Rhodes Review

maci

2006-06-01T13:40:00.000-07:00

ok...here is a pic...its all i have time for right now.....hope you are all well

problems

2006-03-18T18:14:00.000-08:00

Man oh Man! If it's not one thing it's a million other things.

I am not even going to offer you a synopsis...but will give you one thing. Eight months before we are to move into our new church building, the septic system has major issues at our old place. Of course finances are tight...and now we have to pay over $20,000 so that our toilets flush and don't pump raw sewage all over the first floor of the church building (Happened TWICE last week).

Could add a lot more, but won't bore you with the craziness. If you are a praying person, please pray for us and our church.

the church

2006-02-04T12:17:00.000-08:00

here are some pic's of the church before it came down...and after. they are doing the footers next week...........................yipee!

Cinderella

2005-12-04T18:26:00.000-08:00

My Maci has become facinated with Cinderella. She just recently learned that Cinderella lives in a castle and hangs out with Micky Mouse. So she is now asking a lot of question and we are letting the cat out of the bag about Disney World. She was almost two years old when we went before. It was a great vacation and she had a great time...she laughed and interacted with everything...but she just does not remember it! So we are thinking, maybe in another year or so, we would go again...and go all out staying at the Polynesian or Grand Floridian and spare no expense...thats why it would take us two years to get there so we can skrimp and save...!

She is gearing up for Christmas and enjoyed sitting on Santa's lap a few days back. She put her head on his shoulders and rubbed his beard which was hanging down on his chest and just saying "Santa...Santa...Santa" she was enamoured by the fact that she had his full attention and that soon he would be coming to her house! She said a few things that she would like for Christmas but mainly just stared into his eyes and said his name! it was beautiful actually...to watch her process and accept the idea of Santa. I hope in years to come she will remember this. (By the way, the picture came out great!)

Things are nuts at the job right now. Being with The Salvation Army means November through the December 25th, the family is not together. We try our hardest to not neglect Maci, so for the most part we switch off at night time. One of us will do the kettle run to pick our bell ringers up and the other will be home with Maci to do dinner, tub and night time. At this point and time, Maci enjoys hanging out at the Church, so that is good. We have tried not to make that a habit though. I know a lot of Officers kids who are bitter and don't like the Army at all because of the attention their parents give it. So we are trying to be sensitive. But whenever we think we are going to go to the Corps from her daycare or wherever, she cheers and says "hip hip horay!" so it doesn't get much better than that!

There are Church parties, functions and meetings coming up which are added to an already over extended daily schedule. Our food bags get delievered this week (275 of them!) for which we have to do little work in order to prepare for their distribution...but all the toys are coming as well. We are looking at serving about 275 families, most of which have multiple kids....so once they get delievered from our toy warehouse, we will sort them by age or category and get busy packing all the bags for each family. It is quite time consuming, but if we can keep the focus...doing unto others....giving to the least of these...it kind of works out...all for God's glory!

So I guess that's it...the good, the bad and the ugly. Oh, by the way, we still have not torn down the property we bought for The Salvation Army, but we have hired the contractors and are now working on some more red tape. ...any day now

Random Thoughts!

2005-10-28T03:57:00.000-07:00

I can't believe its been almost two months since we have posted! Things have been crazy busy... here is a quick overview: We celebrated the ground breaking for the new church building we are working on with The Salvation Army. It was a wonderful day, full of celebration, fellowship and unity in vision for The Salvation Army in Brackenridge! Dave had a birthday, complete with new aquarium stuff...we now have an aquarium that resembles sponge bob and the entire bikini bottom! We had a wonderful vacation in the Pocono's with our great friends, the Travagalino's (ask me about our golf game!) We had some friends visit here from Staten Island, NY with their son who is younger than Maci, but they had a great time playing together and we had a fantastic time visiting! I went away for a few days for some continuing education in Akron, Oh, took some great leadership classes and enjoyed hanging out with some friend I have not seen in a while. And then I went to a women's officer retreat at Camp Allegheny...it was a wonderful time of rest, reflection and personal spiritual growth. God is good. God is also good because he sustained Dave as he had to be the primary care giver to Maci for the week. He said he went into "survival mode" for the week. He did a great job and I am thankful for the bond that he and Maci have.

What a day!

2005-09-08T21:38:00.000-07:00

Well, as you could imagine things have been really crazy over the last week in particular. Working for The Salvation Army has brought many opportunities our way, especially through the most recent disaster along the Gulf Coast. Because we are all the way up, just outside of Pittsburgh, we didn't think we would really see any displaced people...particularly in our town. However, we were prepared for just about anything...and that preperation came in handy. One day earlier this week our office staff were out to lunch. It was obvious that we were with The Salvation Army because, although we weren't in uniform, we were all wearing Salvation Army paraphanalia. Anyway, right there in the middle of the restaurant, a man walked up to us and asked us if we were with The Salvation Army. To make a very long story short, they were in the area visiting family when the hurricane struck and now couldn't get back home. We were able to help them with a hotel, food, clothing, hygiene supplies and things of that nature and help give them some direction. They are a wonderful family and we have all become quick friends, actually! It was quite suprising. God is funny to bring us to people (and people to us) in the most unique ways.

Trip to NYC

2005-09-08T18:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, so The Salvation Army has a program called Girl Guards. It is similar to the Girl Scouts where they earn badges, sell stuff, the whole bit. Our girls also do some fundraising to pay for the cost of taking one trip a year. Usually the trips are to some sort of amusement park where there are lots of roller coasters. This year we went to Six Flags Great Adventure in NJ and had an educational component as we took the girls into Lower Manhattan. The trip was great, the kids had a great time (for the most part) and it was a time they will never forget. For your viewing enjoyment, I am adding a pic or two.....

My Garden

2005-08-01T03:05:00.000-07:00

Free time does not happen that often for me, between work and programs at the church, field trips with our community kids and raising a very quick-and-full-of-energy-almost-three-year-old. But in the time that I do have, I have poured all of my energy into growing a garden. It has been so much fun! We were very concerned about the animals (Rabbits, raccoons, Ground hogs etc) that live in our back yard [yes, we live out in the middle of no where] and we weren't sure even with all of our labor that we would yield any produce at all. So with some suggestions from friends and family that were full of remedy for the problem, we actually managed to keep the varments out of our garden. So far this summer we have enjoyed strawberries, bell peppers (green, red and yellow), peas, and onions. The tomatoes are on the way (they are getting HUGE) and the carrots, watermelon and cantaloupe didn't survive. So here is a picture of a few of our tomatoes. We have ten plants (two of which are bigger than me!) I also added in a picture of a tomato worm that I found as I was re-staking some of the plants. My neighbor said that it is the biggest, fattest tomato worm he has ever seen! So after I picked him off the plant, Maci and I inspected it (she loves bugs, snakes, lizards etc) I put him over in our trash can that is full of clippings from the yard that we are going to burn. Poor guy. But hey, he will eat good while he's living!

Maci and her duck

2005-07-31T04:26:00.000-07:00

Oh how I love Maci! She is growing so big and her imagination is going wild. Just yesterday she had a piece of her hair in her hand (apparently it had fallen out) and she said 'hey mom, look at my snake' as she hissed the snake noise. Then in the afternoon we were doing arts and crafts, which seems like she can't go a whole day without...and she got the brown paint out and painted a duck....she is beautiful!

The Zoo

2005-07-31T04:08:00.000-07:00

We created this program called 'Summer Fun Days' for the kids who usually come to our programs during the calander year. Basically every other week through the summer we take them on a field trip. Friday we took them to the Pittsburgh Zoo. Although it was hot the kids all had a great time...especially since we made a suprise stop for lunch at McDonalds!

Vacation Pics

2005-07-17T03:14:00.001-07:00

Thelma and Louise--the early years

(Maci and Gianna at the boardwalk)
Maci (in the blue) and GG-->best friends forever!
Yolimar, Maci, Gianna and Cole were just four of our guests last weekend. We had friends from Mass, NJ and Western PA all together for a fun filled relaxing weekend. It was just what the Doctor ordered!

A Good Day

2005-07-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

I know you all will celebrate with me....what a good day today was! Dave got up with Maci this morning and I got to sleep in. ...that in and of itself would warrent the title "A good day". But it got even better! We had some great play time with Maci in the morning and then dropped her off with two of our teenagers who were going to take her to the mall for lunch and play time. Dave and I hopped in the car and rode out to Red Lobster for a nice, romantic lunch. We followed that by coming home and watching an on demand video (Meet the Fockers....which was very very funny) and Maci joined us at 4:30pm. We had more great play time and then on to bed she went....it's now 8pm and I have the rest of the evening to myself. A good book, a hot bath and the cozy bed are all awaiting me. Does it get any better than this?

2005-07-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

Check out Maci, this photo was taken in October. And our Salvation Army Church in Tarentum. Stay tuned for info on our new building. We are looking at starting demolition and construction of our new building in September.

Another Day

2005-07-11T17:49:00.000-07:00

Just another day....but different. This weekend we had some great friends visit us from Altoona PA, North Adams MA and Toms River NJ. They are wonderful friends that Dave and I met during our time at the School for Officers' Training in Suffern, NY see the link at: http://www1.salvationarmy.org/use/www_use_sfot.nsf
It was wonderful to see and hang out with folks that we had spent over two years with-in such a small dorm style community and yet we have not had any real quality time since we were all appointed our own seperate churches over a year ago. Speaking of churches, check out the link to our Salvation Army church in Tarentum, PA http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/use/www_use_wpa.nsf/vw-sublinks/9D3700D4716E20BE80256D5E00645C16?openDocument
So today was weird as I was washing sheets and towels, washing floors and bathrooms...I felt as if I was washing away the memory of a great weekend...but the memory will be there forever...and as I said to my friend geoffery, when things get real difficult and I get all stressed out I am going to remember the time the 12 of us had floating and swimming at the local wave pool....aahhhhh, I can feel my blood pressure decrease even now!