Turtle...

I, Valerie, officially feel like I am living on a mission field. Last night, we set out for our weekly supper out with some of the other staff. We went to Champion House II (the best restaurant as far as taste goes on the island). I ordered my typical American meal, chicken and fries. Adam ordered turtle steak. I was finished with my meal and he then encouraged me to try some of his turtle. It took some time, but I ended up eating turtle! It was a small bite, but there was definitely enough for a taste. The flavor was good - not sure what it was, but it was covered with a sauce and other veggies. The texture was a little tough and much like a steak! Hopefully next time he won't order a whole fish and have me try the eyeball...:( I think the sight of that would make me throw-up....

Youth Group Website

Recently I created a website for our youth group. The address of our website is: http://whchighvoltage.com
Feel free to roam about and even post on the message board (found under the "talk amongst" link).

Blessings,

Adam

The Ghetto-mobile Team

At youth last Friday night we had a Photo Scavenger Hunt. You guys who came to the youth party that one night will remember doing the same thing... Anyways, we split up into three teams and three vehicles and set out to find the most items of the most value on the list. Our team was dubbed the ghetto-mobile team, as we were riding in the most style but least comfort of the three teams. However, the ghetto-mobile served us well and we won the competition! It turned out to be a great event - we rendezvoused at Wendy's before taking everyone home. Above is a group shot of our team.

My "Office"

Here are a few pics of my "office" - otherwise known as the computer room. I supervise the learning that takes place in this room and a room across the hall from this one. There are 14 computers in all - most are used for typing during the morning. There are three time slots of 40 minutes apiece used for typing. All of the Word Building/Etymology Self-Tests and Tests are done in here as well as all of the paper tests for all subjects. Spanish and Technology Training are done on computers in the room across the hall. It is pretty hectic most mornings, as things go wrong, etc. (dealing with computers, remember!), but as the day progresses things normally slow down.

A view from my desk.

Hard at work... nice bulletin board, eh?

And notice the Star-bellied Sneetch...

Salt & Vinegar

The perfect flavor, the perfect crunch...

I wanted to eat those little bits left in the bottom of the bag...get the picture? This was real too - maybe a little dramatized...not sure!

More pics...

Keegan said, "take a picture of me..." :)

Cory and Chelsea - two high school girls

Taylor showing her creative side... :)

Just some pics from school....

Two of our girls...Antonia & Taylor - great girls! Pardon the sweat...they just finished P.E.

Briela posing...

Rachel, Nyssa, Alison and Keegan playing together after school

Briela and an invention :)

Rachel - isn't she beautiful?

"Fall" in Cayman

This is as close to 'fall' as I will get to see. I thought this pic was really cool.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today is my mom's 53rd birthday! She's the most hard-working lady I know. With Dad being a pastor, she has always worked outside the home. I have many memories sitting at her work or sitting in the car waiting for her to be done with work or sleeping while she was working third shift when we were younger. I'm very grateful for the work ethic she instilled in me, even as a child. I have loads of confidence in Mom. She's a very strong Christian and I am grateful for her influence in my Christian walk.

-

Thank you, Mom, for all that you have done for me. I miss you and am looking forward to Christmas when we will have time to spend together again. Hope you have an awesome birthday! I love you!

-

BTW, this was posted Thursday evening, but her birthday was yesterday, Friday, September 21.

Just a random update...

Things have been going well here. I have been checking other blogs so much that I am failing to post on my own! School is going well this week. Adam took a little over half of the HS students out for lunch today. I think it is a reward thing, like when they have so many PACEs done or something then they get "lunch with Mr. P!"

Here's what our schedule usually looks like...

After 2 bus runs, Adam gives trumpet lessons on Mondays and Tuesdays after school. That is usually my laundry time! We then have the rest of the evening to do whatever we feel like. Wednesdays, of course, is youth. The core youth group gathers and Adam shares with them. Like a church service for them. Every Thursday a lot of the staff goes out for supper together. Beginning in a couple of weeks we will have ensemble practice also on Thursday evening. Friday evenings again is youth. This is usually a bigger group than the Wednesday night group. Adam again shares a short devotional, but the main focus of this is to have fun together. We usually end up with Wendy's or something like that. Saturdays are ours for whatever we want. It is very nice to have a day completely off. On Sunday, we have church. Adam leads the song service in the morning service and will be preaching twice a month on Sunday night.

Hope you all are having a good week so far. I'll post pictures very soon. I actually need to take more so I can post them!!!

New Windows

There was a US sale on windows here a couple of weeks ago. It's called a US sale because the prices stay the same, but instead of having CI value they have US value, which decreases the amount you have to pay by about 20%. The windows were purchased for the building in which we live. Steve Craig is putting the windows in and has installed several in our house already. You have to keep a really close watch, because when the old windows are out, it is easy access for lizards to come in. He replaced the bathroom window (pictured below) first and then moved on to our bedroom windows (what he was working on in the picture above and directly below). Two lizards made their way into our bathroom sometime during the time he was replacing that window. We found one right off and killed it (with some help of Scott, Ryan and Ronna) but the other one ran under the vanity, so we couldn't find it. Adam got up around 5 in the morning and went into the bathroom. He thought about the missing lizard so he decided to look around for a bit to see if it had made it's way out during the night. Sure enough, it was in our drain cover in the bathtub. Adam quickly got the clorox spray and began soaking the thing. He finally got it to where it wasn't moving at all, so he decided to clean it up and throw it outside later in the morning. When we got up it was still in the same place where it had rested since 5:00 - in the corner on top of the bathtub. Adam got the dustpan and when he went for it, it started moving again. Really weird. Anyway, the thing ended up dropping back into the tub but then it couldn't get back out. It was trying and trying to run up the side, but it couldn't and usually they would be able too. Anyway, Adam ended up hitting it with a broom and killed it for good.

Adam = supervisor :)

A brand new bathroom window! Our old windows had the cranks on the bottom sides of the windows and that is where lizards would like to lay their eggs. I think there were 3 lizard eggs in the crank off of the bathroom window. Glad we were able to kill them before they hatched!

Fixed again...

Our washer is now up and running again. Some guys came over on Monday and replaced the elbow piece back in the wall. We haven't had any leaking since then and I have done a ton of laundry, so I am now hoping that it is really fixed for good!

Lizards...

This is Ryan Craig trying to find the lizard (pictured below) that was hiding out in our AC in our bedroom. I'm glad it never actually made it's way into the apartment until it's dwelling place was invaded by humans!

Yuck. This is the lizard after it was badly beaten! You'd think they would learn that humans don't like having them in their houses. :)

Youth Kick-Off

Last night (Friday), we had our first High Voltage youth meeting. A girl who usually attends was having a birthday party, and several others attended it, so we were wondering what the turnout would be for youth, but we had 21 come! We started with a brief introduction to the year, and I showed them the new Youth Building (I'll tell you about it later). After that, we played Toilet Tag and Double-Vision Volleyball, then went to Wendy's. This picture was taken outside Wendy's before we left to take everyone home. We had a good time, with good attitudes - a good night overall.

Here we go...AGAIN

Yes, our washer is leaking again. They had fixed it, but a few days ago the cement around where it was leaking from was wet again. The next day it was puddled on the floor. The guy is supposed to come this afternoon sometime to look at it and hopefully fix it. I really need to do laundry and my only two other options are to go upstairs to someone elses main room and wash there or lug them across the compound to the washer over by Ron and Becky's house. I hope to just get by and wait until it is finished.