Bessie, Killer, more veggies, and a Mommy's heart

Bessie is now haltered and getting gentler all the time. She has a lead rope on her so the kids can work with leading her when she is up at the house. Roy asked M&M if they wanted to ride her Sunday. They quickly agreed. HeeHee Joy and Jimmie decided that the new puppy, Killer needed some Aggie attire. Isn't she cute. I think Aggie would be a good name, though we have some friends with a dog named Aggie and Roy wants to declare her as a snake
"Killer". We canned some more this weekend. We're filling the cabinet for the fall and winter. Although, for this crew 12 jars of pickled okra won't last long. We had a great church play day at the Woodley's Sat. I forgot the camera. Bummer!! The kids swam, chased chickens, held chickens for long periods of time, and played on a slip and slide. The adults had a wonderful time fellow shipping. We saw some friends we haven't seen in a long time. It was all Good!!!

Annie is coming home today. Praise the Lord!! I have missed her bunches. My mommy heart is doing a roller coaster with her going to Ghana. I haven't commented on this yet as we were reconfirming and making sure all the details were going to work out. I'm so excited for this opportunity she has and at the same time I know I will miss her so much!! I know God has great and mighty plans for her. I pray for her divine guidance, wisdom, and protection throughout the whole trip. I have that peace that surpasses all understanding knowing our Mighty God will lead her and guide her. I also thank God for this opportunity with the Dickens family knowing she is in good hands with a godly, spirit lead family. God is so amazing how he orchestrates our lives when we are open and willingly. This was truly an orchestration of our God. Praise Him!!!

Killer and lots of veggies

This last weekend we were blessed with a Jack Russel puppy. We were visiting Roy's cousins at a funeral and they had a puppy that they had not sold. Her hair is a bit wiry and she's not the prettiest. Roy mentioned we needed another snake dog. His cousin Trey said we could have the puppy they could not sell. As we were leaving I thanked him and he said, "No, thank you" We feel very blessed. Since we're claiming her as our new snake dog(Jack Russel's will bay a snake and not leave it) we named her killer.

Our garden is flourishing. This is one picking. 9 cantaloupes, three buckets of okra, a few tomatoes, some cucumbers, and lots of peppers, and a yummy watermelon. We recently pulled up the squash as its finished. After Roy blessed us with a big garden(he's so awesome!!!) with good soil we are reaping the benefits. We've planted melons before they just haven't produced much. I think because they were crowded and our watering was not consistent. I'm excited about our fall garden this year. We haven't grown much of a fall garden in the past again because of space. We plan to plant soon. Lettuce, Spinach, Broccoli, carrots, potatoes, sugar snap peas. Yum, Yum!!

The new Ticker

I am not sure if I have posted about this yet or not.

If I have forgive me I forgot and if not then I am sure you would all like to hear about it.

Last year close to the beginning of the year I started working for the Dickens Family.

Joel is a OB/GYN, they were very interested in mission work especially Ghana since previously they had been there and visited a place called Baptist Medical Center. Baptist Medical Center is a Mission Hospital in Nalerigu. They really felt like God was calling them to Ghana and after a lot of prayer decided to go for two years and then come back and reevaluate. I worked for them for about 9 months. Sometime around October they moved to Ghana.

We have kept up with them through their blog and e mails and learned that Hollie was pregnant and was expecting in July. One time me and Mommy were talking about it and she somewhat jokingly mentioned that I could go and help with the baby after it was born, but then said, "wait a minute, what I am thinking, I don't know if I could send you all the way to Ghana."

As I got closer and closer to Graduation I was looking into different things that I was interested in doing. Nursing was one of them. As I looked at different options none of them felt quite right. I was looking into doing an LVN program at Howard this Fall but was not quite sure if I would like nursing and I didn't want to start the program, not like nursing and waste a lot of money for something I didn't like.

In June about 2 weeks after I started an Internship at House of Faith, one day while I was home, Mommy said that she wanted to talk to me. I said OK , we went and sat down and she said, " have you thought about going to Ghana to help the Dickens?" , " I said " No I have never really thought much about it." Mommy said " the last couple of weeks as I have been talking to or praying with several different people, out of the blue, they have mentioned you and the Dickens or Ghana. Daddy and I have talked and prayed a lot about it and wonder what you would think about going to Ghana and helping the Dickens and maybe helping Joel some in the hospital and being able to get a feel for nursing?"

I was a little shocked at first that Mommy would even suggest something like that but as I thought and prayed about it I felt like God was calling me to do that. We then contacted the Dickens to see if they were interested in something like that or if it would be possible. They were very interested and said that they would look at it on their side and see if it would work.

They looked into it and there is plenty for me to do. So, I am going to Ghana on the 15 of September to go help Joel and Hollie Dickens , work some in the hospital, and do some Mission work!!!!!

That is why we have the newest ticker on the blog.

Annie

Annie and the Bear

I am writing this post from Colorado.

I have been stranded in Colorado for the past week waiting for the van to get fixed.

In the mean time I have been staying with Darcy and have been helping her get ready for her garage sale this weekend. There was one time earlier this week when someone saw a bear in the neighborhood so we being the Texas girls that we are and not ever having seen a bear up close before went to go look for it, but unfortunately we had no luck in finding it.

Today we were having the Garage Sale and were getting close to wrapping it up when two men stopped by and as they looked mentioned that they had seen a bear. Darcy inquired where it was and after they left we closed the Garage and went to go look for the bear. We were on the main road and I was just looking at the trees as we passed since the bear was supposed to be in a tree I saw what looked like a bear in a tree. I mentioned it but said it might be fake since people up here like to put fake bears in trees. We looked and looked but could not find the bear, on the way back we turned to look again and I said is that the bear pointing to what I had seen before, Darcy said " yes, that's it!" so I took the camera and took a few pictures and then Darcy parked across the street and got out and took some more pics and a

video of it.

That is the adventure of our bear hunt.

Here are some pics of the bear,

Annie

New Background

Jenny and Patty are in South Texas helping harvest Cotten right now, so I changed the background to fit what they are doing :)

Annie

A Pick Up, Transmission, and a Cow

A pick up!!
A cow(Isn't she pretty) (Yummy cows milk on the way) Do you like Buttercup or Bessie?


and a transmission. What????
We'll, one of Patty's friends at Mosaic was buying a new pickup and Roy inquired about buying her old one. This was about a month ago. Then, Roy, Jenny, and Patty went on Trek while Annie drove on up to Woodland Park to visit a friend. As she was getting close to Woodland Park the van started acting up. Long story short the transmission went out. As Annie and I were making decisions on what to do about the van by ourselves ,since we were out of touch with the Trekers, I got a call from Terry, Patty's friend saying she was ready to sell her pickup. So, do we replace a transmission and buy a pickup? Yes, we did. Then, Sunday a friend of ours was telling us about some Jersey heifers she was buying. They are bred and should calf in a 3-4 months. The price was right and Roy was in agreement. So, there you have it. A Cow, A Pick Up, and A Transmission.

Our Ethiopian meal and summer canning

While Roy was in Arizona several months ago he ate at an Ethiopian restaurant. They serve their meal on a bread made out of teff grain called inhera. He described it like a spongy pancake. We ordered teff from the food coop and finally had our Ethiopian meal. Jenny found recipes on line and we experimented. Jenny ground the teff and fermented it overnight. She prepared three different dishes. They were a little spicy, but tasty. We decided the teff ferminted too long, it was a little strong. We also had quite a few cherries from produce coop that needed to be used, so Annie made a cherry pie to go with our meal. It was everyone's favorite part of the meal. HeeHee Good ole American Food, got a love it. We'll experiment again with our teff.
Also posted a pic of our summer canning. Jenny and Joy have been making peach and strawberry jam and Joy, Jenny, and I have put up pickles and pickled okra. Yum, Yum. Our pickles have consisted of dill, bread and butter, and icicle pickles. Joshua says his favorite are the icicle pickles.

Grammy and G'Pa's visit

While the Trekers were gone Grammy and G'Pa came to visit. G'Pa, Joshua, and many little helpers built sideboards on the girls pickup. He wanted to have a surprise waiting for them when they got back from Trek. Grammy read books to the little's. They could sit and listen all day.

A few more Trek pictures

More Trek pictures!!!






Boys will be boys in the freezing cold water. The whole crew!!

TREK!!!!!!!

Jakes Potty chair. Hannah found this chair you can't see in this picture but its like a lawn chair with a toilet seat on it, so Jake posed for a picture.
Trek 2009
We hiked an estimated 25 miles. Left 2 people down at low camp.... Penny Criner got sick so she and her dad stayed down low while we hiked. Went on a couple day hikes, saw a georgous lake and island(we even named it! Kallisto Island!) All in all it was an AMAZING TRIP we got very tired out and were exhausted. Between trailer problems and van problems we ended up not getting home until 6 a.m. saturday morning!! The transmission on the van went out so Barb and Hans Huston drove a CCSA van up to CO to pick us up and Annie is still in CO staying with friends waiting for the van to be fixed so she can drive it home!!

Playing Mafia in the tent on the last night
And playing Crow in the tent.

The "Pink" bible dad carried around all week lol

Blue lake. Georgous!! You can just barely see the island in the back towards the right


The long line of hikers with their backpacks

Justin mimiking Holly's laugh lol

Hannah is STRONG!! lol

Michael and Matthew started doing this after lunch then Jimmie, joined in also. Jimmie did get pinned down for 10 seconds after I stopped the video, I just turned it off too soon on accident. If you listen at the very end you can hear Patty say "One!" because she was starting to count again and that time they pinned him down.

Our first watermelon out of the garden this year!!

Yum Yum!!!

Dad thinks its a good one.

Oops!! Jenny putting up the eggs, she saved 2 out of the flat of 36. At least the other 2 flats didn't fall too.

Fun Weekend

We met Roy's parents (Granny and Papa) at Lake Brady Sat.
Michael's playing in the lakeTwo sisters showing off on the tube until dad guns it and dumps them.Three generations of good-looking Zesch men.
Then we went to Mason to play and hang out with Roy's sister Rae Ann and her family.
A pool full of 12 grandchildren, one missing. The two youngest in floaties.
Jenny and Sierra messing around on the trampoline.