My Bees 2

I found out the hive that almost died was queenless .So i put a frame of eggs from another hive to see if they would make a queen . In less then a week they made 2 queen cells.
This is the brood in one of my other hives.

My Dad's Mexico pictures B

Here is the line of men passing the buckets of concrete. When they are empty they are thrown down to the empty bucket line. You can see me in the brown shirt on the bottom right of the picture. I was catching them from off the roof but the men didn't like throwing them to me so they sent someone down to catch them and then pass them to me instead.
Here is an oven...they were cooking sacowil (sock-ah-wheel). It is pork meat in kind of a corn hash stuff wrapped in banana leaves. After the food is inside they pack the entrance with mud to keep the heat in. Around 10pm they were having a pretty difficult time getting it out. Meals are generally eaten late in Mexico but this night especially so as the roof work went on until 11:30 or midnight, and dinner was eaten afterward. We were told they don't often start church services until 10 pm at this mission church...can you imagine?
The girls and women were very proficient at carrying water like this. They were bringing more water up from the spring for the concrete.
Here is Jack Bradshaw, our pastor's father-in-law who was my dad's traveling companion for the week. He is 77 or 78 years old!
This is my dad's host, Raquel. He stays with her family everytime he goes to Tamazunchale.

My Dad's Mexico pictures A

Here are some of my dad's photos of Mexico. This church is in Petlapixca (peck-la-peesh-ka) about an hour from Tamazunchale up in the mountains. This is how the church looked when my dad and Jack (another Sr. citizen from our church) arrived. They worked on pews while a group of students from LeTourneau worked on getting the roof ready to pour concrete. Our team was at a different site at the beginning of the week. Notice the slop of the ground under the building.

Here is a view from the side. All of those logs in the foreground become supports to hold the wood to hold the concrete until it dries.
One of my dad's jobs was to make sure Candido knew how to make the pews from beginning to end. Here he is busy sanding the piecesof wood. this open area is where the church presently meets for their services.

The "crew" busy at work on the assembly line. To the right of Candido is his oldest son, Isaiah. He has an amazing story. When he was a baby about 9 mos old he died and was dead for 4-5 hours and then God brought him back to life again! Wow!

Here are some of the women busily preparing lunch in the kitchen. Of course most look away when the camera comes out!! My dad kept motioning for them to smile for the picture and when they finally did most of them didn't have many teeth!! No wonder they weren't smiling!

Whacky Hair Day

Tracy never posts so you never get to see pictures of her kids. I downloaded Mexico pictures from my dad's camera and these were on there too. This must have been funny hair day at school! A belated happy birthday to John, Victoria and Alexia...they turned 9 last week!

My Bees

This is how good my bees made it through the winter . They have been bringing in pollen and there is alredy brood . Only one of my hives almost died .

Never boring!

Ok so as the mommy of a 2 year old I should know better. I left my two year old calmly sitting in her chair watching tv and totally ready for church. I then went in to get myself ready. When I came out I found my two year old with a tube of lipstick, really getting ready for church. And of course I was running late.






Aren't I beautiful!

My Daughter

Ok this is what my daughter tends to look like when I get her up from her nap. Her new thing is to take all of her clothes off. I mean all and then she pulls everything out of her drawers and gets herself dressed. She even put on her own tights and two hats. Here she is sitting on the potty because she will not leave her diaper on.

Oh my Gosh my baby is 18!

Happy Birthday Elizabeth

We finally moved

ok, We're all moved into our new house! We moved on Fri/Sat. Ever since it has been in the 20's and low 30's!! Our house is so very drafty and cold!!! I can't wait for our normal Texas temps to return. Christopher sleeps on his top bunk for maximum warmth and we put a little electric heater in Catherine's room at night, so they stay nice and toasty. I know for some of you these temps are quite balmy, especially when you have 8 degree weather, but for us it is very chilly! Anyway, we are slowly getting into a smooth routine after the move. I am so enjoying our dishwasher!! woohoo I have a dishwasher!! I just got the computer hooked up this morning, it is on the floor but, I feel connected again! Thank the Lord for technology!
We sold our house to a great young couple from our church/LeTourneau. I hope they enjoy their new home as much as we did! Closing went smoothly and they began moving in just as I was sweeping the kitchen floor, the last thing to be done. It was good timing.
Calixto is on a plane right now headed for Philly. He'll be in NJ for the weekend doing orientation for the Mexico team going in Feb. I think he may be preaching on Sunday at Trinity as well. Chip/Karen, he spoke with someone (maybe Martha, I can't remember) from your church and had a great conversation with her. Hmm? We'll see what God has planned?!

Happy Birthday!

I have been thinking about this day. This is a good day. I have been thinking about all the great memories of 21 wonderful birthdays spent together. That is a lot of memories. There are memories of all those gifts that had to be the best, But me being me would always be so excited that I would have to give it to him when I got it because I couldn't wait until his birthday. I remember a surprize 30th birthday party where he was really surprized. Dinner out almost every year. I would always tease him about how old he was getting and how much younger I was. Boy he figured out how get me to be older. Anyway this is a good day. I think me and the kids will go out to eat and celebrate this day.
Roni

A Few Pictures

Cool Slideshows

Cody singing on Christmas eve

this is one of the songs we sang on Christmas eve. You have to watch both clips

Cody singing on Christmas eve

Better late than never! Happy Birthday

Cody turned 15 on Tues. We had his party tonight. He had a lot of his friends here and had a great time.

christmas lights

Christmas Elf

Some little Christmas elf found herself in my Christmas stuff. Yes that is two stockings on her feet and check out those ears!

We're back from Mexico part 2

This is a picture from last year. We took a team of highschool students from a Christian school in Maine. They poured the columns. LeTourneau did some work on this site in March and the church itself raised money to do more work done.

What a great accomplishment for them to get so far in just one year. Eventually they will build walls on the lower level, creating SS rooms. The top will be the sanctuary. This is looking at the back of the church. The road in front of the church is at the sanctuary level. 3 of our team members this year went with us last year too.
This is the altar at the end of Calixto's last sermon. The man in the maroon shirt came back to Christ after walking away from his faith since the death of his young son in the Spring. His 2 year old was run over by a truck. The town people think the driver did it on purpose as he is very against the Christians and the church there. We believe he is now in Jail. Placido and his wife were just swallowed up in grief. Here is Christopher mixing concrete. He worked so hard and enjoyed every minute of it! Pop-pop you would have been proud! Here you can see the front of the church a little bit. In all of our years of doing this we have never seen such a big pile of concrete to mix!! Many towns people came to help out with the project although they are not christians.
Here are the girls! This is the river we bathed in last year. This year it was too cold and the river was churned up because of the rain...it rained a lot! So, catherine and I didn't really take a bath while we were there...I tried to post a picture of the so called "shower area" but it didn't come up. One "wall" to the shower was a row of hibiscus plants, the other 3 "walls" were stick poles with some sort of bag for coverage...coverage was minimal at best! But, we stayed clean with wet wipes just fine! I was able to wash my hair though which was nice!
We are scheduled to return to Mx in February and again in March...Anyone want to come with us??

We're back from Mexico!

These are not in order...I tried to post more than five but they wouldn't show up?! Anyway all 158 pictures are at the following if you would like to look at them: http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=140695013/a=22985913_22985913/t_=22985913
We went to a remote village, Jalpa (Halpa), where we poured a roof on the church, prayer walked and did house to house evangelism. The area is breath takingly beautiful! We only took a small group, 11 including us. It was a great trip, our focus was "For the fame of his name" The kids enjoyed it a lot and didn't get sick, Praise the Lord! This picture was taken on the way back to Tamazunchale, a 2 hour drive on windy, unpaved, very bumpy roads!
This is back in Tamaz with Pastor Candido and his family. On the wall behind them is a picture of the team we took in April, (Uncle Lee you are the last person on the right in the bottom photo. Dad, for some reason you aren't in the picture)
I just love this picture. This house is tucked away along a small pathway. This woman only speaks the native language of Nahuatl (nah-watt) not spanish. When we came up she promplty found chairs for us to sit on and went back to sorting her beans. We had a church member with us who translated from spanish to her language. She was precious!
This is the team right before we left Jalpa (minus to guys who overslept!) We were standing on the freshly poured roof as the sun began to rise over the mountains , so beautiful!
The road winds back in front of Jalpa, across a valley so you can see the entire village. The population is about 700 people. This is zoomed in so you can't see the whole area. The church is
about in the middle of the picture, it is the large building that looks like it is on pilings. Once it is painted it will surely be a beacon on a hill. The whole village is built on the mountain side and is quite steep.
I'll post a picture of what the church looked like last year when we were there...

19 years ago!

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving here. I cooked for my brothers and their familys and my dad (my mom just had knee surgery and was still in the hospital.). We had a great time. It was much better this year. Last year the worst part was that Mimi was with us and she kept saying that Cody looked just like Bruce and I was just waiting for her to ask where he was. It was good last year but very painful. This year even though I kept wanting to show Bruce my perfect pie and ask him how the meal was, it was different. I have come to realize that I have so much to be thankful for and that I have a lot of people who love me and are there for me. I am actually looking forward to the Holidays this year. Last year I just wanted to hide. The Lord surely is good to us. I have no pictures to share because for some reason I forget to get it out. I even forgot it yesterday when we went to dingman's falls.
Roni