New Books!

Currently our days are filled with the noise of construction as the new library is being built just across from our front door. While the noise is at times a bit of a nuisance, it has been interesting to watch the building progress. Now it is nearly completed. Thanks to the donations from the children's department at Orlando Calvary Assembly of God we now have over 350 children's books to add to the collection. They arrived last week. We are storing them in our house until the new children's room in the library is finished. In the meantime, Wesley and Adelaide have enjoyed reading them each night before bed. We've also shown them to some of the other missionary kids and student's kids. They are all pretty excited about them, too! So a big thanks to all the kids and the children's pastor at Orlando Calvary Assembly of God! You've blessed us!

Ice Cream Social

On Tuesday night we invited all of Chris’ students and their families over for ice cream Sundays. We served chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream and offered a variety of toppings, including homemade strawberry sauce, chocolate sauce, cookie crumbs and more. More important than the food was the opportunity the event provided for us to get to know some of Chris’ students a little bit better. It was nice to spend some time out of the classroom together and for our families to get to know each other. The ice cream social just might have to become a new tradition that we keep each trimester.

A Day In The Life of the Carters

First of all let me give a little side note. I'm sorry about the recent lack of updates. Our laptop that I use to blog has died and we sent it off to see if it can be revived. In the meantime I have to go into Chris' office to use a computer there. It hasn't been easy to get away and use it as we have been very busy and the kids are all sick again with colds.
Anyway, I've been meaning to do a day in the life of the Carter's in photos, so without further ado, here is a typical day for us, Thursday, January 31...

Our day started out with me waking up late, due to a long night with a teething, fussy baby. When I finally got out of bed I realized that we were scheduled for a year book picture of all the faculty, missionaries and students at 9:00 AM. I had five minutes before picture time, and neither I nor any of the kids were dressed! So, we raced around, got everyone dressed up and ran down the hill for the group photo. We made just in time for the picture to be taken(and only 10 minutes late)!
We returned home for breakfast and then began to pack for our upcoming weekend in Manila for cultural training. We were leaving first thing the next morning, so I wanted to get everything in the car by that evening. Here's a picture of Wesley and Addie packing for our trip. They are like their mom; they love to pack!

After we finished packing, Chris returned home for lunch. We had spaghetti . Here is a picture of Hudson eating his noodles. After lunch we had homeschool. Here's a picture of the kids and me reading a book about Flowers in the Philippines for a science lesson.
Meanwhile, Chris was busy teaching his two classes all afternoon. He is teaching Greek III and a class on the Pastoral Epistles this trimester. Here's a shot of Chris explaining some Greek grammar to his class.

After homeschool, I spent the rest of the afternoon setting up the house and getting ready for Bible Club. I also managed to do a little baking and to start a few things for dinner. Here I am stating a loaf of bread in our bread machine.
Chris came home from teaching at about 5:00 PM. He helped out by finishing the dinner that I started while I watched the kids and finished getting out craft supplies for Bible Club. Here is Chris cooking the pork chops we had for dinner.
We all sat down and the table and enjoyed a tasty dinner of pork chops, baked potatoes, broccoli and fresh baked bread. Then we cleared the table and welcomed the kids as Bible Club began at 6:30. We had a good bunch of Pre-schoolers for Young Kids Bible Club. That week we learned about the transfiguration of Christ. This was a challenging lesson to present to kids ages 2-6, but we focused on the fact that this story shows that Jesus is fully God. Here is a picture of some of the kids around my table doing their craft project.
After Bible Club, we got Wesley, Adelaide and Hudson in bed and finished up packing the car. Then Chris and I watched an episode of Star Trek Voyager on DVD (that we borrowed from another missionary family here) before heading off to bed. It was a pretty full day, but that is what most Thursdays look like for us.