Playing Catch Up

I know! I know! I haven't posted about the Philippines. It's coming...I promise! But for now, I need to play catch up with what has happened since.

It was good to get back to the States and see all my girls in Jr. Church. I have the 4th and 5th grade girls for the 10:30 am service. But we just promoted so I lost all my 5th graders (sigh) but gained new 4th graders. Well the girls were insanley hyper a couple weeks ago and we weren't getting ANYWHERE with our lesson. So, I set it aside and decided to direct their energy into something constructive...a model shoot!

They had soooo much fun! We did all sorts of poses all over the place. I showed them the pictures the following week and they loved them and kept asking if we could do it again. We will for sure!

We're Home!

Well I figured I better post something since we've been home for five days now. But I'm only posting a couple pictures as I'm too tired (jetlag) to write anything quite yet and we just got really bad news about our car.

So here ya go...

We're Off!!!

At 4:00 am tomorrow morning we will be at the Boise Airport...at 6:00 am we will be in the air and on our way to the Philippines...at 10:55 pm Saturday night we will officially be in Metro Manila, Philippines!!!

I'm a little nervous...stressed...and anixous...but more importantly I'm ready to see what God will do through us in the Philippines!

If you would like to hear how were doing on our trip just call the church at 336-7970 and dial ext 18. Keith will be calling and leaving messages every day or two.

Thank you for your prayers! See you all in two weeks!

My Sister's Time In Germany

I wanted to post what my sister wrote about Germany on her blog. It is so funny! If you want to check out her other posts and pictures, you can check her out at www.michellehutchison.blogspot.com

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Here are some silly things about Germany:

• Dogs are better behaved here than children. People bring their dogs everywhere! In the grocery store, in department stores, in restaurants. But if you decide to leave your pooch outside...don't worry. He'll wait patiently for you by the fire hydrant...without a leash! Meanwhile, children find no problem screaming on the bus right into your ear or wiggling so hard in their stroller that they squirm their way out.


• Eggs are not refrigerated in the grocery store. That's right, they're just sitting on a shelf.


• You can buy beer in SubWay.


• They HAVE SubWay here...in the prettiest building you've ever seen.


• You can buy 24 rolls of toilet paper for 1.50 Euro but gas is almost 8.00 Euro a gallon!


• Cars can and WILL run over pedestrians.


• Showing up late to something is grounds for being written out of a will.


• They're not use to hot weather at all. On Monday it was 78 degrees by 10:00am and they sent the school children home.


• They clap for a recital or performance for at least 5 straight minutes. I'm not exaggerating. My hands were raw when we were done.

Our Weekend:

Friday night we went on a little 'date.' It was so nice to spend some time with my hubby! Pastor Jeff gave me a gift certificate to P.F. Chang’s for Administrative Professional’s Day so we went there for dinner. Everything was amazing as usual!

We had bought tickets to see Indiana Jones earlier that day but the movie didn’t start until 10:00 pm so after dinner we had two hours to kill! Well, half way through dinner Steven made the comment that our date was in celebration of our 4th wedding anniversary since it lands the day before we leave for the Philippines and we won’t be able to do anything. So, after dinner while I was wondering what to do to kill two hours, he grabbed me by the hand and said he had an idea.

He took me up to Tablerock (up near the cross). See, this is significant because this is where he asked me to marry him. But ‘our spot’ isn’t by the cross with the bench where EVERYONE goes. It’s a ways over from that. Which is a good thing because the cross area was really busy that night. So we sat and talked and watched the sun set. It was so nice!

Then we went and watched Indiana Jones! Both he and I love that series! Okay, who wouldn’t!? It was a good movie. Definitely worth watching. Now, there are some unbelievable moments (there are in every movie) but one in particular was just ridiculous! Swinging on trees with monkeys to catch up to everyone else, when he could have just ran. It was just dumb. And the actual storyline was too ‘alien’ for our taste. But all in all it was a really good movie. So our 4th wedding anniversary date was awesome!

Then Saturday night we found out that Steven didn’t have to work on Monday. We haven’t been able to go away in such a long time since he works every Saturday now. So, we decided real quick to make the journey to McCall Sunday night. I’m so glad we did! We relaxed, watched cable (okay, the discovery channel, history channel and the food channel). Swam for a couple hours. Slept in together (haven’t done that in forever)! Ate at the Trolley House (not impressed by their pizza), and the pancake house (yummy)! And went fishing a little bit. Everything was so green and beautiful!

The weekend was just what we needed to refresh, relax, and get ready for a crazy schedule for the next month!

The pictures below are at the Pancake House in McCall. They have a bunch of these cutouts, it was fun!

She's Flown the Coop!

Well it's official, my baby sister, Michelle, is on her way to Germany! I dropped her off this morning. She'll be gone for 6 weeks. That may not seem like a long time to the rest of you, but it sure is to me! I'm so used to going out to lunch with her or spending time on Saturday's together, or seeing her and her boyfriend at Home Teams. It will be hard without her...but I'm totally excited for her!

She will be flying into San Francisco, then from there she'll be flying to London, and then Berlin. And then she'll take a train to her final destination, Liechnburg (I have no idea if that's right). She will be rooming with a local college guy. Yes! A guy! She had no control over that, and in Europe they don't think twice about rooming them with a member of the opposite sex. So that will make it very interesting. She'll be taking three classes, all German. I didn't realize how fluent she was in the German language until she had a whole conversation with someone at a party who was from Germany. She amazes me!

She is going to learn lots and get to see lots. I'm so excited for her and can't wait to see lots of pictures and hear all the details! I love you Michelle! Have Fun!!!

Philippines Update

Well, we are 21 days from our short term missions trip to the Philippines. I went on Impact Asia's (the ministry in the Philippines we are helping) website this afternoon and I am pumped!

I wanted to share these stats and pictures with you...

In 2007 there were:

-37,936 kids who attended Impact Asia's Camps!

-13,185 of those kids received Christ as their personal Lord and Savior!

-3,578 were baptized!

-669 Signed up for their Bible College

Here are some pictures...