Once Upon a Time

Here's a new one. I made a photo album of old pictures that is available to all on the internet. Many of these have NEVER BEEN RELEASED for public viewing. You might get your socks shocked off by the picture of Ken WITH hair, so proceed with caution. Hope you enjoy!

INSTRUCTIONS: Click on the link below.
http://picasaweb.google.com/loristucky
When the page opens, click on the picture of the lady with long hair (that is the front page of the album). You can adjust the size of viewing by going to the upper right hand corner where it says "Size".

Caffeine Free Life

I was just recently informed that I am to keep anything with caffeine at an arms length. Not something I was very excited to hear. This is coffee country. Loads of tiny little cups of hot, strong, sweet, black liquid is poured out every day. There is a stainless steal pump thermos that sits on the counter at our house with a tray of little cups by it all the time. Never know when someone might stop by! When I tell people that I can't drink regular coffee any more, their eyes get as big as saucers. After they recover from the shock of this new development, a big fat "WHY?" falls from their lips.

Over the last 6 years I have had increasing problems with migraines, so this is an effort to see if we can get them a little more under control. It's not exactly what I had in mind, but then the last migraine crisis I had was more than I want to go through again, so we will give it a go.

Never having had a dietary restriction (unless self-imposed), it has come as kind of an unexpected challenge. Not one that I can't handle, though. The store stocks decaff (a wee consolation), even though I have never actually met anyone who buys it (meaning that the only place I will be able to drink it is at home). And when I think of people with food alergies, I don't have much to complain about.

That was the bad news.

The good news is that I can still have chocolate (cause there is hardly any caffeine in it to make a difference)!!! Splurg!!!


To see a site (in English!) advertising the brand of coffee packaged in our state, visit...
http://www.cafesantaclara.com.br/


To read all about the good stuff...
wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee

To read all about the bad stuff...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine

And We are All Smiling!!!

What do you know? Somehow we managed to get everyone in a good mood. Maybe that's because we were all glad that the 2 1/2 hour church service was over (as was in Anabel's case!).

BTW: What's with the name change on the picture? No change...just thought about printing some of these out for our Brazilian friends. My name in Portuguese is both my first and middle smashed together. Everyone else gets to stay the same.

Our mission's anual conference and business meeting was the first week of January. The girls had a great week. Lots of hiking (they have bruises to show for it!), eating great food, VBS, spending time with friends they don't get to see much, VBS, swimming, horse riding, VBS, special outings, VBS...etc. It is always a hightlight for them.

Anabel and her class played the maracas in the closing program "Trading Places".

If you have ever done a full week of VBS, you know how easy it is to go wacky by the end...no exceptions here!!!

HAPPY 2007

Well, it's here. 2007

To close up 2006 we went to the beach for Christmas Day and Boxing Day (that's the holiday after Christmas if you are British!). Ate, slept, read, played games, went down to the beach, ate some more, slept some more, watched video, saw pictures, and ate.




A painting of the beach just down the hill from the house where we stayed. It is a very well known land mark on this particular beach.



The whole bunch of us, minus Ken, who was taking the picture, and Silas and Jolene who were sleeping.

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Then for New Years a bunch of the church people met out at the property for a Brazlian bar-b-que. Awesome meat and munchies to go with it. Played games, sang, had some special presentations and, of course, ate.



Making LOTS of good food!



Music to sing by...



Bel and Caleb...eating the goodies

the CROWD that came out to fellowship at the property for

New Years 2006