Sam's Excellent Adventure

Thank you, Shannon Conley!! This is so cool. And VERY easy!! =)

Our Little Punkins

Fall in Pennsylvania

I feel like I've missed much of the fall season this year, because of all the traveling we've been doing, but the other night we were home and the sky was BEAUTIFUL!! This is the view from our back porch where we live now (my parents' home). It made me stop and think of how great our God is. Can you imagine the beauty of heaven if this is just a taste of what that will be like?
"O Lord, Our Lord! How majestic is your name in all the earth!"

On the Road

The last month has been really busy. We've been to a new church every weekend. The kids are handling things pretty well. Our worst Sunday with them was when Samuel busted into the auditorium screaming at the top of his lungs and crying for me. He had escaped from the nursery. We decided to try and take him with us to the front for our testimony, but realized what a bad mistake we made when he began kissing me on the lips right in front of everyone. When he realized it was embarrassing me, then he began LICKING my cheek!!! AAAHHH!! Soon it was my turn to give my part of the testimony, so Travis took him and when he started hitting Trav we finally took him down off the stage. What a disaster! Everyone was very understanding and thankfully the church wasn't big at all, so it wasn't as bad as it could've been.

A few weeks ago we went to a missions conference in Grove City, PA. It was a lot of fun. The people were so kind and we had lots of time to get to know them. We wanted to post some pictures of the place where we stayed in Grove City....an RV that an older couple in the church owned and pulled up to the church for our family to stay in! It was really cool. It gave us the time alone that we needed to deal with the kids and not feel like we were being watched all week. (if you know what I mean) =) It was nice to be back home again after living in a camper with two kids, but I thought it was a great idea for keeping missionaries.

New Family Picture...finally! =)

Here's our first and only family picture since Kara was born. We found an old barn close by and took this picture by ourselves. Samuel did such a good job smiling at the camera with no one to look at. We went straight to Burger King for chicken nuggets and french fries as a reward and then a LOLLIPOP too!! (Sam calls them Lionpops) =) This is the picture we wanted to include in our new missions presentation, but my shirt came out so bright that Travis wasn't happy with it. We're having a bit of a competition about whether it would be okay or not. What do you think?

Pappy and the Ducks

We wanted to thank all of you for your prayers for my dad and to show you what he's been up to lately. Before Dad got sick, Samuel had a special game that he loved to play with his Pappy. These little plastic ducks "swim" around and around this pond and make LOTS of noise. When we went to Romania for our survey trip in January, Samuel spent several days with Grammy and Pappy. Even though my parents were both teaching full time, each afternoon when Pappy came home, Samuel would meet him at the door with the duck game saying, "Play duckies, Pappy, play duckies!!" On the bottom of each duck is a colored shape, and my dad taught Sam the colors and shapes while they played. Since his illness, Dad has not been able to play with Samuel really at all. Last week, though, we were able to bring him home to his old house (the place where our family is living now) to visit. When Samuel awoke from his nap, Pappy was HERE!! He was so excited, and we reminded him that there's a very special game that Pappy came home to play....DUCKIES!! We thought it would be nice to show you the pictures we got of Samuel "playing" ducks again with his Pappy and to thank the Lord that my Dad is still with us. He may not be able to truly play with his grandchildren, but at least he can sit on the couch and smile while he watches them. And at least we can sit next to him and hold his hand.

Family Night

We've recently instituted "Family Night" into the Gravley household. Our inaugural night was last Friday. We played flashlight hide and seek in the complete dark. Samuel wasn't so sure at first, but very soon he was having a blast. Then we moved on to Bible story charades while Mommy fed Kara. A pretty lame idea, I know, but we had to do SOMETHING to keep the activity going. Watching Kara eat wasn't going to cut it =) Next, we moved on to Veggie Tales on Mommy and Daddy's bed on the BIG screen. We hooked up our projector that we use to show our missions presentation and watched on the bedroom wall (all the while eating popsicles ON THE BED!!) We definitely shouldn't have started out the "Family Nights" with so much excitement, because tonight (our second one), all we did is play with play-dough and dominoes on the kitchen table. That's the great thing about a 2 year old. I don't think he really cares WHAT we do, as long as we're paying attention to him. Ever since the first Family Night, he's been asking for another one. We're really attempting to make this a scheduled weekly night for our family. We even write it on the calendar, so it won't get squished out of the way by other stuff. I'm sure that someday our kids won't LOVE it as much as they do now, but we're trying to create some family loyalty while they're very young. Obviously, we're not very creative (hence, the play-dough and domino night), so does anyone have any Family Night ideas for us?