jour·ney [júrnee]process of development: a gradual passing from one state to another regarded as more advanced, e.g. from innocence to mature awareness
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.
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.
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 vine
s 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.
I had the plea
sure 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 wal
l...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 w
ent 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.
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. 
d, 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.
