School concert

Sam is in the school choir and he loves it , he takes after his Dad and Mum and his grandad(my dad )who Loved anything musical . so here are some photos of him and the gorgeous Taylor singing at school .

cooking a new skill

Today I had fun
i went cooking and shopping with our interns here at Joy
Chris and Jo Saxton noticed that they never had any money but never cooked .!!!
So they brought me in to demonstrate how to shop i.e .actually what stuff its good to buy cheaply
and how it is possible to cook quickly and easily.
they all cooked great meals and invited friends and mentors over.
Here in the US most young adults eat most meals out and what they dont realise is that they have sacrifice community by doing this and the definately spend loads in restuarants and sometimes its even quicker to eat in .
So we had lots of laughs and I had a great lunch .

Its definately hotting up here think we hit 85'f its perfect convertable car weather,
Mike is back after a great and productive time in Oklahoma and Atlanta.
We had a fab time of worship and prayer at TOM this week and it is always good to see everyone and catch up with everyones lives and to notice how many more babies we have on the way !!!
When we came 3yrs ago our youngest was Emily Mallon @ 5 yrs old since then we have produced 5 babies and 2 more on the way !!!quite amazing .
Trying to find some new music to Listen to so any suggestions would be welcomed I like acoustic stuff with good lyrics, country, and things like Cold Play ,John Mayer etc > I am going on some long journeys so i need to update my ipod .

Canadians on a road trip

Last night we had a couple of visitors staying --nothing unusual in that --except that they were on a road trip from Monkton Canada (on the far east coast) to California. they set of with the aim of getting to california and back in 31days , They had already driven 6000 miles in the rental car .
Sam and Mike met them last year on their eventful trip to Canada so they thought they would drop in. they are taking photos on the way and hoping to visit 30 states in all. they had some great stories to tell and it reminded me of how great and amazing and hospitable the american population is .
They had been offered , showers, food , places to stay and lots of company and stories mainly from complete strangers . They had no agenda just the trip and no map !!! what a joy that would be to me , i would love to do this type of trip , maybe mike and I should have a "gap" year and have a trip !!!
They were also swapping clothes along the way so Sam ended up with T shirts and hats fron canada and they went away with lacrosse shorts ,a cowboy hat and american eagle sweat shirts . a fair exchange .

Sam the cowboy

sam had a school dance this friday and the theme was cowboys I think they all look like naturals

mike looking mischievous

Beccy looks happy

First time in 10 weeks I have no visitors staying !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
so guess what I am doing --- cleaning where does it all come from !!! the dirt and dust -- well we do live in a desert !!
Charlie is feeling lost as there is no unsuspecting person throwing him a ball for about 3 hrs
Sam has a lacrosse match -no broken bones so far and is injury free though i did hear a rumour that he lept a bonfire at the youth weekend away !!! wonder if he is following in his father's ways !!!

Sometimes we get amaazing views of balloons that go directly over our house

Its been a busy week .
We have had a conference here in Phoenix for 40 leaders and had friends from the Uk and Canada staying with us as well as hosting a cheese and wine for 50 last tuesday!!!
We had lots of fun with steve and helen ,photos are posted this time without steve and his wine glass, but it comes as no surprise I took helen shopping this time GAP and she did mamange to buy her years supply of clothes in 30 mins - not bad for a beginner !!!
Ian and Annabeth left late yesterday on a red eye back to Toronto hope they have recovered by now.
The sun is shining but its freezing - what has happened to the weather -and we missed the eclipse too !!!
Mike is off to Oaklahoma on Monday so its another airport run -the car drives itself