If Home Is Where Your Heart Is. . . .

Attention all prayer warriors!  Please join me in praying for 607 camper enrollments by Christmas!  This is a big number for us and we are praying in faith that we can have this many campers committed to Kivu by the end of 2012.  It is a big number, but God can do big things. . . .  He can move mountains with just the small faith the size of a mustard seed.  I believe!  Our capacity is nearly 1000 for those of you wondering.  We were at capacity in 2009 and have been dramatically declining since then, but we are praying diligently for change in 2013!  So, please pray!  If you have kids ages 11-18 or know people with tweens and teens, please sign them up!  We cannot do it without you!  We have one and two week terms.  We have parent/child backpacking trips.  Kivu is an amazing place and there is no better place in the world than Colorado in the summer!  For more information, go to www.campkivu.com www.campkivu.com...

Well, I'm trying really hard not to be too frustrated at my camera right now.  This weekend Andy and Luke did their annual Fall Colors bike ride to Ouray and we were their support car.  I love the fall ride because it gives me an excuse to drive up the mountains and take pictures.  And we go to the hot springs afterwards which is a bonus because then the kids want to make the drive and therefore I get great fall colors with my kids in the pictures. Anyway, I plugged in my camera this morning only to find that my pictures are much less than perfect because somehow I had my camera set on "effects."  Bugger!  Oh well, nothing I can do now.  So, here are my pics. . . . (weird) This could have been a super pic!  All smiles & pretty color.  Bummer.  Now it just looks like a bad coloring book and Tiki looks like a bad Michael Jackson impersonator.  What in the world?!?

Today was the best day of the trip!  All three of my British siblings took off work and school to spend the day with me (and Maggie) and it was fantastic!  We laughed all day long and I was so happy!  Happy.  That is the word.  Free and light and content.  Today was a ten!

What a wonderful whirlwind of less than 48 hours we had in Paris!  It was perfect.  The weather was cloudy and cold except when we needed the sun to shine (at the top of the Eiffel Tower for example).  It was a good trip.  Lots of sight seeing and great time with my girls (Maggie and Carolin)! Thanks, Carolin, for taking a few vacation days to spend with us!  I love you so much and I am so thankful that we got this time together. . .on your turf!  Love you! This is the view I was talking about from our hotel, the Thoumieux.  I told Carolin Eiffel Tower and she gave it to us!

We hopped on the fast train from Dusseldorf at the crack of dawn and made it to Paris before lunch.  (I love Europe!)  The day started out perfectly--the donut guy gave us donuts in the train station even though they weren't open yet and Carolin and Maggie and I all matched one another and matched the train seats (it doesn't get any better than that)--and it kept getting better from that point on. Carolin booked us the most adorable hotel on the cutest little street.  The room is adorable on the top floor (we feel a little bit like princesses) and right when we step out of the door onto the street, we look to the left and there is the Eiffel Tower.  Perfect! The day began cloudy and as soon as we got to the very top of the tower, the sun came out and it was perfect!  We loved the Eiffel Tower and our walk all around Paris.  Then it started raining as we were heading to the Champs de Elyssee to take a picture for Andy.  So, we headed back to the ...

This morning we woke up in Germany!  I haven't been to Europe in 15 years and I still love it as much as I did then. . .maybe more actually!  For those of you who don't know, we had an exchange student live with us for nearly a year back in 1999-2000.  It is a long and fun and wonderful story of how we got her and what a perfect year it was and what a life time friendship it has been since.  Anyway, Maggie and I are here visiting her and it is so long overdue! Carolin picked us up in Frankfurt today and drove us to her home in Dusseldorf.  I am so happy to be here with her.  I love her so much and this has been so great seeing her life.  She is all grown up and has an apartment and a corner office with Ernst & Young.  I can't believe it! She toured us around D'dorf all afternoon and we had dinner with her mom.  I love this city.  It is adorable and I wish I had more than 18 hours here.  Now we're all tucked in for the ni...

 I feel like I need to download a little bit on India.  I've been great about posting pictures, but that's about all. I love it.  I really do.  I need a year there just to take it all in.  There is no way to describe that country.  It contradicts itself around every corner (in a good and unique way). The people:  they are so nice and so happy and so friendly.  It is amazing.  I'm trying to sit back and think, but I think they are the nicest people in the world overall.  The smiles are everywhere.  The whole feeling from everyone is just laid back ease and contentment.  Even in the driving. . .it is as crazy as any country, but everyone is just so relaxed about it. . .very relaxed and joyful even in what would be aggression and road rage anywhere else.  There really must be something to the whole "Namaste" thing!  Namaste literally means a reverent bow or salutation and adoration and that sums it up.  Peopl...