To Do Today

1. Finish painting Casa Sol before the kids get home on Friday. (The place looks so much better all ready. Check out how moldy all the ceilings were in this place. Not good for kids with AIDS.)

2. Say good bye to the Hurst before they head back to Italy. (We will miss them till they move back here in October.)

3. Mail in our rental contract for this next year. (Wow, one year almost.)

4. Work on school stuff. (Kids go back to school on Monday and I start teaching theatre classes there the next week.)

Ok so I had better get running if i'm going to get anything done today. Be Blessed

Catching Up

Well we are back from our week long conference in Hungry and a short holiday in the mountains of central Portugal. There is to much news to tell you everything, but here are some highlights...

* We were really inspired to go deeper with God because of the teaching from Philippians at "Connect". Our speaker, the pastor of Cross Roads Amsterdam, was amazing.We looked at our suffering with Jesus and God not being done with the church here in Europe. Plus many other things. You might want to look at Philip. 3:12-14. Good stuff.

*Our first day at "Connect" we went into Vienna and did a one day ServetheCity event. Paula and Eden helped clean up an animal shelter. Noah and I worked with a group of people doing street theatre. Once again amazing things happened. I'll see if I can get some info up about the giant monkey that was out of his head crazy at the shelter and our encounter with the police doing street theatre.

*The kids had a wonderful time at the "Connect"/conference. They swam, made new friends from places like Romania, France, and Holland, enjoyed kids camp and over all wore themselves out.

*Eden celebrated her 11th birthday in the airport of Vienna. Poor things b-day fell on our big travel day. The down side was it was not a birthday party b-day. The up side was getting to hang out at the Starbucks in the airport all day. Plus she got almost anything she asked for that day, due to the guilt of no being able to really celebrate her special day.

*Our camping trip to central Portugal was much needed. We re-grouped as a family. Had fun together. Read books, went swimming in the river, jumped on the trampoline, laughed alot and saw some amazing Roman ruins on our way back home.

So that a little idea of the last few weeks. Like I said there's so much more I could tell you about. I'll try to get a couple of stories on in the next few day. Probably Tuesday, because I'm going to be out at Casa Sol painting tomorrow. Hope you have all had a great summer. Miss ya and can't wait to talk to you. Be Blessed

Learning to PLAY

When I was a kid I used to play. One of my favorite things to do was to go ride bikes with my friend Billy. Billy was a half Greek and Half Spanish boy with a smile to charm old Scratch himself. I loved hanging out with him. He was my best friend and we did everything together. Swim, bike, find old chewing tobacco in the high school baseball dug out and chew it. Walk old news papers down to the recycling in the 100 degree heat for cash, after chewing the tobacco. Buy lunch with the money we got from the newspapers. Then puke all over the front of the restaurant from the tobacco and the heat. It was great. We played. We played all the time.

So what happened? When did I forget how to play? I don't know. I look around and I see all these people who like to go out and play. The bikers. The surfers. The musicians. The campers. They know how to play and I don't. Something in me wants to play, but something else says "Nah". But that is all changing.

I am discovering my inner child. The one who wanted to go fishing and ride his bike and go to the beach. I am learning to play guitar. Well actually I am practicing guitar. I stink but that's ok. It's part of the process and the process in getting to something is the biggest part of the thing it's self. I am also learning to surf. Yes I know your saying, "You've lived in Portugal, one of the best surfing spot, and you haven't tried to surf?" Well I can say that I was able to get up the other day on my learner board. It was great. I spent the whole day wearing my self out surfing.

So I am learning to play again. I am learning to let myself relax a little. I am finding that little Spence and taking him to the beach. Want to come out and play?