Susan is here!!!

We were all pretty exited to have Susan - the service adventure director - for a few days in our house!
(For people who don't know her: she is really a lot of fun!)
After kidnapping Hallie for a recruiting trip to Virginia she cleared her debt with candy. bagels, pie, donuts...
(see, she is really a lot of fun...^^)
We celebrated her birthday (which may embarrassed her a little bit but that's how we show our love for each other...)

However, we took her to Black Water Falls and to the Purple Fiddle.
She took us for lunch to the Hellbender (I know that sounds like a word you shouldn't use especially when you are around kids but to spill the beans the hellbander is a native north american giant salamander that lives around here... not that I ever met one...)
where we had some really good Burritos.

We played 5 Crowns and had a lot opportunities to fill our  "favorite quotes and meomories"-board...
 And Susan visited us at our work placements!

 

At Black Water Falls

Burrotos at the "Hellbender"

pretty close deer-encounter...

 

Hurricane Sandy Power Outage Fun! Written By Hallie

     Well last time we started the blog with "winter is knocking on our door"...Well not only did it knock but  it blew the door off the hinges!
About a couple of weeks ago if you turned on your television all you would have heard is prepare for hurricane Sandy!! Now being Kansans we understand when you tell us a tornado is coming we feel we have it covered but hurricane was a new one for us! In the beggining we were told to prepare for anywhere from 2-5 FEET OF SNOW and long power outages!

 So being the "mom" of the houshold I felt it was my duty to begin the process of preparing for the "Storm of the Century" as it was being called. Generally, my constant list of demands to fill water pitchers, go to the store for supplies, find the flashlights and telling everyone to take a shower was mostly laughed at by my husband! lol  The night before the big hit it had been pouring rain all day so in my wisdom I decided it best to drive Ines & Josiah to Clarksburg for supplies and last minute items..You know since I have all this wisdom it would go better with me there! (Pick up on the sarcasm) SO in all my wisdom we went to ALDI's for food and after a good hour as we went to load the van I realized with ALL my wisdom I had locked the keys in the van!!! Therfore, Amos had to drag the girls out into the rain to come all the way to Clarksburg with keys, Therfore..we walked to walmart in the terrential down pour to finish our  shopping. In hindsight maybe Mrs. Wisdom should just stay home and let the very self-sufficent young ones handle the shopping...ANYWHO!

The power outages did come the next day with lots & lots of snow but we were prepared!

sleding in 17 inches of snow!!!!

view from the farm...

Happy Halloween!!!

crafts

results of crafts

Day 1 was great fun with sledding & snow fights up at the "Shepards Field Farm", crafts & coloring with the kids in the evening and game time at night!
Day 2 without power we managed to hear the roads were clear so we took the whole family to the Clarksburg mall to a childrens Halloween Party and the guys walked around (you know because they love the mall so much) and of course more games that evening!
Day 3 Starting to get a little tired of no power and Ines begins to coin the phrase "If I don't get out of this house I might eat someone" ..Dont worry she never really did =)
Day 4 We were blessed to recieve a generator so we could save some of our freezer food & later that night we got power back!

Being without power reminds us of the many, many, (did I mention many) blessings that we have here in America.  After spending a week in Haiti two years ago its hard to imagine that people live so differently yet not so far away from eachother.  I am so very thankful for my service adventure family & the quality time we were given during our power outage! Please continue to pray for people on the East coast and think about what you can do to help!

Blessings, Hallie