Thanksgiving with the Rains! :)

 I had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with some

of my family and "extended family" in Wisconsin! :)

This is a picture with my brother-in-law's brother, Paul,

with our niece, Brooklyn Joy! :)

David waiting patiently to take pictures.. :)

Need I say more?? ;)

 The Rains family.. well, some of them.. :)

 Some more Rains'.. my sister, Tina, with her husband, 

Stephen Rains and their two kiddies! :)

 The moms working in the kitchen to prepare our 

yummy Thanksgiving meal!!! :)

 Do you think the guys helped?! ;)

 Brooklyn with mommy.. adorable bib and baby! :)

 Paul decided he wanted to jump in the pic, too! :)

 That's more like it.. ;)

 Notice I'm the only one smiling?! ;)

The other Thanksgiving table...

Stuffed turkey?! ;)

Great Grandma, Grandma Rains, and the grand kids!

 A little nap after supper anyone?! :)

 The boys LOVE to play with Levi!  It's pretty cute! :)

You can tell he also LOVES it!  He gets SO excited to

see all the uncles (and aunts, too! :))

 

We had so much fun playing games throughout the day..

Here's "Uncle Vern" concentrating on playing "The Story Game"!:)

 

Well, Paul needed something to write on... :)

They crack me up!!! :)

 

Attempting to play Boggle! ;)

 Grandpa Rains reading with Levi.

"Uncle Beige", as David's affectionately called, with

 Levi & Brooklyn.. they just LOVE their "Uncle Beige",

and I think he sorta likes them, too! ;)

 

We enjoyed spending Thanksgiving with Dustin Earp, too!

He's related to Wyatt Earp and so are we.. figure that one!;)

 Relaxin' fun at the Rains! :)

They're so randomly funny! ;)

Poor Levi.. his uncles got ahold of him and did

this.. wrapped his big tummy in an ace bandage! 

It was pretty funny, though! :)

 He looked like a penguin trying to walk

around like this.. needless to say, it didn't last long!:)

Mom, Pab, Sarah, David, Leah and I enjoyed a brisk evening walk, too!

It was a bit chilly, but fun!:)  Dave even brought a Frisbee along..

so we walked, raced, and played Frisbee.. as well as took pictures, of course!:)

 

I got this picture from Stephen as we were out walking..

it said "anymore pie anyone?" haha

Like I said.. randomly funny! :)

After our walk, we played Pit.. it was SO much fun!

And like David said, it was a good game for me 

because you had to be loud and talk a lot! ;)  Thanks, Dave! :)

I started off winning but then quickly got into the negatives

with all my bulls and bears!  It was so frustrating, but really so funny!

If you have a bull or bear in your hand when someone else wins

then you have to subtract twenty for each one from your overall score.  

Well, guess who ended up with the bull and bear almost all the time

toward the end?!  Yup! :)  And then at one point I had a full hand

and was reaching my hand out to ring the bell declaring I was the winner

when David beat me to it!  I still am not sure how it happened?!

And go figure, guess who ended up winning?!  Yup! :)

Levi also enjoyed watching us play and even started mimicking

us.. it was SO cute to see him pretend to put cards on the

table as he yelled "two! two!" :)

A crazy game, but good times and fun memories! :)

Just about to leave after a long, full, fun day.. 

and this is how Luke is sitting on the couch!:)

I guess the craziness and randomness never ends with the Rains?!:)

Our Final Trip Together as a Team.. :(

 

The view was so awesome on the way from SC up

to Tennessee, where we would drop Carl off..

I tried getting several pictures, but there kept being

trees in the way.  At one time, there was a perfect

view and I tried to hurry and get to my camera, but

I missed it:(  When Carl heard I was trying to get pictures,

he kept speeding up through "picture perfect" spots!

I'm gonna miss this bum, though! ;)

 After our final supper together at Chick-fil-A, we went

to drop Carl off to meet up with some of his friends at

Crown College, where he would then fly out on Monday

to his home in New York.  Carl showed us around the

college some and then we went to the church there to

meet up with his friends..

 So sad.. our last picture together.. I think we all teared

up some as we said goodbye to Carl and then drove away. :(  

It was really such a fun team, and I know I'll miss it..

and I think we discovered we all would!

We traveled Saturday and Sunday in order to get from

South Carolina to our final destination of Wisconsin.

On Sunday morning, we stopped at Shawnee Baptist

Church in Kentucky.  The pic above is an attempt to

try and capture the interpreter.. it's always exciting

to me to see deaf ministries at churches!

 I just had to snap a pic of these men conducting traffic

after church.. must get pretty hectic at times, I guess! ;)

Our first opportunity to stop at Culver's again after such

a LONG time!!! :)  It was a yummy lunch! :)

We dropped Marty off to meet up with his mom in Indiana,

and then Nicole, Joe, and I headed for Wisconsin..

The time passed a little more quickly as we listened to Ben-Hur

and the story behind the gospel of Luke on our way..

We reached our destination a little after seven that evening, earlier

than we'd expected.. the completion of our team travels for this Fall..

but really just the beginning of another part of our lives! :)

Our Final Week in North Charleston, South Carolina...

 We stayed with the Woodword Family..

 

And their dog, Maggie.. :)

 

Janna always comes up with imaginitive 

ways to make things work! :)

 It was GORGEOUS on Monday, and really a lot of the

week.. it got colder as the week went on, but it was still

about 70 when we left on Saturday!  Very nice indeed! :)

 The girls did some school ahead of time so that they

had some extra time to spend doing other things they

wanted to do.. :)  We enjoyed going shopping on Monday!

 We played "Phase 10 Twist" with Mr. and Mrs.

Woodword and their son, Ryan, on Monday night..

it ended up lasting.. oh, about three hours!;)

 

The girls went out with their "Uncle John" and Aunt Lori

on Tuesday afternoon, so, with no little girls, Nicole and

I decided to go get some frosty's.. just cause we could

and because it sounded really yummy too!!! :)

 Janna makes me laugh with her drawings.. :)

 

She has unique ways to express herself.. :)

 

Wednesday Chapel at Northside Christian Academy

 Big Ball Volleyball on Wednesday night..

 And, of course, Tube Tug.. probably my personal favorite! :)

 Enjoying watching the skit from the bleachers.. 

the two people in the center of the pic are the girl's

"fake Uncle John", as they call him, and his wife, Lori.

He knew Dr. Jim from college, and Uncle John just adores 

"his little girls" and LOVES to spend time with them whenever he can! :)

 

Joe "crying" in the skit..

 Playing Uno with the youth pastor's kids in the

youth room \ schoolroom! :)

 One night after the War, some of the guys were trying to dunk.

Well, Laurel, the youth pastor's daughter, wanted to do it too,

so Joe helped her out! :)

 

The girls gave Nicole and I our Christmas presents since this was

our last week together until next semester.. I enjoyed using my 

"Teacher on the GO" mug the next morning for hot chocolate..

especially since it was a bit chilly because our the passenger seat

window broke and wouldn't roll up! ;)  Always exciting, I guess! :)

 Laurel and Emma, the youth pastor's kids, enjoyed their

glow sticks that their daddy bought for them.. :)

 Now you can see them a bit better.. :)

Emma on my right and Laurel on my left..  so cute! :)

 

"Let's see how many girls can sit on Miss Nicole's lap!" :)

 Crazy Jamie!!!

 Tug-of-WAR

 I caught Joe right as he was saying "PULL"!! :)

(and to the Rangers team, too! ;))

 BIG BALL BOWLING

(with about 160 or so, it makes it fun!:))

 

Friday night camp fire service.. 

the final night of the 2010 Fall Semester..

Me and Angel.. I like to call her "Sherlock", though! :)

Well, I suppose I'll explain why.. :)

We went out recruiting on Tuesday afternoon and Angel

went with me.  We'd come up to a house to knock on the

door and "Sherlock" would be like, "Oh, they're not home

because you see the oil marks there.. their car was sitting

there and now it isn't, so they're not home."  Or she would

tell me whether or not they had kids, and at one house she

knew he was a firefighter.. well, that was a bit obvious since

his uniform was sitting on the front porch! :)

But it was just quite funny, so I nicknamed her "Sherlock"! :)

Love you, "Sherlock"! :)  Great to see you again! :)

This week was a really good week.. I thought it might be a bit of a 

challenge because we had just come to this church & school a year

ago, but the kids really responded well, I thought!  It was neat to see

in the testimony service, which was quite long and I think Dr. Jim finally

just had to close things down, that the Lord had answered these kid's

prayers in specific ways.  That was extra special! :)

It was a great way to end our Fall 2010 War of Special Forces tour!