acts 29

Wow what a crazy week we (Alex and I) have had. It started early on Tuesday when we had to be at the airport at 5:30am! We left to go to an Acts 29 Bootcamp. Acts 29 is a network that people/pastors can join (by qualifying) to help in the efforts of planting churches in the states and overseas. It’s an awesome network full of young Reformed Christians who are eager to plant churches. The “bootcamp” was for people who had already planted, were getting ready to plant or people who were just interested in getting the gospel out. Our reasoning for going was twofold. One we wanted to go for the teaching but also to assess. We are looking(and have applied) to be a part of the Acts 29 network. With a lot of paperwork, and many hours we were assessed on Friday morning and should know something in a few weeks. The network is available for many reasons, mostly to help assist church planters physically, spiritually and some financially. We are looking for all three. Mark Driscoll, Wayne Grudem, Danny Akin, were a few of the key speakers. Kacey Grudem (daughter in-law) also taught a class for the wives. Here is a picture of the guys during a Q & A time.

weekend getaway

This past weekend Alex and I(along with the kids too) went to Kerrville, Texas to speak at a church. We stayed with a wonderfull family,
the Vinyards, and had the most relaxing weekend. We spent Saturday afternoon at a local park and the kids had a blast.

Graham and Belle

Haley with her baby "Natalie Elaina"

For those who know Haley, this is here favorite past time!

The New Year

Well as you can see, I did not hold up my end of the bargain... I just simply have not had the time to post. Life for us has been great but VERY busy!
Where to begin...

Haley went to the local school up until the Christmas Holidays. She had been asking me to "home school" her once we came back from Alabama and Alex and I talked about it and decided that it would be a good fit for her. We started homeschooling 3 weeks ago and so far so good. We are taking it slow but so far she is doing great. We are working on days of the week, months of the year, letters, numbers, simple math, science once a week, scripture memory and other random school stuff. Some days she has a hard time, just because there are lots of kids here(11 others)and she wants to play!
We know she will do great!

So speaking of 11 kids-crazy huh? This year there are 4 other families
(3 new and 1 graduate),
4 singles (2 new, 1 graduate and 1 new staff member)
and one family that is living here short term.

It has been a blast getting to know all of the new students and their families. Haley misses her friends from last year, but she is also excited about making new friends. Not only is she excited but I am very grateful for all the new moms. Each mom bring something new to the table and it's amazing to each ones gifts.

We went on our 2nd annual group trip to the zoo.
All 5 families (without the dads) went and we had a blast.

Haley acting like a tiger. I so did not tell her to make this face!

Our first attempt to get a group pic.

Haley with the giraffes. We always stop and take a pic here for Aunt Grace.

Graham and Haley feeding the birds.

So these next few pictures will be used for blackmail in Grahams future but until then,
we shall just enjoy!

I walked into the kids bedroom and graham was just standing there in Haley's dress up shoes. I could not resist! Btw, Alex is not happy with these pics!

Graham loves to do WHATEVER Haley does!

We had Bradley spend the night a few weekends ago. The girls had a blast. Our friend Elijah came over to watch a movie with us!

Here are the Pretty Pretty Princesses!

happy fall

It may be fall, but it sure doesn't feel like it here in Los Fresnos. We are still having highs in the upper 80's and today the news said that next week it should be going up to 91! These are the days I miss Alabama!

This past week in school has been "Be Drug Free". The only thing I can really say is "this is just another reason why parents home school their children". Alex and I have been very happy with the local elementary school so far, that is until this week. When we got a note home last week that this would be drug awareness week I kinda wondered what they would do with the 4K but then I just let it go. Every day the kids were to dress up for some some cute reason to help them remember to say NO TO DRUGS. At this point I'm still fine. On Monday Haley brought home her vocabulary sheet and one of her new words was DRUGS. It had a picture of a can of beer, a bottle of liquor that said "whiskey", a package of cigarettes that said "smokes" and a syringe. When I asked Haley what the picture was she just "oh, I don't know". I had to tell her, in the most innocent way what drugs were. I WAS NOT READY FOR THIS!. After Monday nothing else was said until we picked her up on Wednesday. Alex and I were standing at the door when the kids were released, when she came out with her eyes all puffy and we both could tell she had been crying. Not giving the poor girl a break we both thought that she had gotten in some mega trouble. Wrong! After 45 minutes of hysterical crying we found out what happened. Here's the run down.

She went to an assembly in the lunchroom (along with all the other grades) and listened to a police officer talk about drugs. The officer also had his drug dog. He told the kids that his dog could smell drugs and if you were found with drugs in you backpack you would be put in cuffs(or as Haley says, those silver bracelets). Well at that point, when she heard this all she heard was "the dog will find drugs". For the next 8 hours whenever she thought about it she would burst out into tears (not just a few tears, sobbing) that the dog would find drugs in her backpack. She did not understand that there were no drugs in there and that she did not have drugs, that we did not have drugs and that she did not need to be afraid! It was a VERY long night!

With all that being said here are some pictures of this week!

Be a king or queen. Stand up and say NO to drugs.

As far as what Haley thinks-crowns at school, fun!

Wear yellow for drug awareness. Haley's thoughts-I get to dress like an Indian!

80's day. Leave drugs in the past. Haley loved dressing like mom when I was her age.

Put a sock on drugs. Haley got to pick out what she wanted me to put on her socks.

Be a hero. Just say NO. Thanks Mrs Keri for her dress! Haley still loves it!

Boo at the Zoo

Thanks Mrs Rachel for the material! It was perfect!

Haley took both of these pictures! She is getting so good at it!

blogger not picture poster

Ok, so I must confess I’m not the best blogger. I’m what I would call a “picture poster”. When we started this blog I (we) were going to blog about our life here in Texas. We did that for a few weeks and then we (I) just started posting pictures of the kids because that’s all people ever ask about. The kids do so many funny things and they go unseen to family and friends so I wanted to catch you up on a few. Don’t worry pics will be back very soon!

Graham-
Graham is really living up to his nickname that our dear neighbor gave him “Dennis”. He is so sweet and loving but he gets into everything! His favorite thing at the moment is markers. Haley was not the kind of kid to draw all over stuff. She did it ONCE. Graham-oh he does it every day! If he gets a hold of anything with ink (or lead) he goes to town. BTW, if he does not have paper, table, floor, couch or refrigerator, he just uses himself! He is also into balls. If he has a ball and wants to play toss and you’re not looking, he will just peg you in the face and say “catch”. He also loves to jump. He will jump off anything no matter the height. A few months ago he jumped off the couch, belly buster style onto the hard tile (with a thin rug as protection). He got up, kinda made a face and then went to jump again. This time he looked at us and said “catch”. He is still a bad eater. He loves anything with sugar and that’s about it! Food that he dislikes he will put in his mouth and push it to the side and then eat the food he likes and then when it’s all said and done, spit out the food that he first ate. Very sneaky that one. That about sums up graham :)

Haley-
She is a big girl now. She has been in school for about 6 weeks and is doing great. She loves her classroom and has made lots of new friends. She told us she can’t always remember their names because they are too hard to say :) From what we can tell she is a good student. She has been on blue(that’s the best she can be on)every day. Notice I said has been. Yesterday she got on RED. That’s the next to worse thing (blue, green, yellow, red, and then black)! When I read her behavior color the first thing I said, and it was kinda loud, was HALEY O'NEAL SISSON! That kinda scared her enough! When Alex talked to her about what she had done it was kinda silly. She said that when she was at lunch a boy was hitting himself in the face so she thought that she would join in! So, she just slapped him in the face! We still don’t know what she was thinking! Other than that one incident, things have been great with her. She has learned to read a few words and is writing up a storm. She is also learning how to use the computer. We underestimated her. She has been working on computer skills at school and we had no idea she could even use a computer! Little miss is growing fast and is just as excited as we are about moving to PNG!

Kelley & Alex-
We are great. It’s quiet here. We were so used to having lots of adults and kids and now it’s just us. We do have a family that is staying upstairs (they are hurricane refugees) so that’s been nice. They have 2 girls, one of which goes to school with Haley. Alex has been spending most of his time working on logistics for Puapa New Guinea. He has also been working very hard on our monthly, yearly and one time PNG budget. As far as me… there is so much that I want to do, but still have a hard time finding time. When I do get free time I try to help out with office work or work on my latest project, inventorying 6 apartments! Even though we are not working full time corporate jobs, working to be launched among the nations takes a lot of time and work! Please pray that God will be glorified in all we do!!