Lately I have been asking Jason to get some new artwork that matches our living room. What we had was really nice, just orange and black which didn’t really match our blue/brown theme. I looked on the Internet and found some paintings I liked which ended up totaling around $600. We didn’t need to do much soul searching to veto that idea quick.

Luckily, I am married to an extremely talented and creative man who was able to make 4 paintings that honestly I feel are better quality than the ones we could buy. We spent Labor day weekend planning, buying, painting (well only Jason painted), making frames and then hanging. The finished product is stunning. I am so proud of Jason – he does amazing work. And bonus we did everything for under $70.

3 of the 4 paintings that hang to the left of the fireplace

We celebrated Jason’s birthday Thursday with taco dip, wings, Colts football and angel food cake. It was a fun, low key evening of just hanging out.

Birthday cake #4 is the best yet! (Check out the heart sprinkles)

Happy 28th birthday to the love of my life. I am so blessed to have you as my husband. Love you and wish you many more happy birthdays to come!

This past Tuesday I was able to hang out with my 3 1/2 year old nephew Jack. We had a fun filled morning of play dough, trucks and playing outside. I am so lucky to be an Aunt to this busy little guy.

Heart breaker – ladies watch out

Wiggly little guy – smile!!

This past Sunday our small group had a baby shower for one of our members, Lauren. She & Aaron are expecting their first son, Jackson, sometime here soon. We had a fun afternoon of games, build your own ice cream sundaes and watching Lauren open some pretty cool presents.

We look forward to welcoming Jack  into our small group soon!

Group Shot:

(front row L t R) Lindsay, Lauren (mommy to be), Abby (her sis), Megan

(back row L t R) Libby, Colleen, Rachel

We made our annual trip to the State Fair early to enjoy the good food, sites and animals. This year my parents, grandma, sister & brother in law came with us. A highlight was the fresh fried veggies as well as the World’s Largest Boar.

Check it out if you have the chance. I’m sure you’ll find something fun.

Us posing by the 2nd largest pumpkin. We didn’t grow it; just thought it was cool.

Grandma C & Momma

Daddy, Chris & Aimie

If you live in central Indiana then you heard about the thunderstorms this afternoon. Well my friend, I lived through them. Like the title implies my mother & I were on our way to pick up my Grandma to go to the art museum. Yes it had been raining very hard. And yes there was a huge red line on the radar. But it “seemed” to be letting up, so with our way too oversized umbrellas we made a mad dash for the car and decided to make the trip to bridge street. Which for the record, is a very poor name for this particular street. Bridge implies raised over the water … not so in rainstorms … not so.

Anyway, we pulled out of my mom’s driveway. I was driving due to a burn injury my mom sustained the day before from claw tongs (another post in itself). It seemed to be raining harder as we began down the street. We got past the first stop sign only to realize that there were huge streams of water running over the road. The water was so high it covered my wheel wells in places. After narrowly crossing a of couple streams we decided that we were crazy and to turn back. We didn’t want to turn around and risk getting washed away so we took a detour. Half way through the detour I couldn’t see the road or for that matter really anything. The wind was blowing the rain completely sideways and it felt as if we were in a giant car wash. We decided to pull over in a church parking lot and wait out the storm. About a minute into parking the wind was blowing so hard it began to rock the car. (Later we heard on the news that gusts had been up to 60 mph.)

We pulled closer to the church and waited another 15 minutes or so for the rain to stop. It finally did so we made the treck home. We encountered even deeper streams on the way home and seriously wondered if the Vibe could handle it. At one point I said, “ok Momma, you’re just going to have to pray we get home.” And she did. And we did. So the end is happy. Yeah. Just a little drama in between. I tried to get mom to video tape how deep the water was when we were driving but she was too scared. I do have a picture that my Dad took of their yard from the flooding. In my 26 years I have never seen that much water at their place.

And so this is why we didn’t make it to the art museum. (Normally you wouldn’t be able to seek the creek from here.)

Driving home I had a brief glimpse of what Noah must have felt with the flood. Thank you Jesus for getting us home.

We arrived safely home from our 2 week mission trip to Zimbabwe 2 days ago. We had a great trip. God’s provision and grace were evident in the midst of a much harder living situation. VBS was a hit, topping out at 900 + kids on the last day. The team was amazing and so were our hosts. Over all, even though the trip was challenging in new ways, we had an awesome time and are praising and thanking God for all He has done and will do.

Hopefully we’ll be posting more stories and videos in the next few weeks as we recover physically and get back in the grove. Thanks to everyone who prayed for us. We know that God honored your prayers and then some.

Here are some of our 1000 pics. Enjoy

800+ kids in a 57 X 27 concrete church. Praise God

Part of the team with Shepherd & Jane

VBS smiles

Jason & Barb at the Children’s Home distributing gifts

The team: Barb, Paige, Jason, Rachel, Connie & John

more VBS smiles

A visit to the school

To check out the entire Best of Zim click below to see the album:

http://blog.jasonshore.com/photo-album/album/72157621627966047/the-best-of-zimbabwe-2009.html

If you’d like to hear more or get involved please comment on this post and we’d love to give you more info on how to help. Thanks!

This year during our church’s VBS the kids raised money for our mission trip to Zimbabwe to help us put on a VBS there. The goal was $1000. God is amazing though and able to do more than we ever ask for. The kids raised over $2000 in just 5 days! We were floored. Since they were able to meet the goal several people got pies in the face – including Jason. Below is a clip of the pie fun. Jason is seriously becoming a pie in the face professional. This is his 2nd year. Let me know and I’d be happy to hire him out for less than $2000 Again we just praise God for his provision and for the kids.