Honduras!!

Holy Smokes!:) What an adventure! We were in Honduras for ten days. While we were there, we lived through a military coup! The president was arrested and taken to Costa Rica for trying to have an illegal vote. Riots in the streets, protesters, churches cancelled, road curfews, country wide power outages, etc.etc!

We were to leave at 7am on Sunday,and arrive in Tegucigalpa at 11:30AM. When we arrived at the airport at 4AM we found our airline was cancelled by American and we weren't leaving until NOON. That made us miss our only connection into Teguc, which meant we overnighted in Miami. We left the next day on the same time originally connecting us to Teguc. So we arrived a total 24 hours later than we were supposed too. Which meant we arrived AFTER all seven of our church teams! We were supposed to get there 24 hours before, so we could do all our errands, set everything up, etc. Instead we were the last at camp! :) Worked out fine, and was sort of nice in the end! :)

The first day or so of camp was uneventful, besides getting 89 people used to living in a foreign country! :) Eventually we started hearing word of everything going on in the capital city. We were staying at a beautiful camp at the outskirts of the city, but had to drive through the town to get to our three mission site locations each day. We were certainly never in any danger (except for the possibility of not getting out of the country), but we were also skirting danger all the time.

One day Mike got a call, and the missionary that livest here full time (who we were working with), said riots were starting and we had five minutes to load 89 people, at three separate sites, into three buses and get them on the road! :) Miracles of all we did it! One bus was about five minutes slower than the other two, and ended up at camp a full hour behind the rest of us. They sat in traffic all that time. Thankfully it started DOWN POURING and apparently Hondurans don't like to protest and riot in the rain! :) Stuff quieted down the next day and we were able to go back to our sites and do the final day's celebration/party with the kids.

That Saturday we were supposed to go to this little outdoor market, and thought we were going to have to cancel the trip. We were able to go, by way of a different route..and had a great time. Again, on the way home, when the riots were supposed to start, it started to rain really hard and we made it home muddy, but safe!

Sunday we were planning to go back to the three local churches we had worked with all week, and have worship with them. But their services were mostly cancelled. We stayed at the camp all day and enjoyed the rest. There was an underlying nervousness of getting out of the country, but never were we in any danger!

We were in constant contact with the US Embassy there in Tegus. The last hurdle was we had 98+pieces of luggage and the three buses could only carry 45 TOTAL. We had a little moving truck planning to come to carry all the luggage, but there was a curfew put on the roads and we weren't sure he'd make it out to camp. Nor if he would even show up! So we had everybody repack their priority suitcases, most churches were cramming into less than three suitcases! Some were willing to leave it all behind! The power was supposed to be out that day, in fact in town the power was out for about ten hours. Out at camp, where 89 people were trying to repack their luggage, the lights stayed on all night. And thank God for that, because we would have been trying to do all that by flash light!

We planned to leave for the airport on Monday morning at 6am, get there by 7am, riots were to start at 8am. We got there fine, though it was a nervous trek there! We were on the road earlier than the curfew allowed, so we had special permission from the Embassy to be on the roads. Our groups left at noon, we left on the last flight at 2:00.

True to form, our flight was an hour late leaving, then we arrived in Miami and had to sit on the runway for 30 minutes waiting for a gate to park in! THEN going through customs and immigration was a joy, as usual! We gave our luggage back to the handlers at 8:30 PM, our flight was departing at 8:40PM. Thankfully, for us, the connecting flight was delayed until 9:30. BUT it never left until almost 11pm, which didn't put us in to Raleigh until 1:00am!

By the time we got home, it was 2am! I woke myself up on the hour, to put new loads of laundry in the machine. I didn't even fold them when they came out, just threw them on the couch! By the time we woke up at 7am, I had done almost six loads of laundry. The two college girls who were with us and I went to the laundry mat at 8:30 and did another four loads! Four people build up a lot of nasty dirty clothes over ten days! We took our suitcases into the laundry mat and just refolded everything into the suitcases! Ran to Walmart for some essentials, left the town by 11:00am, reloaded all our supplies at the office and then were on our way to the big town of Red Springs, NC. We'll work here for the next four days with about 90 people. Then we'll drive to PA for a week of work, we'll leave on Saturday.

Back to Red Springs for a full week, to Greensboro for a full week then we have FIVE DAYS OFF! Thank you God! :)

During the trip to Honduras, we saw God work in many, many ways! :) Despite constant calls and warnings of danger, we were always safe. We were able to start and complete a cement home for a lady and seven children. We did sports camps in the city. We went into schools and worked with kids there. And we did three Bible clubs in the three local churches we worked with. We had 200 each day (we did a morning and afternoon session) at each location minimum! We had 17 translators, whom we couldn't have lived without! That's for sure!

We have lots of awesome memories, I met two kids I would have loved to bring home with me! Whenever I get a minute (probably the end of July), I'll share some pictures!

Not done a single stitch, though I did teach one of our college girls and she has been stitching like crazy! :) Well, wait... I did stitch about 3o stitches on that Sunday we all sat around camp!

That's enough for now! I have lots of work to do here, plus Andrew is dying to use the computer! :)

Honduras?!?

I'm supposed to be in Honduras at the moment, instead I am in a hotel in Miami! :) We were only flying four hours total! We left the hotel in Raleigh this morning at 4:30am! Got to the airport in less than ten minutes. Found out the flight to Miami was delayed. We were supposed to leave at 7:00 and it was delayed until 12:15! We are travelling as a group of 11, and poor Mike was with the ticket counter agent for TWO HOURS! (poor ticket counter lady too!) We missed our flight to Honduras, so we're in a hotel in Miami! They gave us food vochures, hotel rooms and food for tonight and tomorrow. They've treated us well, but it would have been nice to just get to Honduras.

The original plan was that our team of 11 would do lots of set up work today, and then meet the group of 75 tomorrow at the airport. As it is now, if we get in on time, we'll get there 15 minutes before the first part of the group arrives! But it'll be fine. God is good, even (and especially) when plans change!!

We actually got to rest more today, than we would have if we had been in Honduras! :)

We had an awesome week last week. I got to hold a three week old baby, it was his first day at a day care. The day care is with a local church, they serve single parents. He has three other siblings in the same day care, all under five, Mom is 24 years old. I can't imagine! I would have held him every single day if I could have! :)

He has so much potential, but the life he's been born into---just sad to think about!

Off to Honduras in the morning. The alarm went off this morning at 3:30am! Tomorrow it goes off at 6:00! Sadly enough, our whole group was glad to sleep in!!

I should be packing:

I have a list a mile long of things I needed to do this week! On the top of the list was to get my stitching bag ready for the next two months! Let's just say I got a little distracte!

This is by Homespun Elegance. I like all the little details in it. There are a few charms I need to get at some point. It's on an R&R Fabric.

And then I got side tracked again and stitched this little freebie. It's by Chris B (it's a really long last name that I can never remember!)

And then I thought, I may as well just finish it up! (shocking, isn't it?!) So I did!

Front:

Back:

And I added beads for the first time! I kind of like it! :)

Remember my beautiful nails I was braggin about a few months ago? Check out my thumb!! UGH! :)

Now for real..I'm done stitching for a few days! I've got to get our bags packed! I have Luke's packed, Andrew's clothes stacked on my floor and mine on my bed! Oh, and I might have started a new project yesterday, might have! :) And I bought the Peacock Chair from a nice internet friend and she shipped it FAST and I got it today!! Ooh, it's calling my name too!

Jon and Kate Plus 8

I know it's dumb! But I just feel so bad for both of them...I just keep reminding myself that these are REAL people with REAL feelings! As much as I love the show, although it has gotten oddly uncomfortable in this new season, I wish they'd cut it all off to focus on their kids and decide what they are going to do with their lives. I don't want to get into the issue if they should stay together or split up, or what...But it's got to be fact that a lot of their issues would go away if they weren't on the air.

I think they started the show with the best and most innocent of intentions. But in reality, after just watching the 100th show, I think it's more than either one of them bargained for.

It's none of my business, certainly! And I could do my small part and just stop watching the show!

It just makes me feel sad. Is that wierd?

Since this is a stitching Blog

Maybe there should be some stitching pictures?! :) Every once in a while, I get caught up in stitching little things. I love the big projects, but not so much lately! All of these will be made into floss tags, or scissor fobs, or a needlecase, or something! (realistically, they'll just go in a box under my bed)

This is Hocus Pocus by Lizzie Kate. I saw it on a blog somewhere, and the person made it into a two-sides floss tag, one word on each side! So that's what I'll do with mine, some day!


This is another LK. It's part of one of her Halloween double flip-it charts. When it grows up, he wants to be a fob! (oh, and he needs his button eyes of course!)

This is another LK! (Can you see I'm on a pattern here!) It turned out bigger than I expected, so now I'm not sure what to do with it! But he sure is cute!

And last but not least, another LK! This is part of a much bigger pattern, but I saw it on a blog somewhere and it was a fob, one on each side of the fob! Don't you love the witch's green face and those tights are awesome!

This is an itty-bitty Prairie Schooler pattern. There were 3-4 larger patterns in the leaflet, and this tiny one stuck in there too. When he grows up, he wants to be a floss tag too. (it's less than an inch tall, and less than 2 inches long)

Remember my monthly PS I was stitching over 2 on 50ct fabric? Well here is Spring! I worried excessively over that dumb tulip. I changed it a little bit and just stitched it! I think it looks fine!

And winter is done too.

Now for you all to see how my random mind works! :) I squeezed all four onto the same piece of fabric so I wouldn't waste any! Thinking I would cut them all apart and make something out of them! :) Now I wish I would have stitched them in order and a little closer together, I think they'd be cute all framed as one piece! Oh well, too late!

I have no idea who this is by, but it's a little name tag. It's only about 2 1/2 inches tall. I stitched it on a little bitty scrap of fabric. Each line is a different specialty stitch, I thought it turned out cute!

The acorns are my favorite!

Way back when I first started reading blogs, I stumbled upon Vonna's blog. She had just finished doing the stitching and finishing for this LHN pattern. And I LOVED it! All my favorite colors. Well, I have been wanting to stitch it ever since. Finally, the other night, I just sat down and stitched it.. and guess what!? I don't like it! I LOVE the pattern, but don't much like it at all! Another reason, is because there is one major mistake, and it will drive me NUTS for the rest of it's life! I think I'll take off my initials and put somebody else's on it!

To match, the pattern says to stitch part of the pattern over one, to make a little fob, and instead of the word Needlebook, it says scissors. Well, I started stitching it, and I LOVED it all over! So instead of using it for a fob, I finished it just like the first one.. and will some day make a little needlebook out of it. I like it much better stitched over one!

So there it is! :) I did most of the LK and the PS santa on the car ride to and from Florida when DH and I went on our cruise! The PS seasonal ones were stitched here and there, and they turned out adorable, but I don't love stitching on 50 ct! ha

So that's it for now! We leave a week from tomorrow to do mission work with teenagers until August 15th. We'll work with about 1,700 teenagers once the summer is over. We'll travel with our whole family, changing locations every Saturday. And we'll have four more kids with us. Okay, well, they are paid college interns, but they seem like kids! I gues that means I'm old. They call me Mama Sara, so I can call them kids, right? We'll work in a different town each week, with different youth groups, with different job sites, and different local people too. Last summer was our first year doing this, and it was awesome!

So I have a million things to do before we leave. And pretty high on the list is kitting up some more small stuff to take! You know what the problem with small stuff is??? It makes your finishing stack HUGE! I could employee somebody for a year, if it wouldn't send me to the poor house!

Thanks for looking at my pictures!
p.s. Good Golly, those pictures are way too close! Don't inspect my stitching too much!

Shocker!

Okay, so Luke proved me wrong! :) Maybe my little man is maturing after all! As soon as he woke up, I asked him if he wanted to have a date to McDonald's for breakfast and he said sure. We laid in bed and watched cartoons, got ready and headed out the door. I got a little nervous when he went into the bathroom to fix his hair, but he did fine!

He mentioned that he didn't like it a few times, but nothing NEAR what we've dealt with in the past! He even held the door open for me to walk into McDonald's! He got my soda, lid, straw and napkin! All together now, "AHH!"

I read a parenting book once, basically helping parents know how to change inappropriate behavior in their kids. Well, the first thing they said was to keep track for one week how often the behavior was occuring. Then do whatever changes you wanted to do to help them change the behavior and then do another check a few months later and see if there was any improvement.

The funny thing, is when I did that with Luke and sort of watched for a week,he really wasn't doing it that often. Like the author said, sometimes when you're in the "thick of it" it seems like the behavior is happening ALL the time when in reality it doesn't happen all that much. It just seems like it when you are dealing with it at the moment! I forget what it was with Luke that I was wanting to change...but in reality, he didn't do it all that much! LOL It was just so overwhelming whenever it did happened, that it seemed like it was happening all the time!

ANYWAY! :) I've stitched a few little things the past few weeks, haven't picked up my Flower Power in a month or more! My goal is to take some pictures today for the blog, we'll see! :)

Seriously? I knew better!!

Don't you hate when you make a parenting decision and you just have a feeling, but you go against the feeling...

Luke (9) has this thing with his hair! His assistant teacher told me the other day that Luke's hair almost has its own identity in their classroom. All the kids always talk about Luke's hair. Well, the hair had just gotten long and shaggy and 1/2 way to his nose and and way down almost to his back... and well, he needed a hair cut badly!

So, we had tried to go 3-4 times in the past six weeks or so.. and either the line was too long or Luke started to have a meltdown...so either way he got out of the haircut.

Fast forward: A new Lego Store opened in Raleigh this past weekend. Andrew had LOTS of birthday money to spend and Luke had ZERO dollars! There is a ship that Luke has wanted since Christmas, and to him it seemed like "We NEVER got it for him, and he's been asking for FOREVER!" (that's a direct quote! ha)

So I told him if he'd earn 1/2, I'd match him 1/2! Well, we leave in another week for two months, and we won't have a chance to get the ship. So we decided together, that we'd buy the ship and he would do this long list of chores to earn it!

Well the poor kid has been working like crazy to earn his ship! He's done trash and laundry and dishes and set the table and cleaned his room, vaccuumed, sorted all his clothes with me (even tried them all on!) And he cleaned out the entire fridge! I'm talking removing everything, washing the shelves, and putting back the food. Hey, this ship cost $50! He had to earn it! Last, but not least on the list was a haircut! :)

So today after school, the only two things left are the fridge and the haircut. So we go straight for the haircut. I really wanted a little bit more than a trim since we're gonna be gone two months...and I thought I explained that. BUT the lady really cut into it!! He was okay with it at first, I think because the ship loomed in the near distance! But the long shaggy layers he had on top and in the bangs are GONE!

He went to church with no problems tonight, got into bed and that's when the trouble started! He came downstairs and announced he hated his hair and wasn't going to school tomorrow or Friday (when they have a skit to perform) He's convinced everybody will make fun of him, etc.

The haircut is fine, it's just WAY shorter than I expected, nowhere near a buzz..in fact for some momma's it'd still be too long.

And to get back to the main point: I knew better! I knew, no matter how much or little they cut his hair that he wouldn't like it, because that's always how it goes. I should have just waited one more week until school was out! But no, I didn't listen!

He said tonight that, "I'm in control of my own hair!" Which drives me nuts!! Really, I don't care how the hair looks... and in fact, I don't mind if he does feel like he has control over his hair! BUT when it can go into a pony tail, it's too long!

So I'm dreading the morning! I already explained that if he refused to go to school tomorrow, that the ship would be taken for ONE week. So we'll see! I feel bad for him, really I do! But I can't reattach the hair, and if we even it up a bit it'll take longer to grow out!

And I know in the big scheme of life: poverty and homelessness and lost jobs, this is NOT a big deal! But in the morning, when Luke reminds me that his life is ruined... It's gonna be exhausting!

Wonder if I can get him up and out the door without looking in a mirror! I doubt it! :)