Family

Left-Right- Joseph,Lindsey,me-Jessi, Carli, my mom, Lawson, my Dad

Today I went to Chattanooga with my parents, Carli and Lawson to visit my brother Joseph and his wife Lindsey. We went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant. After the meal we were able to go rock climbing. Lindsey works for a rock climbing company so we went to the wall that she works at. Lindsey belayed while we climbed..so our lives were in her hands...we're all still alive, so she is trustworthy. Joseph and I reminisced about the good old days when we would go to this rock quarry near my grandparents house and rock climb...without a harness or anything. My mom apparently was not privy to the fact that when we would go there that we climbed, or at least if she did know that little peice of info she was not aware that in most parts it was about 50 feet high with a rock bottom and in other part above water it was higher. I didn't climb above the water (only above the rock.) Joseph did once when he dropped his shoe and had to climb down to the water to fish it out. Joseph and I had a great time climbing back there. It's a good thing that we never fell. Those were fun times..but I don't know that it was that smart of us. At the time it seemed like a great idea...we didn't have money or a way to climb with the harness and all or go to a rock wall made for that, but we did have this free rock quarry to climb. After climbing we went to the market (like a carft fair.) Then to walk around by the river. I was a fun day and I enjoyed seeing Joseph and Lindsey.

Rain

This morning as I heard the rain falling I snuggled deeper into my covers. My window was open and invited in the slightly cool breeze. My bed felt so good, like strong arms telling me to relaxing in their safety. My eyes feel dreamily back down...then the alarm in my head started going off saying "don't forget you have a math test! test! test!" My sleepy body argued back..."you should sleep! Relax! SLEEP!!!" I laid in bed for a minute more wishing that I could stay there ALL DAY! Yes it was that kind of morning lazy, rainy, dreamy. I wanted to get out of bed late, read all day and eat soup, but I got up, got ready and trudged to school. After the short drive to Columbia State I sat in my car watching the rain pour down my window. I sighed at the thought of running across the parking lot to the school where my test awaited me. As I dodged rain drops I wished for my rain boats and huge umbrella that I left in Honduras. I felt like sitting down right there and writing a book or something lovely...it was then that I realized that rain inspires me to write. Well as it was I sat down and did a bunch a math problems...some of them were word problems..but it wasn't quite the same as writing. I was in school all day. I wrote nothing lovely, I didn't write a book, but I did decide to come home and write a blog. I hope to do a better job of writing more regularly and posting it. I have been writing a lot, some journaling and of course LOTS of papers for school. But my blog is more of a creative outlet for me, so I'll do some pondering and meet you back here sometime soon, maybe the next time the rain pours......

Emma Elizabeth

Tonight Kelsie gave birth to a beautiful baby girl- Emma Elizabeth! She was born at 8:00 and weighed 8 pounds 3 ounces. Kelsie did a great job, and was much more calm than I anticipate I will be if/when I give birth. Of course I wasn't in the room when she actually gave birth, Kelsie may have gotten mean at the last second, but up until the last minutes she seemed pleasant. I only heard irritation in her voice one time, when she felt we weren't giving her what she wanted. Anywho- Welcome to the world Emma!


P.S. That baby loves me! (I have a thing for her too....) I know that I'm her favorite despite what everyone else thinks. I have baby power-

59:22

Today I ran in my first race. Yes I have been running for a while now, but I have never been in an official race. I ran in a 10k which is 6.2 miles. I don't normally run that far, but thought I was up for the challenge. 59:22 was my time. My only goal for the race was to be in under an hour, which I did. Out of over 980 people I came in 585 out of everyone. I enjoyed participating in the race and would like to run in some more. Hopefully I can improve my time. I have this silly notion now that I would like to run in a marathon..not to win, just to say that I've done it...so we'll see.

Saturdays

Saturdays...I love them. All day with no commitments. Friends, family...hmmm

Lawson is always picking up Emmaline, and that makes me mad. I don't think Emmaline likes it and always has a distant quiet look on her face. The fact that I don't like when people pick her up is probably the main reason Lawson picks her up all the time. Brothers.....
Here is a picture of me and Kelsie at the pool. I was a nice day for just sitting around. It had been hot earlier that day when we decided to go to the pool, but by the time we made it there it was a little to cool to swim, so we just sat around in our swimsuits with are feet in the pool and solved all the worlds problems.













One Saturday my Dad, Lawson and I went and played a little b-ball. I'm happy to know that I can still spank my brother at basketball. He may be taller, but I play a fierce game (haha!) He says it's only because I make him laugh so he can't concentrate but I say you have to use your natural talent to win a game...and if being funny is something I can use to win then it is totally fair.

I'm back in the states

My journey has now brought me back to the states. I brought my dog Emmaline with me. We had an uneventful flight and Emmaline did well traveling all day. We didn't get to Tennessee until 11:30 that night and I was exhaust the next day from having traveled, and the exhaustion from the weeks before of packing and leaving my home of the past two years. It was hard to say good-bye and leave. I plan to attend Columbia State in the fall, I want to study Creative Writing. I'm also going to be teaching Spanish to high school students through a tutoring program close to where I live. I want to keep running, and have gone several time with my brother, and a few times with my dad and sister. Emmaline is now an inside dog and she loves it. I have finally gotten my room settled and everything put away. I plan to keep updating my blog, but I have no idea what I'll write about. I guess I'll just let it take me wherever. Here are some pictures of my house and car, my three dogs (Emmaline is in the middle) and two pictures of me and my brother. I was going to put a picture of me and my sister up but Carli didn't like the picture and called me mean.

One car mishap

While staying with Enmanuel, Junior, Cristian and Darwin, I had one of my many car mishaps. I was with them over a weekend, which meant we would go to church on Sunday. Since I drive in Honduras, it shouldn't have been too big of a deal. I had Beth come with me for crowd control. Unfortunately I broke the key that unlocks the door to their van the day before. It was an old key and it just snapped off. They were going to get a new key made on Sunday, but we still needed the van before that. They told me to go ahead and drive the van and just leave the back hatch unlocked and send one of the boys through to unlock it when we made stops. So we went to church leaving the hatch unlocked and locking the rest of the car. Sending the boys through to unlock the car for me. We did likewise on our stop for lunch at the Chinese place in town. I thought we had done the same thing on our stop for groceries. I had dragged the boys through the store with me filling our cart with food, promising them I'd buy them ice cream if they were good for me. We check out and landed within 10 cents of our budget..(go me!) We trudged out to the car to put away the food before we bought and ate ice cream. I came to the van with 4 boy under the age of 7 in toe, tired and ready for their ice cream. (They were very good in the store.) I went to pull the hatch up and nothing. It did not move, time stood still. I pulled again. Nothing. Then I heard Juniors sweet voice, "Miss Jessi, I locked the door for you." I looked at him and just blinked. I really wanted to just lean down and hug him and say "Thank you baby for helping me." Instead I just froze not knowing what to do. Then it hit me, William, my next door neighbor, who happens to be really good with cars, was at the mall. If I could just find him I was sure he could help me get into the car. Well, I grabbed two of the boys and left the food and two of the boys with Beth while I went to find William. I found him quickly, he was standing with some of the older guys talking. In an exasperate ton told him my plight. Edgar and Oscar were standing near by and took and interest in my story. William, Edgar, Oscar, me and the boys went out to the car. Edgar came just to laugh at me and said as much. Well, around this time it started to sprinkle. I sent Beth inside with Enmanuel, Junior and Cristian to get ice cream. Oscar went to help translate. William worked and worked to get the car open. After Edgar was done laughing at me he also tried to get into the car, with no luck. Finally after a good while, and it started raining harder, ( I had to take the bay in) Edgar helped me by calling a lock smith and getting the price down. The lock smith came by and had the car open in about 2 seconds. I then gathered the boys together and we headed home. It was something that would have only happened to me. It was a day to remember for sure. The picture was taken in school and is of Kensy, me, and Junior.

Quadruple trouble

A couple of weekends back I took care of these 4 little munchkins. I had them for 4 days. It was a tiring four days filled with Enmanuel's endless questions, cooking 3 meals a day, changing sheets, getting them ready, and trying to keep them busier than they were keeping me! I think that I failed when it came to trying to keep them busier than me, because I didn't stop once! I tried to pull the house into some kind of order at night when they were sleeping. We had fun, but I was so tired when I was done. Here are some pictures I took at dinner one night when I feed them spaghetti.

No words...

I am quite confident that there are no words that could possibly come close to describing how cute my kids are as this picture does. Yes, just like this picture suggest they are perfect angels and never fight, never whine at me, always do just as they are told, and I love them so so dearly. The road that they are walking on in this picture is a road that we walked everyday (during the school year, we're on summer break now.) It goes from the houses down to the school...and if you walk on it the other way, it goes from the school up to the houses! I walked the kids up to their houses for lunch after school everyday. This picture was taken on a beautiful day right before rainy season. It's one of my favorite pictures of my kids.

Berries!

The beginning of berry season is always an exciting time at Rancho Ebenezer. You can see the excitement rising on everyone’s faces as we watch the fresh blooms turn to sour red berries, ripening into the dark sweet black berries. The youngest on the Ranch to the oldest eagerly pull red berries off the vines and suffer through the sour taste in anticipation for what is to come. Now that we are well into berry season and have eaten more than our share of black berries it is a little easier to pass up the delicious delicacies dangling from the black berry vines. Now most of our black berries are making their way to the kitchen in Casa Grande rather than our mouths. The kitchen staff as been working hard making black berry jam, while the teenage girls have been making black berry tea through the work program. It’s wonderful to be able to have something that not only we can grow and enjoy, but that it severs as a means to teach the young people at Rancho Ebenezer. Not only is it a learning experience but goes to help support the Ranch and our efforts there. Berries is just one of the natural blessing we have at the Ranch.

Yolibeth and Deisy's room

I had the pleasure of painting these two beautiful little girl's room. Their house mom Karen had seen my room and loved the way I had it painted. Since I had Yolibeth in my class Karen thought it would be special for me to paint her and Deisy's room. Karen came over one day and we decided what words we wanted to put on their wall, then looked at TONS and TONS of fonts. After we had the fonts and words picked out we went back to Karen's and decided where to put all the different words...and oh yeah, Karen decided she wanted me to paint butterflies on their wall...me? butterflies? HA! Well, next we splashed the walls with all kinds of colors and textures. We even painted Yolibeth and Deisy's hands and had them put their hand prints on the wall for the background of the word "Play." Then with the help of carbon paper we traces the words on the wall, then painted the words in many different colors. Karen still wanted her butterflies. So I took a plunge and just went for it....I, yes me, I painted butterflies on their walls. I have to say they turned out really really cute, and it added so much to the room. All the kids kept coming in to check on the progress as we painted. The girls were delighted...they loved what we were doing. Yolibeth was our little helper, she arranged and rearranged the paints and paintbrushes. She also took messages to the other kids from Karen while Karen and I were painting. Daniel pouted because he wanted me to paint his room. Daniel gave me his signature lip sticking out frown that Karen claims that he only does for me..(maybe he found that it worked for me, but no one else...who knows.) Anyway, I had a blast painting their room, and it turned out so cute. It really brightened up their room and hopefully they will enjoy it for years to coming.

Island

I had the opportunity to go to an island with some of the other singles from the ranch this year. I had also been the year before as well as two other that were on the trip with me. There are islands scattered off the coast of Honduras in the Caribbean, and we were fortunate to be able to stay on our own private island for four nights. Staying on the island is unlike any other experience. Most people find the beach to be a relaxing place, but take away all the buildings, the people, the noise, and you are in wrapped in a calmness that makes you never want to face real life. You are sung to with the calm colors of the sunset, dazzled by the millions of stars, and delighted by the bright rays of the morning. The water is so clear that you can see the bottom. The blue is so blue, so bright that it seems fake. The raw unique beauty that you see all around you is breath taking. When you are at the island you feel as if you are looking at the world the way God made it, before man came in and altered it and add to it. The only way I know how to describe the way it feels is raw, fresh, whole and beautiful. While we were there we were able to do some snorkeling. What a fun thing. To see all of God's creativity even under the sea. The fish are all so unique, colorful and interesting. I loved being able to take a peak a what the sea holds. On the first day I spent a little too long enjoying looking at the fish and floating around talking to Jae, one of the girls on the trip with me, and I got fried. I was very red and did not feel well that night. I felt much better the next day and was still able to go out and enjoy the rest of the week. But I definitely learned my lesson about staying out to long! We found some really awesome crabs and hermit craps. The island is also often graced with pelicans. Besides enjoying nature, swimming, floating around the island, and snorkeling. We play lots of card games, talked, and Ron even did some fishing. I loved getting to read my book and catch up on my sleep! It was such a refreshing time at the island, but by the end of our time I was glad to be getting back to the Ranch to see everyone.

Cinderella

For graduation a couple of girls and me worked on writing a comical play. We came up with the idea of rewriting an old story that everyone knows with twist. We decided on doing the "True Cinderella Story" where a fairy played by Diasira comes to tell a little girl how the real story of Cinderella goes. "Cindy" is truly evil and with the help of her evil fairy godmother cast a spell on the prince which makes him fall in love with "Cindy" instead of her sweet kind hearted step-sister who is always left doing the chores because "Cindy" is to busy admire her vain beauty. The spell is only broken when "Cindy" trips and her magic shoe falls off. Nancy did a great job playing Cindy or Cinderella, Fany played the kind hearted step-sister while Oscar filled the roll of prince charming. Audrey donned blue makeup for her roll as evil fairy godmother. Elli was the little girl hearing the story and Abby played the stepmother. Nadetie and Nancy wrote the play and Nade was director. Unfortunately I was unable to be there to see the play. They performed it at graduation. I missed graduation because I had to leave early to get to my brothers wedding due to the plane crash. I heard that the play went great and if it was anything like all the practices I went to then I know that it was hilarious. We have some very talented young actors and actresses. I hope some of them have some sort of job speaking or acting in front of people someday. I'm sad that I missed the actual performance, but I was glad that I was able to be part of the play. It makes me smile just thinking about it. Here are some pictures taken during practice and a few that I borrowed from my roommate Jennifer from graduation. Thanks Jenn!