~Having fun on Deputation and "playing house."~

As you can see on our deputation schedule, some of our services have been sort of close to home. So we have taken advantage of that and have run home every chance we got to work another few hours in our old home.   I'm having SO MUCH FUN!!! =D  When I blog during deputation, I only have a few minutes here and another few there, so please excuse any Grammer or spelling errors. =)
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I wanted to show y'all where we hung the Adorable sign that my dear friend Brittany gave me.
We hung it above our old Ice box in our dinning room.  Each time I go into my dinning room and see this it makes me want to squeal with delight. =)
THANK YOU again, Brittany, for such a Sweet gift.~

~I love it!!!!~

~Our old gas stove in our dinning room. ~

~I found this candelarbra at Goodwill.  It was black and we painted it off-white.  I love it on top of our antique gas stove.~

~My artistic sweetheart drew "Spring" on my chalkboard making the "I" of Spring a flower.  =) ~

~A lady in our church had this shelf in her "Goodwill pile"...and my sister asked her if she could have it for me.  So, Laura and our church people that helped her work on our house had this adorable shelf hanging in our bathroom when we arrived.  Thanks, Sis. Jowers.  =)
I'm having fun finding things in my house to add to it.  5 of the things I put on that shelf were in Colombia with us. =) ~

~Then on top of that sewing machine cabinet in our room I added some flowers and a frame that holds 3 pictures. 
My wedding flowers are on the bottom of the sewing machine cabinet and to the left is a hat box that holds my wedding hat.~

~My bridal portrait, our wedding pic, and a more recent pic of Phillip and I.  ~

~Recently we had a service in Circleville, OH and got to see our dear friends the DeMints.  They are the ones that loaned us their motor home in 2009.  We had a very nice time with them.  Their son Elijah loves to fly airplanes.  Our Noah was excited to get to show him his new helicopter.~

~Sis. DeMint and I.~

~One of our boys took this pic of some of Elijah's airplanes in his room.~

~Noah driving Phillip around in their golf cart.~

~The DeMint family~

~Then after we had fun doing some Goodwill-ing with Sis. DeMint and Joanna, we hurried back to our house so we could help my sister and my niece Natasha give a fun party.  Natasha had recently had a birthday and wanted to invite some of her G.B.S. friends over to her house for a get-together.  Here's Kimberly with her A. Laura working before the party began.~

~Darla and Mary.  Natasha's get-together was a blast, and you can see more pics later on Laura's blog, when she gets a few to post them.~

~That same night my brother Lincoln and nephew Keith came in from VA.  ~

~So Laura and I put breakfast together and we got to enjoy having breakfast at Daryl and Laura's house and got to visit with them and their family, and Keith and Lincoln. ~

~Yours truly, Lincoln, and Laura.  (We Missed you, Andrew!!! =(
Lincoln doesn't have any hair right now.  You see, one of his students at the Christian Day school where he teaches...has cancer.  He shaved his head in sympathy to that girl who lost her hair. (I thought that was so thoughtful and sweet of Lincoln that it made me get teary-eyed.)
It was so Fun to see Lincoln and Keith.~

~Then after saying goodbye to Lincoln and Keith, we got all packed up and left to go to Indiana to stay with my Daddy and Moma for the night.
  The next morning we had a service at Tim and Kim Forsee's church in Franklin, IN.  It was fun catching up with them and meeting their family.  We had a yummy Sunday dinner together in their church's fellowship hall.  ~

~Elijah and their Caleb got along great.  They are 2 peas in a pod.  =)~

~Then we ran to Noblesville, IN to Tim's brother John Forsee's church for a service that night.  Becky F. gave our kids some goodies from Jr. church.  She became their new best friend.  =)
Here's Mary eating GUM out of her new gum machine.  Her mouth was FULL of gum!! =) ~

~On Monday evening my Moma was to speak to the Women of Worth group in Beachmont, IN.  So, our family was trying to hurry and SCOOT out of her way Monday morning, so she could finish preparing for her talk.  Here she is trying to "hide out in her bedroom" so she could study with 5 special grandkids in her house. She told me that it was so HARD not being with us and our kids.~

~As we pulled away from their house our van was LOADED with all our things and some furniture Jesus had helped us to get for our house.  ~

~ Poor Kimberly and Sarah had NO LEG ROOM, and had to sit sideways for the 2 1/2 hour ride home.~

~This was one of the pieces of furniture in the back of our van.
Here it is sitting in our dinning room. Between unpacking the van, sorting and washing laundry, etc., I didn't have many minutes to arrange my dishes in it, but I enjoyed playing with it for a little while.~

~I'm so HAPPY...I love it!!!~

~Inside the wooden box on top is a fun little plate that my dear friend Kimberly gave me a long time ago. It went to Colombia with us and now is back sitting in our USA home.  I love this little plate.
It says something like,

 "Mid pleasures and palaces, 

Though you may roam, 

be it ever so humble, 

there's no place like HOME!!" =)

We left home yesterday and headed for N.C. and got here at 1:45 AM this morning. =(
 I'm exhausted. We'll have service here tonight and are looking forward to seeing all our good friends here. =) Thank you for your prayers.
 

~More Alabama pics & other Deputation pics.~

Well, I normally try to blog about every 2 or 3 days, but right now I'm only able to blog about once a week.  Between traveling, and going thrift storing to find things for our home, keeping the laundry done up, packing, and repacking and unloading and re-loading the van, etc....
I'm meeting myself coming and going. =)  Our deputation is going well, Thank you for praying for us.
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 ~About 2 months ago, when I talked to Melinda about coming to Alabama, we planned to go thrift storing while we were together, for she has some great prices at her thrift stores.  So on Saturday after we surprised Bryanna at her party on Friday night, March 22nd, we girls went shopping, while the "boys" (and their Dad's) rode go-carts.  How fun!~

 ~Jesus gave us some good deals at the thrift stores, and Melinda shared some clothes that her girls had worn, so we were able to get our family all "clothed and ready" for Deputation. =)  We girls had a lot of fun shopping together.~

 ~Besides shopping together, we also ate together and had a lot of fun visiting with Donald and Melinda, Aunt Jan, and Donald's parents from AK.~

 ~Here we are singing in our service, at the Fogelman's church in Jasper.  Thank you, Brittany, for taking our picture. =) ~

 ~Phillip really enjoyed visiting with Donald and Mr Ed.  Mr. Ed was a HUGE help to us.  Our clothing rod in our van broke, and he welded us a new one!!!  What a blessing!~

 ~ Here is Kimberly Skyping Natalie in Colombia going down the road.~

 ~Our Sunday evening service was in Pell City.  Pell City Camp is the camp where I grew up.  I hadn't been back on that camp grounds since I was expecting Kimberly.  A lot of nice changes since then. =)  Here I am with my dean of Women from GBS, Sis. Brown.~

 ~The Heather I met and Kimberly played a special for that night's service.~

 ~Here I am with my good friend Melinda.  She was great with child.  We left Monday and they had their baby boy on Wednesday. =)  Congratulations, Donald and Melinda!!~

 ~Sunday evening we had a yummy snack at their house.~

 ~Kimberly and Bryanna~

 ~All our kids together.~

 ~Kimberly and Bryanna made cookies together.~

 ~It was so nice to see my "Aunt" Jan again. (Aunt Jan is a sister to my A. Linda, so we've just always called her "Aunt Jan."~

 ~Then we headed to have a service in TN, and to see my Grandmother (GG).  Here is Kimberly doing GG's hair.~

 

~Kimberly and GG.~

~Our good friend Mr. Jim Hobbs came to our TN service.~

~My sweet cousin Esther and I.~

~Little Mary wore clear out.~

~Yummy food fixed by Aunt Carole and Grandmother.~

~This man gave Noah and Elijah matching leather cowboy coats.~

~The TN service (a combined service with other churches) gave us a pounding of clothes hangers!  We were needing hangers, and now we have H.A.N.G.E.R.S.!!~

~We went with U. Dan and A. Carole to Gracie's restaurant and had some cook food.~

~This was the Saturday before Easter.  I put on one of Phillip's work shirts to keep me "clean among the dust" and went down into our basement and was digging in my china and crystal that had been packed away for years. 
Sorry, I got mixed up and said last post, that it had been "12 1/2 years" since we packed up our things to go to the mission field. 
My tired mind must have added the year 2004 to 8 1/2 years and I accidentally wrote 12 1/2 years.  It's only been 8 1/2 years since we packed our dishes and went on Deputation and then to the mission field. 
So you can imagine that...I'm having so much fun unpacking my things and PLAYING HOUSE!!~

~While we were home for Easter Sarah and her cousin Darla got to go to a Tea party birthday party together.~

THANK YOU for your prayers!!  I'm so TIRED that I'm wondering if my family will miss me if I don't get into the van when we leave for our service in N.C. on Tuesday.  Hee! Hee! =D