Sereena's Visit

It was great to have Sereena visit earlier in February. She game over here before the Shepherds Conference in LA where she was meeting up with Nige and some other pastors from New Zealand. Mark also went over to the conference to meet up with Nige, Russel and others. He missed most of the conference though as he had to go down to Mexico to renew his visa.

Sereena brought us over all these New Zealand goodies, thanks to everyone who pitched in.

Sereena standing in the door of our townhouse. We had had quite a lot of snow a few days before she came.

We took her down what we call "Deer Alley".

We also took her to the Capitol building in Frankfort.

A couple of photos Sereena took from the road.

Sereena and I spent a day out at the Creation Museum. It was great to have some time together and catch up.

Joel's 12th Birthday

I'm sorry that it has been a while since we have blogged. The computer I normally use has broken down. We had a very special visitor for Joel's birthday, our friend Sereena from Hastings. I will blog more about that later. Joel's birthday was the day we had to drive Sereena to the Louisville airport so it worked out well to get together with some of his old friends and play Lazar Tag and then take them out for dinner. He had been saving all his money for quite a while to buy an electric guitar, so the cake was a guitar cake. He is now the proud owner a blue Rogue Rockateer.

Basketball

I'm finally getting around to putting on some photos of the girls basketball season. They have played for their school, Dorothy Sayers Classical School. They had a great season, coming first in their region and going on to the semis in the state tournament. They are such a great group of girls with wonderful committed coaches, it has been a blessing to be a part of this team.

The final score. We are the home team. This was their first game of the tournament which they won so they went on to the semi finals, which they lost. They had a great time though, and it was a good experience for them.

Frankfort, Kentucky

Frankfort, where we live, is known for its many deer. The photo and video are of our favorite drive, a stretch of road about 1 mile long (1.6 km), where we always see twenty or thirty deer just grazing along the side of the road. As you can also see, we have had alot of snow. This picturesque photo is taken from the back door step of Dr. York's office (and mine also). It looks out over the back parking lot of the church we are interning at, Buck Run Baptist church, Frankfort, KY.

Matthew turns 9

On January 20th Matthew celebrated his 9th birthday. It was a Wednesday so we normally go to church for a meal and bible study. Matthew attends choir on a Wednesday night and loves it so he was content for us to attend church on his birthday. We did have a family birthday lunch and a cake. Matthew asked for chicken, rice and a sweet potato casserole (with marshmallows on top).

Matthew also got to celebrate his birthday with friends in Louisville one evening. They went to Chucky Cheeses, which is great for birthday parties. It has pizza, arcade games and a huge play area. They had a fun evening.

Family Photo

A friend of ours from Immanuel Baptist, our church in Louisville, very generously took some professional family photos of us as a going away gift. We have never had any taken and for those of you in NZ you know how expensive this can be. For those of you who did not get a Christmas card from us we apologise. We would have loved to send more out but we have to count the cost as the postage is expensive. So this is a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all and here is the family photo for those who we were unable to send one two.

More Snow Photos

It has now snowed for three days here. The snow is pretty but we got so sick of being inside that we decided to walk in the snow over to the park to find a hill to sled on. The only problem being that the only thing we had to sled on was 'For Rent' signs.

There is a large deer population here and we have already seen over 10 deer at different times. Even though we see them almost every time we drive, having been deer hunting in New Zealand, I still find it hard not to get excited every time we see some.

We had our first full Sunday at Buck Run Baptist church yesterday. We enjoyed the fellowship with the saints and are looking forward to our year here. Mark started work, officially, today.

From the surf to the snow

This is us enjoying the pool at our hotel in Orlando. Below are photos from today at our townhouse in Frankfort. It has snowed all day so the children had a day off school as the schools close.