MERRY CHRISTMAS

I will be making a conscious effort to wish everyone a Merry Christmas this year ... My way of saying that I am celebrating the birth Of Jesus Christ. So I am asking myl buddies, if you agree with me, to please do the same. ! And if you'll pass this on to your buddies, and so on... maybe we can prevent one more American tradition from being lost in the sea of "Political Correctness".
To one and All...

ORH Mexico Trip Part 1

Missy, Carrie, & I

Me & Sarah- we were both the "nurses" for Doc Waller. She was basically my assistant bc she had never been on a trip w/ us nor had been on the health field yet.

This is a picture of the courtyard of the church where we stayed while there in Ciudad Victoria.

Here we are at the church service on Sunday.

Here we are counting pills out for pharmacy.

Sarah, Carmen, & I. Carmen was our interpreter on the 1st day of clinics.

Dr Waller in his "office"

The waiting "room"

Kelley- a fellow Texan :)- checking this lady's blood sugar.

Dr Marcos in his "office" w/ Kelley.

I was given the opportunity to assist Dr Waller in a surgery.

Our optometrist- Marco Polo & his two assistants- Sarah & Alisha.

Triage

Our pharmacist for the trip- Mrs Waller

Dr Rosa & Mary her nurse.

Couldn't resist getting a picture w/ this cute lil girl.

Me w/ the Panamanians :) (remember them from the Honduras post? :)

w/ the Evangelist's wife Mrs Alfaro

While waiting for our bus to arrive we played some games w/ the young people of the church. Here we are playing "Diggity-diggity stick"

Diggity-diggity stick again- this game was super fun!

This game was "Quemazon o Revolucion" or "Burning (as in fire) or Revolution"-
this was another really fun game.
It was alot of fun getting to interact w/ the young people of this church
& to learn games from another country.

No we haven't dropped off the face of the earth :)

Just in case someone is actually coming to this blog & looking for updates, I have not forgotten. I just was released from the hospital from antibiotic therapy because of my neck infection or whatever it is. The docs still don't know what it is or what has been causing it (for those of you who don't know, I have had 7 surgeries total already related to my neck problem). The doc is trying to avoid surgery so he has kept me on antibiotics but so far it hasn't really helped much since it has actually seemed to get bigger. So I go back on Monday to have him check it & probably run more tests. Please pray with us that either the docs can figure out what is wrong/causing the problem or that God will heal my neck!

Pics of lil Charity

This is the sight that greeted Daniel & I when we came back from working @ the ranch.

She decided that she was going to drive the truck for me lol ;)

We kids gave our dad this exercise machine for Father's Day & his b-day combined.

Here lil Charity decided to try it out.

It's hard work!!!

Summer Pics- Fun w/ Renes

Here are some of the pics of our activities w/ the Renes. Some of our activities this summer included going to Six Flags & taking them to the ranch where Daniel & I work.

Sorry these pics are not in order but here is the group getting ready to head into Six Flags!!! :)

Tabby doing her fav activity ;)- talking on her cell lol.

Mrs. Rene was the driver/chaperone of the Six Flags outing.


Priscilla & I in the van on the way down to Six Flags.

Perfect expression for what we all were feeling :). Thanks for the great pic Nate :)

Priscilla, Tabby, & I decided to be a lil goofy for these pics. In this first one, Tabby just couldnt keep a straight face :)

Here we go!

Daniel, Priscilla, & Peter in the back of a truck at the ranch.

Daniel & Peter- the hard-working boys.

Tabby, Me, Mrs Shoemaker (a general's wife), & Priscilla- at the ranch house

Tabby on one of the horses- Kasey/Foresight

Priscilla on Vesta.

Just another pic of us three girls.

Summer

Well, sorry for not putting updates on here. I have been majorly busy w/ our friends the Renes, the horses, applying at two major universities, & going on another medical missions trip to Mexico.
So our missionary friends the Renes have been staying with us for the summer to get aquainted w/ their mustang and to try to get stuff for their ranch. It has been nice having them help take care of all the horses since I have been doing the majority of all the work myself but they are leaving very shortly to go back up north so I am enjoying the help while I have it :)
I applied to the nursing school of the University of Texas in Austin & Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi and was accepted into the TAMUCC :) I am soooo excited because their nursing program is available online so I can get my nursing degree w/o leaving home :)
Also, this summer I received a call asking if I was available to go on another medical missions trip to Mexico. Previously, I had not planned on going this year because of the lack of funds but the Lord provided and I was able to go to Ciudad Victoria, Mexico. Plus, next week I will be going on a mini medical missions trip to Honduras (its only a weekend trip w/ 2 docs, a nurse, & me- a student nurse). I am soo excited for this opportunity that the Lord has opened up for me!!!
I will try to post pics as I am able. Hope ya'll had a great summer!

William graduated!

This past Friday evening William graduated from high school. He is going to be working during the summer & then in the fall he plans to attend basic training at the International Alert Academy which is a Christian program that is tougher than the military's basic (yes, even the Marines) because they want to teach the boys not to rely on their own strength but to rely on the Lord.

Aerial Shots

Well, today was a very eventful day. Daniel & I started to put up the fence around the pasture for the horses when the lady who is now boarding her horses out here showed up w/ horses in tow, & we were not ready for them. Well, we just stuck them into the backyard of the guest house & got to work finishing up odds & ends around the yard. Still not finished w/ the fence cuz I need to order some more parts :( Well, before another storm blew through my bros had to paint the roof with some water-proofing paint to hold it until the insurance people could come by to assess the damage. So here are some shots that William took while he was up on the roof.

He decided to take a pic of me when I climbed the ladder :) But on the roof there you can see some of the damage from the storm the other day.

This is the storage shed & if you look really closely you can see part of the red corral in between the two sheds- this is where Wyoming is staying until I can get her gentled.

This is the guest house w/ the two horses munchin away @ the grass- great lawn-mowers by the way ;)


Here is a close-up of them. I'm definitely gonna need to get a better pic of them, lol :D

After the storm

For the last couple of days we have been going through some very bad weather. In fact a tornado touched down right down the road from us. The Lord sure was protecting us & the animals! They all seem to have faired pretty well, and the only damages that we sustained were a cedar tree falling, a large limb from the large live oak broke & fell, and some shingles came off of our roof. Otherwise we are all doing very well. Praise the Lord!

Here are some pics of Wyoming that I took this afternoon w/ my camera phone- hence the bad quality. :) Oh, well! You get the idea;)

Here she is greeting me because she wants her food, and yes she needs to gain a little weight.

The flies keep bothering her.

Eatin' some hay.


Ok! All finished w/ the hay, now where's my food!!! ;)

Horse Update

I have been staying very busy with school plus getting everything ready for the mustang. I was supposed to be training two wild mustangs but the plans got changed, actually for the better. I just didn't have quite enough room for both; & it is alot easier to train them seperately, especially since the gelding can be a bully around the mare. So only the mare was brought down. It has been only a little over a week since she has been here & I am seeing a gradual change in her. She for one thing has to gain some weight and also gain trust in humans. Because she is from the wild, she has never been around humans, so I have to work on building her trust in me before I can actually do anything else. It has been said that this part of the training can take a long time, but once they build the trust, the rest of the training is alot easier & smoother. I have been able to start petting her on her face while she is eating, but she won't let me near her if her head is not in the bucket. And if I sit on the ground she will come up to me & sniff/smell me all over as long as I don't move. I am definitely learning alot of patience, especially since all I want to do is throw a saddle on her & go for a ride ;)- soon :).
But on a bright note for me, I can soon do just that & ride all I want. Starting in a week or two, I am going to be boarding 2 more horses for a lady in my church who is in need of a place to board her horses w/out "abuse." The place where she is boarding them at the moment will not let her horses out in the pasture so they are stuck in the stalls all the time. Plus she is having problems w/ both of her shoulders so she can't do alot with them so she needs help exercising them. Yea, these guys are trained already so I get to ride anytime & really anywhere I want!!! I'm so excited:) I am definitely going to have a busy & fun summer ;)

Here are some pics of her that I took the other day.

By the way, her name is Wyoming. Isn't she pretty!