May 18th, 2008

Just a quick note to say hi. We have had some boiling hot days lately. I am very thankful we have a pool nearby that we can take advantage of. We went on Saturday and Sunday. We have been teaching Emma how to dive. She is really working hard and doing a great job. After about 20 belly flops she got a couple of fantastic dives in. She is getting it, and really wanted to stay and keep working on it. She kept saying , “Just one more, please?” The rest of us relaxed and got cooled off.
My Uncle Russ flew in today. He has some training to do with one of the pilots here so he will be in the area until Friday morning. What a treat! We were able to have him for lunch and this week he will join us for dinner. We also celebrated TJ’s birthday today. He is one of the kids in our dorm and is a lover of frosting. He toyed with the idea of having me just make frosting and skip the cake, but I decided instead to make a cake and give him an extra bowl of frosting on the side. It worked out great.
Last night sitting in our living room having family time Emma says, “Mom, could I have some sunscreen? I think I am getting sunburned.” I said, “Emma, it is 7:30 at night and you are inside under fluorescent lights. There is no way you are getting sunburned right now.”
Garth and I taught Kid’s Church today. The lesson we did was the Good Samaritan from Luke 10:25. We told the Bible story about a Jew that was walking and got attacked and beaten, and all his clothes taken, and money, and then he was left on the side of the road to die. A high up religious leader saw him and walked by unwilling to help. A Levite that worked in the temple walked by without helping. Then a Samaritan came by. Samaritans were hated by the Jews, yet this man stopped to help the hurt man. He took care of his wounds and put him on his donkey and took him to an inn to take care of him for a few days. Then he gave the innkeeper money to continue caring for the man until he came back. The Bible talks about how this Samaritan was a good neighbor to the wounded man, and that we need to go and do the same thing to those around us. After the story, we split the kids up in twos and gave them rolls of toilet paper and let them take turns bandaging up each others’ wounds. It was very cute.
I will post pictures of this on our blog.
Enjoy your day-hopefully it won’t be as hot as ours.
Love,Rachel