2 weeks and counting....

Jamey's Grandmother - Ms. French - will all 3 great grandchildren. Stephen, Ansley and Eli.



School officially starts 2 weeks from today. Although teachers go back next Wed. Ugh. Summer could not have gone by quicker. I love my job and believe me I am thankful to have it, but I am not quite ready for such scheduled days yet.
The kids spent the night at Judy and Steve's last night so Jamey and I could go see the new Harry Potter movie. Jamey has not actually seen the first 5 movies, but he was a good sport and took me to see this one. I think he liked it - but he was a bit confused at parts since he had no background at all really.
After the movie we came home to watch Season 2 of The Office that Netflix delivered on Sata - but considering the disc was completely broken, we watched The Soup and Tosh.O which Jamey loves. Me, not so much.

Here are a few pictures of the kids from last week's adventures. We drove over to Gulfport on Friday to visit the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center and then ate lunch at a park in Pascagoula. It was a fun day.

Above is a picture of Stephen working the register at the grocery store. And below is Ansley doing the weather forecast.
Jamey said I should send the picture below to MCDonalds and see if they would buy it from me - haha! :-)
Ansley took this picture of Stephen giving me a kiss.

Summer shots from this week.

Jamey is working all this week and next week so since Tuesday was his only day off, we went to the beach for the day and had a great time. We also got to see Jamey's aunt Julie and Uncle John (who we love!) so that was fun. The kids got to sit on the motorcycles which they loved.
There is also a picture or 2 of the kids playing in the backyard. We are really enjoying our summer.

London 09

London was so much fun! I think we saw as much of everything as we possible could in 2 and a half days thanks to our tour guide Chris. Our little circle of friends had a great time together. Sorry they are in no particular order - uploading takes them all out of order.

Here I am with a guard at the palace - he never moved a muscle!

Jamey and a phone booth - picture taken from enough away to show the, um, not so nice pictures posted inside. We saw a production of Peter Pan in Kensington Park! It was so wonderful.
Jamey and I in front of Buckingham Palace - for some reason, the Queen did not invite us in for tea....
Chris, Jen, Luke and Sara riding the double decker red bus through London
The Wicked theater! I can't even describe how wnderful it was!
A red double decker bus in front of St. Paul's cathedral.
Jamey and I on the steps of St. Paul's Catherdral - there was no feeding the birds!

Jamey with Paddington Bear


The Walrus and The Carpenter Pub - with a special Lewis Carroll dining room
Being silly in the gift shop
The backside of us on the Tower Bridge - Jamey's idea

Big Ben in the backgroundSara, Luke, me and Jamey in front of Tower Bridge

Luke and Jamey in front of the Tower of London. One night, Jamey and Luke and Courtney took a Jack the Ripper tour given by one of the beefeater guys from the Tower. They said it was really a great tour.

Big Ben again
Our first pub visit our first night -
Fish and Chips!
Riding the train from Heathrow Airport

back to real life

I have GOT to get my rear end in gear. Considering I have been back in the states for almost a week now, I am still so sluggish. Clothes need to be put away - carpets vacuumed. I need a personal motivator to come over here and threaten me with bodily harm I guess. I am tempted at this point to call in the organizational queens in my life (Amanda B, Morgan H). I need to get my house in gear and start back with running/walking. I was doing so well in the spring and I enjoyed it and felt so much better. Why can't I keep up with it? I am just like the mass number of people in the world who start things and then don't finish them. Can't I do better??? I don't know. Maybe that is my problem. My friend Michele has a plan for us once school starts for running/walking our way toward some type of race after Christmas. I do feel excited about her plan though - so maybe there is hope for me!

I am so glad to be home with my kids. It took Ansley about 15 minutes to be an expert on my new I-phone (thank you Jamey!). Is there a way to lock her out of downloading apps??? Yikes!
She is going to VBS at night this week and loves it tonight. I love that she gives me a full report on the way home. I hope she will always do this (well, maybe not EVERYTHING in her life - but most things would be nice)
Stephen Duke, as I type this, is jumping from the sofa to the ottoman and yelling "Alphapig!" (from a show on PBS). I love this stage. Yesterday he wanted to wear his "cape" aka a yellow blanket - into the store, and you know what? I let him. I think it is precious. I think HE is precious. The potty training is still ongoing - I think, actually I know, if I buckled down, he would train very quickly.....

Summer is on the countdown now - I know I haven't written much about Ukraine and London - but I swear it is hard to process it right now. It was wonderful and I wouldn't change a thing. It is just hard to get everything into words. I am working on it.

Happy Monday!

Ukraine Pictures -

We arrived In Ukraine on Sat after almost 20 hours of travel. Our hotel in Kiev was not the best, but thankfully we were only there one night. Here is a picture of us arriving in the Ukraine airport in Kiev.


THat evening we took a taxi into the downtown area to sight see - Here we are in front of St. Sophia's cathedral ( I think - I was braindead at that point from lack of sleep) The next day, we left for what was supposed to be a 5 hour bus ride to Rivne where we would be working that week. Well, as you can see from the picture below, that trip turned out to be much longer due to a blowout - but we did eventually make it there.

During the week, one group (including Jamey) spent the days demolishing an old pavillion at the orphanage and then rebuilding it again so that the weight of the snow in winter would not damage it again. They worked so hard all week with minimal tools and terrible heat.
Jamey and Chris in front of the hardware store in Rivne. My team spent the mornings at an orphanage for ages birth through about age 7. We told Bible stories, sang songs, made crafts and played games. We had a great time. As you can see, clothing for the children consists only of underwear usually. No child "owns" anything - they share clothes from a communal basket.



It is Ukrainian custom for children to ALWAYS have on a hat or some type of head covering when outside. Each afternoon, our group spent time with the children from an Intake Center. These are children from the streets who are waiting to be processed to either a group orphanage, a relative or maybe even return to their parents. These children were ages 3 - 18.

Here is Jamey playing playing football (soccer) with the older boys. He succeeded in throughouly jamming his finger, but had a great time. Here is our group from Mobile in front of one of the fountains near out hotel.


Here is a picture of the city from our hotel.
The whole trip was such a great experience. The children were well taken care of at the orphanage, but it was obvious that individual attention was what each one craved. They wanted to be touched, held, tickled, and chased. We had the best translators, but really what the kids wanted required no language other than love.
I will share more when I can, (and London pictures are coming soon!)