Thursday, May 21, 2009

Visalia Charter Independent Study

Great article about the school I work at.... Sometimes, I'm amazed at the Times Delta :) We do give grades... but other than that - good work!

130 students to graduate from Visalia Charter Independent Study

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Shadrach & Yafesi's pictures

This is the slide show of pictures from Shadrach & Yafesi's visit last weekend.

The weekend

When I asked Craig if we could be a host family for some of the children from Children of the World Choir - http://www.worldhelp.net/Children-of-the-World/cotw-about.aspx - I never in a million years expected to be so blessed! As an American, I like many others, have taken so many things for granted...such as a loving family that stuck with me even in tough times.... Friday night we met at church with 5 other families for an orientation. Shortly after, we got to meet our "children". Shadrach and Yafesi - because we don't have any chilen's at home, nor do we have a swimming pool, Shadrach wasn't sure he wanted to come with us... Yafesi, on the other hand - was in the car pushing buttons.... LOL I made it through that...and even tolerated him honking the horn whenever he passed it... (Sorry Miranda and Deven - guess I had you too young... :) you may have been beat for that!) Friday night we went to Adventure Park and had a great time eating pizza... (You want Ketchup on WHAT?) Riding the bumper boats - OK, I didn't have a great time with that...- and riding the race track... We were going to have Aunti Karen with us, but she's alergic to cats - so we took her back to church.

Yafesi's reaction when we got to the house was... CARS!!! THERE ARE A LOT OF CARS!!!! LOL I don't think he understood that most of them don't run .... Craig took the boys to meet Goober (who was a chicken) and Ace - and to pick oranges. We had a late night snack of fresh oranges, then it was shower time - and bed time... How incredibly special it was to hear my husband read the word - and share with these little boys how much God loves them... wow, I'm tearing up just writing this!.

Saturday, we were up decently early (Ungodly early for Craig and I) Craig made breakfast - the boys ate a LOT... what healthy appetites. They wanted to watch tv - and ours doesn't really work - so we watched the Lion Witch and the Wardrobe - they loved it - and were able to appropriately share the symbolism between Jesus and Aslom... Next - it was off to the horses... Funny thing - the boys had more fun in the horse trailer, looking at the chicken sitting on it's eggs... Both boys got to ride Alex - and play with the goats and sheep.... Yafesi helped feed - while Shadrach roped everything he could!

We had to rush home - (they weren't into that - Uncle had to scold them) so they could have lunch and nap before their 5 PM show at church. I left to take Aunti Karen with me for a pedicure... Very nice - relaxing afternoon.... Got home in time to get on the road again - and off to church. They put on such a good show - it was really incredible....especially after getting to know the boys. After church, Jay, Michelle and Donnie came by for dinner... the boys got to have a "chilren" come over for a while.... Got a late start to showers - and bed...but all in all it went well.

Sunday was hard - we had to say goodbye to these wonderful sweet little boys... We stayed to watch their show again - and then said our goodbyes... they will forever be in my heart though..and I would host again in a minute!

Sunday, May 10, 2009