We have got more trees than we know what to do with.  We’ve got one in our room, one in Haley’s room, one in the sun room and one in the living room.  All the trees are pretty small, except for the living room.  I guess they have to be or we wouldn’t be able to move around.

We’re also loving the fire place.  It burns gas logs or REAL wood.  We’ve opted for the wood.  There’s nothing like hearing a real fire crackle.

We’re also getting into photography more.  We’re taking pictures mostly of friends.  We’re not making much money off of it, but that’s not really the goal.  It is just fun to take them.  We’ve got a website set up so that people can purchase the prints.  You can check it out if you’re interested at SimonsProPhoto.com.  Other than that, we’re just enjoying spending time together.  I’ve got the St. Jude Half Marathon coming up in a few weeks and I’ve “sortof” been training for that.  By training, I mean going on one decent length run every week.  I hope I finish!

Of course, no post would be complete without at least one picture, so here’s two.  First one is what I found when I went in to wake Haley up from her nap today.  For some reason, she decided to put her sock on her hand.  Second one is just to make Grandpa Gary proud.

Well, we made it.  To Costa Rica and back.  Safe and sound.  For those that didn’t know, I recently went on a trip with Hope Presbyterian Church to Costa Rica.  Our purpose there was twofold.  First, it was a fact finding mission.  Our group of 6 was the first group from Hope to go to Costa Rica.  We were also the first group to ever go on a trip with a new group Hope is partnering with, Footsteps Missions.  So a lot of what we did was figuring out the “do’s” and “don’t’s” of Costa Rica as well as identifying other opportunities where Hope might want to send future groups.

The second part of our trip was helping to set up a bakery for a local place, Adinfa, that feeds about 75 kids lunch each day.  The bakery will most likely be used by some of the women that live around there initially.  Hopefully, over time, the women will be able to start a small business of baking and selling food.  Even if they don’t start the business, though, they’ll learn a skill that will help get jobs.  And, they’ll have fun while they learn!

While in Costa Rica, we stayed at a church.  The pastor of the church, Jose, is a very well respected man in the community.  We heard stories about how pastors come from over an hour away to talk to him and get his input on issues that their churches are going through.  One even came to talk to him while we were there.  He and his wife, Roxana, were the perfect hosts.  Roxana cooked breakfast and lunch for us each day.  I honestly don’t think we had the same thing twice.  It was phenomenal.

Pastor Jose’s son, Mauricio, cut his finger pretty badly at work right before we arrived.  Because of this, he was off work the entire time we were there.  It was a treat to have him driving us around all over town.  The roads were unmarked, full of potholes and they were extremely hilly (we were in the mountains).  On top of that, there were no lines and the drivers were CRAZY!  There’s no way we could have done that on our own.

In addition to being a good driver, Mauricio was a great addition to the team.  He always had a smile on his face.  It was also nice meeting his family, Tracie, Sammy, Marco and Hemana.

The kids that came to lunch at Adinfa were precious.  Laughing and smiling, they were genuinely happy.  One day while we were there, we cooked them pasta with cheese and meatsauce.  We cooked them cakes for dessert.  Some of them were a little picky at first, but they all ended up enjoying it.  Well, all except a couple!

Of all the time we spent in Costa Rica, most was spent at Adinfa or shopping for Adinfa.  Part of what we did was to pay off an oven for Adinfa.  We had to run all over town to get them pans for the oven.  We also hired in a baker to give a cooking class for the local women.  The class was a huge success and word travelled around the neighborhood quickly.  There were even more women who showed up the next day asking when the next class was going to be.  We plan to have the baker back to host a six week class for the local women.

Not all of the trip was work.  We did manage to have a little fun.  We had two “excursions.”  On one, we went on a canopy tour in the rainforest.  This is basically a zip line.  There were about 9 zip lines in all.  You’d zip from one platform to another in the treetops.

The other excursion was to Cafe Britt, a coffee company.  We got to see how coffee grows, is picked and is roasted.

Even though we only had two excursions, fun was had the whole week.  There was laughing and cutting up the whole time.  And there was hard work.  But the whole time we worked, we had fun.  Every night when my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light.  Completely worn out from the day.  But every morning, as soon as the sun was up, I was back out of bed…excited about what that day had in store.

I’m sure everyone that’s been on a mission trip before has had the same thoughts I had as I left.  On the one hand, I was happy to get back to the States.  I missed my family and I missed being able to order a meal without pointing to what I wanted.  On the other hand, I knew I was going to miss it.  Costa Rica, Steve (our translator/guide), the coffee, the food, the nightly hour and a half long devotionals, the peaceful sleep, Pastor Jose, Roxana, Mauricio and his family, the potholes, Adinfa, the kids, the complete disregard for schedules, the humidity, the people that came on the trip with me that I’d grown to love in only a week.  I firmly believe there are two reasons to go on trips like this.  One is to change the lives of those you’re going to help.  The other is to change yourself.  I don’t know how much of an impact I had on the people’s lives in Costa Rica.  I do know that I was changed for the better.

Weekends have been busy as well.  We went to St. Louis one weekend for Laura’s grandparent’s anniversary party.  Most of the rest of our weekends have been consumed with MSU football games.  Haley’s been funny at the football games.  We’ve trained her up right!  She loves Bully.  In fact, bulldogs, cowbells, and the M-State logo all go by the name “Bully” with her.  She shakes her hand in the air and says “ring ring ring”.  She’s actually enjoying the games now.  When people around her cheer, she claps like crazy.  A couple of times this past weekend she threw up her hands and said, “Touchdown”. 

I’ve been getting ready for a mission trip I’m about to head out on.  We’re going to Costa Rica to help a group called Adinfa set up a bakery.  They will be selling food/pastries to help fund the facility that houses and feeds street children.  It is going to be a lot of work, but we’ll have a little fun as well including visiting a coffee plantation and taking a zip line through the tree tops in a rainforest.  I can’t wait.  I know I’m going to miss my girls tremendously, though.

We’ve also finished up benches for the sunroom.  As you can see in the picture below, I had a little help building them.  Laura’s actually going to try to sell them so that I can re-build them a few inches lower.  No big deal.  It was a lot of fun building them with my little helper.  I’d welcome the chance to do it again.

The good part about the ride being cancelled was that Saturday’s ride was tough.  Due to Ike, we struggled against a headwind the majority of the way.  Once we hit the delta, the clouds spread and the sun was HOT!  The wind didn’t stop, though.  So, the good part is that we didn’t have to ride back on Sunday.

The bad part is that the wind we struggled against for hours on Saturday would have been a pleasant tailwind on Sunday.  That would have made the ride MUCH more enjoyable.

Regardless, we had a great time.  The ride was very well supported as always.  Accredo sponsored a rest stop along the way and was actually voted the top rest stop by the riders.  Our riding team for Accredo (which was about 20 riders) managed to raise a bit over $21,000. 

Laura came down to Tunica and met me on Saturday night.  We had a great time playing at the tables and endulging on Paula Dean’s buffet.  On the way home Sunday, we stopped at the Waffle House and had breakfast.  I’m not sure if it was something I ate, but I felt sick to my stomach all day Sunday.  I spent most of the day in bed getting waited on by Laura.  I’m feeling pretty good now, but Haley’s not.  Poor little thing has been coughing the past day or so.  It breaks my heart to see her hurting.

We managed to start taking pictures of the house.  I took a bunch of “before” pictures before we moved in.  I’ll try to post some over the next couple of entries.  Below are the first two.  Our sitting room before and after.  This is the room where I spend a good amount of time at home.  Its right off our bedroom and has our computer in it.  We just added a couch a few weeks ago.  We’re thinking we may do build-in shelves/cabinets along the wall with the window.  Still undecided.

We had a wonderful and full weekend.  Hayden’s parents came up on Friday night to spend the weekend.  I took the opportunity to have a girls night with my friend Melissa and we spent the evening scrapbooking at Archiver’s, a local store in town that hosts evenings to come in and use their tools, have dinner, and win door prizes.  It was fun catching up on some memories without interruption! 
The next morning Hayden’s dad and I went garage saling together!  I saw a couch on craigslist.com (my favorite website) that I thought would look great in our sun room.  I’ve been hunting a couch for months!!  We went and bought it…and had fun hanging out, just the two of us.  Unfortunately, the couch was the wrong color, but it will work perfectly in our office, so it’s not a loss.  So, the hunt continues…

Saturday morning we all drove up to “Goat City”, TN…give you a dollar if you know where that is!  We enjoyed seeing family and being outside at the Simons Family Reunion.  It was especially great to spend time with Papaw Ben.  We got home in time to change clothes and order pizza for the game. GO BULLDOGS!! 
Thank goodness we’re not fair weather fans because we’d be even more disappointed in the Dawgs performance than we were.  Haley had her MSU dress on and both sets of grandparents over to look for BULLY and COACH on the television.  Some kids like Mickey Mouse or other cute characters, Haley lives for BULLY.  We read the book, Hello Bully, many times a day and every time she sees the “M-State” emblem, she yells, “BULLY!”  We’re training her right.
Sunday Hayden was busy cleaning out the garage so I can park in there…yea!  He’s done so many projects lately and I’m sure he’s ready for a break…until my imagination comes up with the next thing we HAVE to have!  He’s so good at building what I come up with (see the benches).  We had a great time relaxing and celebrating my Dad’s birthday Sunday night.  Happy Birthday, DAD!  Needless to say, we’ve had a great weekend and are grateful the hurricane wasn’t too devastating.  We spent a lot of time watching it’s progress.  Our prayers are with all those effected by the damage.

Laura went down to the lake with me to take pictures of the maiden voyage.  She ended up taking a spin herself.  It was really a lot of fun.

We’ve been getting some visitors in the backyard.  Deer have been more than abundant lately.  I got some great pictures of them two days ago before work.  I saw some as I was running that morning at a track in our neighborhood.  Then I saw them again in our backyard.  I grabbed the camera and got a few shots.  There were three bucks in velvet, two does and one fawn.  The fawn was so cute.  I guess I need to wash our windows so the pictures will be a little clearer.

Haley’s growing fast.  She and I went to the park yesterday in Arlington.  They’ve got a crazy huge park there.  All sorts of climbing and swinging and sliding stuff.  She had a ball.  Afterwards, we picked up our new dining room table and chairs.  Finally we have furniture in the “empty room” in the front of the house. 

I did a triathlon last weekend.  It went better than expected.  I haven’t been training much so I wasn’t expecting anything too phenomenal.  Just wanted to finish.  I forgot how much fun they are.  I hate I didn’t get more in this summer.  I’ve been riding a little to get in shape for the MS 150 that’s coming up in about a month.  We leave from Graceland on a Saturday, ride 75 miles to Tunica to spend the night at Harrah’s then ride back the next morning.  I’ve ridden it the past couple of years.  The ride is very well supported and a really good time.  Hopefully the weather will be as nice as it was this past weekend.

Outside of that, not a whole lot has been going on.  I’ve taken on a new role at work and that has been keeping me really busy.  Very satisfying and enjoyable, but busy.  Once I get up to speed in the next month or so, it should slow down for a bit.

Laura’s been keeping busy with Haley.  Haley is growing like a weed.  She’s thinning out a little and is getting more and more personality every day.  She’s up to probably 25-30 words now.  Bully, cheese, papaw, da da, mama, and fish are her favorites.  Oh yeah, I can’t forget “shoes”.  She’s a mess.  I tried to take a bunch of pictures of her the other night when Laura was out, but it didn’t work well.  Every time I’d get her set and hold up the camera, she’d run towards me saying “baby”.  She loves to get her picture taken and then look at the picture on the camera display.

I think we’re about to switch churches.  We’ve been visiting another church that seems to have a lot more going on for couples our age.  In fact, there are 11 Sunday school classes for newly married people.  We really like it but want to make absolutely certain before we pull the trigger and join.  I’ve got a feeling we’re only a few weeks away.