Crazy Days...

Well it has been a few days since I have posted anything. It has been crazy around here. We survived Hurricane/Tropical Storm Tomas without a scratch! We lost power on Friday, the day the storm hit, for about 10 hours and that was it!! We were so thankful! We kept looking at the path of the storm in amazement at how God spared us from so much! The kids were thankful that they didn't have school on Friday, but everyone was back to normal on Monday.

This last weekend was supposed to be our "Team" weekend off. We ended up taking Saturday to drive to Negril. We were hoping to do some cliff jumping at Rick's Cafe. We got to Negril and the waves from the storm were incredible! They were 15-20 feet high! They were crashing against the cliffs and shooting water into the air sometimes as high as 75 feet! Clearly, we didn't do any jumping, but we did sit and just watch for hours! We also went to the West End Lighthouse. It is on the western most post of Jamaica. It was awesome to see the power of the sea from the safety of the shore. The old hymn "I Sing the Mighty Power of God" kept playing in my mind. It was amazing! Sunday we went to Baylife again. I so enjoy going there. Because of the waves, we didn't get to go to the beach after church. I was kind of relieved. I was not feeling great and in a terrible mood. I needed some alone time to get my attitude straightened out. I was able to come back and take a much needed nap. I woke up feeling much better.

In the last 3 months, I have really fallen in love with the staff here at Robin's Nest. They are amazing! I love hearing them sing in the kitchen or with the kids on the porches. They are some of the most tenderhearted people I have ever met. However, there are several that cause me a lot of trouble! One of our night time nurses, Nurse Hedram, loves to trouble me and I love to trouble her right back. The other night I kicked her in the butt when she walked passed me. She gave me a dirty look and kept on walking. Well, she got me back! She came into my room at 5 am on Wednesday morning and told me she needed me for something. I was sound asleep and didn't really know what was going on. She keep yelling for me to get up so I finally found my glasses and my slippers and walked into the bathroom to see what she needed. As I walked in, I noticed that she had one of our dust pans with the long handles. I looked down to see a massive dead rat in the dust pan. She brought it so I could see it! She woke me up at 5 am to show me a stupid dead rat! She is big time trouble! Matt Wiley got her back though! As she was leaving in the truck at 6:30 am, he took the dust pan with the rat and pretended to put it in the back seat of the truck with her. You should have heard her scream! That made my day!

There is a bug going around The Nest right now. Angie is very sick and many others have been feeling under the weather. I haven't been truly healthy since I have been back. I am feeling okay right now, but earlier it was not so good. I think I am reaching the point of exhaustion! I am just so stinkin' tired! Tomorrow should be a pretty low key day though. We have a team of 20 coming and they will play with the kids all day. I think I am going to have the boys play outside most of the day. I am going to spend some one on one time with Abby tomorrow. (Abby has Downs Syndrom) I am excited to spend some time with her to see some of the things she can do. She is a smart little girl! I'm excited to put on my "early childhood special ed." hat. I miss that!

Well I am off to bed! Looking forward to what tomorrow has in store!!

Can't believe it's November!

Well, we are officially into November. I can't believe it has come so fast! Today was a great day! We had a team from Indiana that came and served for a few hours. The best part was that their leader was Gary Crawford! It was soooo good to see him! I was able to sit and talk to him for quite a while. I also got to meet his son, Ben, who is living down here and attending Fairview Baptist Bible College. We got to reminisce about our trip last June. He was telling me about the schools and different places that he was taking this team and so many of them were places that we went. He said that tomorrow morning they are doing devotions down at Catherine Hall Primary school. That was the first school that we went to last June. We laughed because that was also the morning that Gary locked Morgan in the big house at Chattam Cottages. SO many good memories from that trip! I am hoping to go on another trip with Gary soon!! It may be sooner than I think! We shall see!!

We have a couple girls staying at the Nest for a while. One is from Tennessee and she is staying for 3 weeks. The other is from Michigan and is just staying for a week. She looked so familiar to me when she first got here. I asked her where in Michigan she was from but wouldn't have known her from that, but we found out that we had gone to Cornerstone for year together. We probably took some of the same classes. It was crazy.

So I had another first down here tonight. I had to be "dewormed". Thankfully, it is just precautionary, but the medicine was nasty! Nurse Gordon was going around giving it to all the kids and the O'Dells and I had to take it as well. Since we have been here for a long time, we needed to have this medicine. YUCK!

Well, we are watching "Veggie Tales" again tonight! Anna is hooked! It's fun to see the old videos. I haven't seen them in so long. It's fun to see Anna glued to them! Tonight we are watching "Larry Boy and the Fib from Outer Space". Good times!