my blessed life

We have had a fun, if exhausting, day driving to see the Mayan ruins near Comitan , Chiapas, Mexico. These particular ones are called Tenam Puente ("The Bridge"). Even though it's a smaller ruin, it's so intriguing. We had a great time exploring them! And since I'm pretty worn out from the day, I'm going to let the pictures do the talking. I hope you enjoy them.

Tonight wrapped up the convention here in San Cristobal de las casa (I think that is a beautiful name for a city). It has been a very full three days! I actually did not make the final service this evening, because the kiddos were just worn out. The three of us stayed at the hotel and I tucked them early. a view from the convention host church's balcony making friends Mr B. all tuckered out Our typical daily convention schedule ( and I use the term* schedule * loosely, as the Mexicans do as well) has been: breakfast at 8am, morning sessions beginning at 9:45am and going until 2pm (there were 4 speakers in that time frame), lunch after that followed by a couple of free hours, then the evening service beginning at 6 or so and going until 9:30 or so followed by a very late dinner (remember what I said about the meal times here?). After that we all simply pass out in bed! Today, however, was the banquet honoring my parents’ 40 years of ministry here in Chiapas ...

Well, here we are in San Cristobal de las casas, Chiapas, Mexico . After our day of travel on Monday we are SO glad to be here! We wondered if we were actually going to make it. the kiddos chilling at DFW airport I could give you the very long version of our crazy trip down here, but I'll spare you the gory details. Let's sum it all up by saying we were up for 22 hours straight (unless you count catnaps on the planes) that included flight delays, missed flights, attempted extortion by an-airline-that-shall-remain-nameless, saving graces from American Airlines, our arrival in Tuxtla with all of our luggage (thank goodness!) , and finally a totally insane ride with a local driver up the mountains into San Cristobal that involved things such as high-speed passing on a double yellow line on blind mountian curves in the dark. Whew...I'm tired all over again just writing that se ntence. Oh~and did I mention that we arrived at 11pm and they actually wanted to feed us dinne...

I know I've been a little scarce around here this week. It has been busy with Vince just getting back home. And now we are leaving on another trip. This time we are all going, along with my family, to San Cristobal, Chiapas , Mexico. We are so excited!! 40 years ago this year my parents began their missions work in Chiapas , Mexico. Now there are over 200 churches that are growing and thriving from that small start long ago. This next week will be the annual convention hosted by those churches and they are having a special celebration for my parents to celebrate 40 years of ministry there. I'm thrilled that our whole family is able to go. My earliest memories are from Mexico. When I was a very young child we would travel there in an old blue pickup, pulling our travel trailer (they weren't called RV's back then) and stay for several months at a time. Then my parents began to make more short-term trips there, especially my dad, and although I've been to Mexico si...

Even though it's hard work picking wild blackberries~even with garden gloves those thorns kept getting me~the results are totally worth it!! And we had so much fun picking! fresh blackberry pie (I used this recipe , substituting blackberries for blueberries)

For those of you who think of Arkansas as a sleepy (read: boring) Southern state, think again! The Fort Smith area where I was born and now live in again has quite the colorful history. This past weekend I had the perfect opportunity to show the kiddos some of that history. In case you weren't aware, the National Parks Service is hosting *Fee Free Weekends* throughout the summer. There is one left: August 15 th & 16 th . You can go here to see which National Parks & Historic Sites are participating. This past weekend was the free weekend for July and since the weather here was amazingly Fall-like, we headed over to the Fort Smith Historic Site . I had not visited the site since high school and was impressed with the restoration work that had been done. It has become a wonderful local treasure! While the new museum has much information on the history of the fort, the site primarily focuses on Judge Parker's time there at the federal court. While Arkansas had become ...