HOME SAFE AND SOUND

It was a long ride home, but we got here last night at about 11 pm. There was a lot of movie watching and a lot of sleeping on the bus. We had a great trip! We have been told that our work made a huge impact on the life of the family we worked for at site 2. We will be staying in touch with that family over the coming year, and have adopted them and will do all that we can from here to help them out in the future.

The picture you see below is of Nick. He was one of our camp guides. He stayed with us all week and worked on job site 2 with us. He also did many of our other activities with us. His mom "Miss Tammy" runs the kitchen at Eagle Ranch. We feel especially close to them as well. Nick will be undergoing neurosurgery in the fall for a siezure disorder. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. We will be requesting a prayer quilt for him so that he has it for his surgery. When you see the quilt out, please take the time to stop and say a prayer for him.

We want to say a huge thank you to all of the Eagle Ranch staff. They are the kindest, most accomdating and wonderful people, and helped to make this experience one that none of us will ever forget.
Thank you also to everyone at St. Mary for all of your support. Without your help we never could have taken this trip.
Finally a special thank you to George Niepoth, in whose memory we dedicated this trip. Without his staunch support and belief in us, we never would have had the courage and the fortitude to attempt something like this. We love you George, and we know you are sitting with God and smiling down on us and what we have done.
We will post albums on our facebook page next week. Enjoy all the pictures.

PAINTBALL

As promised, pictures from our last night there playing paintball. It was quite a game! The kids had a blast. We sustained more injuries during paintball than throughout the rest of the week. Luckily they were minor scrapes and a LOT of bruises. We went through a lot of antiseptic, ice and icepacks, but all was well.

DAY 4

Well today was our fun day. We went white water rafting in the morning on the Ocoee river and we went tubing in the afternoon on the Tacoee. It's the same river, it just has a different name in Georgia and Tennessee. So we've been state hopping. Of course the afternoon tubing was in a much calmer area of the river. The kids had a blast. Several met the Ocoe up close and personal as they were catapulted out of the rafts but all was well and everyone was fine. The afternoon was a little less challenging, just floating down the river on tubes. The water however was COLD. The kids didn't mind, but the adults were pretty shocked with the temperature. After those activities we had dinner and as this is being written the kids are playing paintball. Needless to say the adults are observing and the kids are playing. Pictures of that to follow maybe later if it's not too late when they finish. Tomorrow it's breakfast, then we load up and hit the road. We will be home tomorrow night at about 11 pm. I think most of us will be sleeping. It has been a wonderful trip and we accomplished a lot. We are happy with our work. We'll post again tomorrow night or Saturday after we get home. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we travel.

DAY 3

Yesterday was our last work day. We finished with everything so late we couldn't update the site. We are really pleased with what we accomplished. At job site one we finished the living room including all the windows and trim. Thanks to Mr. Kopy and his plumbing skills they now have a safe useable toilet. We worked incredibly hard. We were bound and determined to finish those rooms, so we stayed on the job site until after 6 pm. The work group from house 2 finished and came down and helped out so we could get more done. We have so many more skills after this trip than we had when we got here. We are proud of our accomplishments. At house two we finished everything that was to be done and even did a few extra things with trim. It was a good feeling to totally complete a project. The back deck is great, they can now safely go out the back door and have a place to relax with the kids. The front porch is also a great place for them to gather when the sun is too hot or it's raining. The windows have been completely trimmed out so they won't have problems with drafts in the winter. We have learned and grown so much on this trip.
We gave the small picnic tables we made at home and brought with us to the kids yesterday. They were so excited. It was so nice to see them smile. The kids are great and are so appreciative of the things we brought for them. The family overall has been appreciative and has thanked us daily. It was so nice to meet them and work with them. Our kids have much truer appreciation for all that they have. At no time during the week has anyone in the families complained about their situation. They have been gracious, and are thankful for what they do have.
Yesterday before we finished up many of the kids asked if we could work an additional day, raft on Friday and come home a day later on Saturday. It was gratifyling to hear that they would like to do more. Parents, be proud of your kids and what they have done. We are more proud of them and all their hard work than you can know.
After our long, hard hot day, we went out to dinner last night. One of the restaurants stayed open late just to serve us. Thank goodness because we were really hungry after the day's work.
White water rafting, tubing, and paint ball today.

DAY TWO

We continue to work on getting the walls covered in house one. Putting up tongue and groove siding is very time consuming. We completed the hallway today and began working on the living room. We made good progress, but still have a lot more to do. Tomorrow we will continue with the living room and hopefully we will move on to the kitchen.

Here is a completed room. Looks pretty good!

We are almost done at house 2. Today we added a landing and put the steps on the front porch so that is now done. We put the railings and spindles on the back deck porch. We also put up lattice along the bottom and got the steps in. Tomorrow we have to put railings on the back deck steps and trim out the windows on the house. We will then be completely done with house 2. It was a lot of hard work, but it has been great. When we finish house 2 the crew will head down and help out with house 1. Tomorrow is our last work day so we really want to crank out as much as we can.

We have had dinner and everyone has finally gotten cleaned up. Now we are just hanging out, playing some volleyball, horseshoes, and just chilling in general. I think we'll all be in bed early tonight. We're all pretty tired after all the hard work in the heat.

OUR FIRST DAY OF WORK

We are working at two houses, that are very close to each other. We can walk back and forth between them, which is a good thing. At house one there is much to be done inside. There ate no completed interior walls. They are framed with 2x4s but that is it. They have only cold running water and can not have their electricty completed and their hot water heater turned on until there are walls. We are putting up tongue and groove pine walls and will try to get as much done as we can while we're here. There was a lot of cutting and measuring. We are getting pretty good at that. We also were very vareful and did a lot of detailed hammering and nail punching putting up the walls. We finished on of the bedrooms and a section of the hallway today. Tomorrow we hope to get another bedroom and the rest of the hallway done.

Since our job sites were so close to each other, we got to have lunch together. It was nice to get together as a whole group during the day. We got to compare notes with each other about what we were accomplishing.

At house two, before we could begin on the front porch we had to do some demolition. We tore out the old screen and lattice, and cut out the floor boards that were rotted. We also removed the stairs. In the back we were able to start without demolition, but we had to cut out some of the house siding to mount the header for the deck. You can't tell from the pictures, but it was pouring rain. Even so, we kept at it. We had canopies we brought so the tools wouldn't get ruined. The rain slowed us down some, but didn't stop us. By lunch time it finally stopped raining, which was good. The afternoon was hot and steamy, but we still worked hard. Just drank a lot of water.

The culmination of a hard days work. We are pretty proud of what we accomplished. We will complete both the front porch and back deck tomorrow. Have to build stairs for both and then also put rails on the back deck. When we finish that we will trim out all the windows on the house.

Even though we worked hard all day we entered the volleyball tournament at the camp. As I write this, the tournament is still going on. Team one was eliminated, but team 2 has yet to play. We'll let you know the results tomorrow night.