e. Sharpie)
• staplers and staples
• hand sanitizer
• items for Honduran kids: pencils (colored and black), sharpeners, crayons, notebooks, glue sticks, scissors, pens, erasers, soccer balls and frisbees (They only want small amounts of these items.)

Honduras support letter

Here is a picture of our Honduras letter asking for money and prayer support from our friends and family. There is a chance you didn't get this in the mail but we tried to send it out to everyone we know. We would love to add you to our mailing list if you didn't receive the letter. Let us know if you didn't get your letter because we might have the wrong address for you. You will need to double click on the letter image to open it larger, so that you can read it.
We (our family of 4) are going to Hospital Loma de La Luz in Balfate, Honduras from July 8th to August 6th.

need to get out

I have now been at home for 2 weeks since we have had any regularly scheduled outings for me or the kids. It has been fun and enjoyable until now. We have been at home a little too much and it has taken its toll on my attitude and probably the kids behavior too. We still have gotten out to the grocery store and Target/Walmart quite a bit and have spent lots of time playing outside but there hasn't been enough interaction with other people and definitely not enough adults.

I need to get on the ball now and start scheduling some playdates and some friends to come over. I need it and the kids need it. We still have 2 weeks here so we might as well make the best of it with seeing as many people as possible before we leave.

we have a house!

This morning it was made official. We will soon be the owners of a two story house in Bloomington, MN. We searched long and hard through about 70 houses to find the one that we feel God wanted us to have. We had been praying for God's help in finding the right house and Bryan was praying that if this was the house for us that it wouldn't sell to anyone else while we kept looking. We first put an offer on this house about 7 weeks ago and re-offered last week. We think we got a good deal (much lower than the asking price) on the house and that was reconfirmed today when we went through the home inspection and found out the appliances and mechanicals (furnace and water heater) are all much newer than we thought and won't need replacing yet.

Bryan went back through his list of what we had been praying for in a house and this house seems to have everything on the list. We can't wait to see how God can use this house through us. We had wanted a house with lots of wallpaper so we could use up some of Bryan's spare time, ha ha.

Here are some links to look at pictures I took this morning without furniture in the house and the other link is to the MLS listing when there was furniture in the house.

http://picasaweb.google.com/astromom/2008_06_03BloomingtonHouse
MLS of house