Leonard Log

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Cruise

Beautiful sunrise in Belize. I took this picture from our balcony.

Dave and our friend Rick having fun in Costa Maya.

Tarantula in Belize....just hanging out in the rainforest at the Mayan Ruins.

We found Pirates in Grand Cayman.

One of our formal dinners.

We just returned from the Western Caribbean. We had a great time in Grand Caymans, Cozumel, Belize and Costa Maya. We are having a hard time now that we are back on land. The sea-sickness has hit!

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Cruising!!!

We are having the time of our lives....I´ll get pictures up when I get a chance. We are docked in Cozumel currently and headed for Beliz and Costa Maya next. Snorkeling yesterday was incredible....I can´t wait to show you all!

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Club Libby Lu

Miranda earned a trip to Libby Lu for a make over. It is a little girl haven....everything pink and glitter.

Very pretty!

Sparky

At Maxwell it is tradition to have Sparky give candy out to the houses during Fire Prevention week. Everybody comes outside and there is a Sparky Parade. It was lots of fun!

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Columbus Day Weekend

Some good family beach time. The weather was perfect.

We stayed at Eglin AFB and played games in the room. Dave taught Kenzie some guitar chords and the girls had carmel apples! It was a nice, and relaxing time.....Dave and I know that we will get plenty of that in the next two weeks, but felt the girls needed some time away too!
Dave spoke at the National Postmaster's Association in the morning, we went to church on base and then headed for the beach.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Chris Cagel Concert

Not a bad picture....my new camera is good!

Whoo Hoo! We got a babysitter! We're out of the house without kids!

Great seats for not paying for the tickets! We just picked them up at the local radio station and paid to get into the fair.

We enjoyed going back to our "roots" and dressing up western for the concert. You can't see it, but I was wearing my Rockies and Ropers. It reminded us of home.

Monday, October 02, 2006

Welcome Home Luau

The girls were great hostesses and greeted our friends with a little dancing!

This is a cake that Dave has wanted me to make for years. I finally did it. I see now why I had waited so long. I told Dave, "If anybody wants one, I charge $400....no joke. $400. It's a lot of work!!!! If your crazy enough to pay it, I'm crazy enough to make another one!"
These are our neighbors. Luke and Josh.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Georgia Aquarium

Dave's request was to take the girls to the Georgia Aquarium when he returned from Iraq. It is the largest in the world. Dave doesn't think it is as cool as Oregon's!

Dave was the only one brave enough to pet the stingrays!

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Dave has arrived home safely!

I'll post more later...

Monday, September 18, 2006

Big Day Today!

McKenzie sat cardboard dad out on the front porch to watch the kids go to school. She posted a sign on him that reads, "I am coming home tonight." They are both very excited. I am praying that the flights aren't delayed and it really is today.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Happy Birthday Dave!

Happy Birthday Dave! Dave is 37 today. We will celebrate when he returns! But for today, we went to Starbucks and worked on homework. It is almost time for him to come home. Can you tell we are all tired?

Monday, September 11, 2006

Replacement Has Arrived!

The exciting news for the day is that Dave's replacement has arrived in Iraq! He won't be leaving for a few more days and it will take about a week for travel....talk about lay overs! I won't have an official date of return until I get a phone call from him whenever he hits the East Coast. Could I be any more vague??? That's about all the info I have. I know it should be soon :) Depending on his lay over once he arrives in the states and what city he is flown into, it may be just a few short hours of notice!

Thursday, September 07, 2006

A Baby Panda!!!!!!

With having a little Randa Panda in the house, we have learned a lot about Giant Pandas. We are delighted to live so close to the Atlanta Zoo. It is one of the 4 in the US that has the Giant Pandas. We now have a Baby Panda! It was news worthy enough to get the girls out of bed to see the pictures online. We will be anxiously awaiting our turn to go see the baby (the end of December or January). The babies aren't very cute as brand new newborns. They are about the size of a stick of butter and pink! They grow quickly and should look more like a panda in not too long (I think a month or so) I'll need to do a little more research about that.

Lun Lun gave birth today at 4:51 p.m. Yeah!!!!

Monday, September 04, 2006

Alabama Sunset

Last night the sunset was incredible. It was a very bright pink. The girls were intrigued and wanted pictures. We turned around to go back and get the camera and then missed it. So tonight, we stalked the sun. We sat in the parking lot waiting for just the right shot. It wasn't quite as extravagant as last night's sunset, but still lots of fun to watch.

The weather is finally starting to cool off!! I did lots of yard work yesterday and it is even pleasant to sit on my porch in the evenings. I checked online to see what the temperature has dropped to....only 87 at 7:15 pm! Granted the humidity has dropped quite a bit too. It was only 57% We were hovering at 90% there for a while. I am going to freeze when I go back to the Northwest. Dave is going to freeze when he comes back home too! From what we are hearing, it should be 2-3 more weeks.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Cheetah Girls 2

The girls have been waiting for weeks for the Cheetah Girls 2 premier. I didn't realize that it was the same night that they were invited by a friend to go to a Dr. Seuss play. They went to the play and missed their neighbor's Cheetah Girls party. They quickly realized that the play was worth missing a party. But, being the overachiever mom that I am trying to be we tried to replicate the missed party the next night. The girls decorated their own cake....those are cheetah spots :) We went to Goodwill and picked up a few "Cheetahlicious" shirts and we had a good time watching the movie.

Reasons to Adopt

If you were to go to Jerusalem and to climb the mount of olives you would find a mosque captured by Salidin in 1187. It was a church before that where it was believed that Jesus ascended into heaven leaving his last footprints on this earth. Many of us would question the validity of this claim, however, Jesus no doubt left mighty big footprints while he was on this earth. They are felt and experienced every day in every corner of the world. His legacy is one that is far reaching and touches every strata of income, every race, gender and color.

Luke 10:25-37 (NRSV)
25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”
27 He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
28 And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.
31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
woman lay dying on a Calcutta pavement. Her feet were half eaten away by rats and ants. She had been lying there for days and no one had taken any notice of her.
Then a nun came along. She was a tiny woman, dressed in a white sari which hung loosely about her and covered her head. She walked quickly, for she was always in a hurry. Her name was Mother Teresa.
When she saw the woman on the pavement she stopped. Full of pity, she picked her up and carried her into a nearby hospital for treatment. They told her there that the woman was too ill and poor to bother about. Besides, they had no room. Mother Teresa pleaded with them, but they said there was nothing they could do for her. However, she would not leave her patient, and set off for another hospital. But it was in vain. The woman died.
This was not the only person Mother Teresa found dying on the streets. There were many of them. There was an old man who was so thin he looked like a child. It was pouring with rain when Mother Teresa found him lying dead under a tree in a mess of sickness and blood. He was outside a hospital but no one had taken him in.
I think the world today is upside-down, and is suffering so much, because there is so very little love in the homes and in family life. We have no time for our children, we have no time for each other; there is no time to enjoy each other. If we could only bring back into our lives the life that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph lived in Nazareth, if we could make our homes another Nazareth, I think that peace and joy would reign in the world.

"Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat" - Mother Teresa"Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired" - Mother Teresa

And thereafter, she got engrossed with the task of serving the poor and sick people of Calcutta. The coming years witnessed the setting up of a charity organization called the Missionaries of Charity. In 1950, her source of concern was the care of lepers, the people discarded by society.Missionary of Charity opened its branches in almost every country to assist the poor, elderly, blind and people suffering from deadly disease like AIDS. For the bright future of children, she opened up schools. In 1979, she was awarded with Nobel Prize for the services that she had rendered to the society.

32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
On U2's last tour in 2005, which sold out more than 100 arenas worldwide, Bono gave his fans what they wanted to hear. For two hours, he belted out songs from the band's new album and sang old classics.
He also gave his fans what he wanted them to hear.
He took the opportunity to reach and inform roughly 20,000 people a night about his other job, of trying to eradicate poverty and slow the spread of AIDS in Africa. Through the band's music and his own words, Bono dedicated a portion of the show to bring attention to DATA, the organization he co-founded with Bobby Shriver and Jamie Drummond in 2002.
Bono went on to become a high-profile champion of Africa, as an artist, diplomat, lobbyist and negotiator. His eloquence, celebrity and Irish "moxie" enabled him to confront the rich and powerful from a mountain top in Davos to the General Assembly of the UN, from an outhouse in the bush of an impoverished African country to The White House and Congress, not to mention the stage of his sold out concerts and on every TV network. He has pushed, persuaded, cajoled, charmed and maneuvered the likes of Bill Gates. George Bush, and even Jesse Helms, to support debt relief and the fight against AIDS. He is a passionate campaigner. No one can say no to him
Bono was awarded the Liberty Medal on Thursday for his global work with DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) during a ceremony held on the front lawn of the National Constitution Center.

33 But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.

34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’

BRIGHTON, Iowa - If you sometimes get the feeling kids today only care about themselves, then maybe you should take a road trip to Brighton, Iowa, where a few nights each month dozens of children, heck, even teenagers, roll up their sleeves, don hair nets and go to work making meals for for hungry children thousands of miles away.
"It's changing them on the inside," says Don Fields. "Every one of these kids will want to come back and do this again."
Don Fields launched this operation two years ago, after a mission trip with his wife to Honduras. It's part of a national Christian program called Kids Against Hunger.
The Iowa kids have shipped container-loads of meals to places like Guatemala, Romania and Ethiopia.
"It helps them so they won't die," says 7-year-old volunteer Noah.
"I like doing it," adds 15-year-old Brianna. "It's really fun to know you are making a difference in the world."
And they are making a difference. To date, the kids have sent some 200,000 specially formulated meals overseas. Nationwide, Kids Against Hunger has prepared and shipped nearly 30 million meals.

36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”
37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Karen Daniels, a 31-year-old nurse from British Columbia who heard God calling her to minister through her medical skills in wartorn Sudan, where temperatures often reach 115 degrees and the only "bathrooms" are pit latrines dug in the ground.
Marianne Morton, who donated a kidney to a neighbor she barely knew, a Jewish man who was being kept alive only through daily dialysis

Projected number of orphans worldwide will reach 44 million by 2010

AIDS is taking lives in Sub-Saharan Africa, swallowing families, communities, hopes. So far 17 million have died. At least 25 million may follow. An intimate look at a modern curse.

Number of Christians 2.1 billiion

What can one person Do? What would God have me do?

He is a newborn baby in a third world country. He lives in a room filled with crying babies that no one picks up and no one cradles. He is fed just enough to live, changed on rare occasion. He will most likely never crawl, never play with his own toy, and never be spoken to one to one by an adult. He doesn’t know what it feels like to be full or what its like to be loved.

I don’t know his birth name-but he’s my son. He’s one of my footprints and that is what God has called me to do. What will God speak into your life? Where will he send you? What will be the difference that you make in this world?

Who then is your neighbor? Your neighbor is the person that you see who needs something that they can’t do for themselves. Your neighbor may not know the name of Jesus, the love of God or the feeling of being full.

What can one person do? It was one person who elevated the condition of the poor in India. It was one person who ended slavery in England after a lifetime of fighting it. It was one person who taught children to read on Sundays so that they wouldn’t be destined to lives of mining coal. It was one person who shared Jesus with you and changed your life.

What will you one person, do with one life to leave your footprints on this world before you go?
What is God speaking to your heart? Obey, dream big dreams, take chances, and don’t give up. God is faithful. God gave you the desires of his heart. God designed you for his purposes and you will never be satisfied until you are living the dream that God birthed within you and equipped you to do. Go now and make a difference.