Mission Journey Part 2

Remember when I said I would post the pictures tomorrow? That was July 9th :) Oops. To say this summer has been busy for me would probably be an understatement.

When we got there we would stretch, pray, and do our silly banana dance. :)

Front of the house. the dark blue was the original trim color.

End of Banana Dance :)

Carrying ladders.

 We had (and needed) LOTS of ladders. We tried to plan strategically so there wouldn't be a bottleneck of people waiting on the ladders but we weren't always successful. The house was really tall and 6th graders (and me!) aren't! We made it work and several of the kids overcame their fear of heights. So proud of them!

Lots and lots of paint!!!

Scraping and painting the porch.

Working on the left side of the house.

Blake holding the 2 story ladder to make sure Olivia didn't fall off as she painted the trim. Like his socks? :)

I spent most of my time on this wall on the right side of the house. Scraping it and painting it with 2-3 coats!

Back of the house (Grayson replacing rotted wood)

Amy aka the scraping queen!

Blake again making sure the kids don't fall. It wasn't the most exciting job but someone has to do it! Always time for safety! :)

Back of the house

Full view of the back of the house

You can see the original aqua trim (yes, not all the trim matched when we first got to the house)

Ok, so I gave my camera to one of the kids to take pictures of me! She had lots of fun taking pictures :) The next set are taken by her.

Sweet girls!

ME!

They loved Blake's socks. :)

Front of the house is almost done!

The kids had to get high on the ladder (and they LOVED it) :)

Cleaning up! All done!

My handsome hubby!

Dead tree on the side of the house

The backside of the tree. Super cool deep hollow hole

Dead tree from far away

Back of the house done!

Back of the house done!

Great Wall of Connie done!

The Beavers!

At the end of the day I somehow ended up with a blue streak in my hair...

The whole group with Ernest.

Some of the girls turned the mustang into a unicorn and added a smiley face :)

Us with all of our kiddos

I am so thankful that Blake took off work so we could have this experience together. We were able to see different parts of each other and learned a lot (especially about dealing with 6th graders!) I am very blessed in many parts of my life and many of those things are not in my control. I was very blessed to be born to the parents I was and able to grow up with many advantages. Not everyone gets that chance. I have worked hard to get to where I am but many people have to work harder than I did to reach the same place. It might seem like a small thing, painting a house, but with an organization like Generation One working in the Third Ward, hopefully that one generation will be able to break their cycle of poverty.

So I have made a blogging to do list of things I still need to blog about! I really want to be better so I will keep trying. Thanks for hanging in there with me and being patient with my crazy hectic life!