prayer needed...

The Livesay family are missionaries in Haiti and their 3 month old baby girl Lydia Beth needs your prayers. She has bacterial meningitis.

Please go here and learn more about what is going on with Lydia and keep her lifted in prayer! To get the whole story you will probably want to go back in the posts to the Tuesday, January 22nd post.

Thank you in advance for your prayers for this family and especially for Lydia Beth.

It's done!

My ticket is BOOKED! I leave out of Vancouver on July 23rd.

YEAH!

now to wait...

So my mom said that I can use some of her AAdvantage Miles and I had them transferred today and they tell me that the miles will be in my account within 7 days. It cost me $84 US to transfer the miles ($50 US for 5000 miles, $4US GST, $30US Processing Fee) and it will cost me about $150 US in taxes and fees for the reward ticket so in the end I will have a round trip ticket to Haiti for less than $250 US and I get to leave from Vancouver! This is such a blessing and it just goes to remind me that God is in control and He has every detail taken care of!

Haiti, here I come!

Well, I have been given the go ahead for the time off work and now the only thing I am waiting on is talking to my mom to see if she will let me use some of her AAdvantage miles so that I don't need to buy the extra I need. She is currently away on vacation so I called my uncle on Skype and asked him to talk to my mom and get back to me. (They are staying with my great aunt & uncle just down the road from my aunt & uncle) Transferring the miles will take 72 hours and then I can finish booking my ticket! I am SO excited!!! I went ahead and put up the countdown because now that I know that I can have the time off, there isn't much that will stop me from getting this ticket. The only difference is whether I buy the extra miles or get to use my mom's miles.

I will be flying out of Vancouver which is awesome as it means a 20 minute trip to the airport rather than a 3 hour trip! I will be leaving July 23rd and arriving in Port-au-Prince on July 24th at 11:25am. I will be in Haiti till August 16th and arrive back in Vancouver in the early evening on August 17th. This means that I will be in Haiti WITH Ronel for 23 days and I will be away for a total of 26 days.

Since Ronel is off school and won't be working, I am hoping that we will be able to do some visiting around Haiti. There are some friends I would like to visit and if possible I would also love to meet the Livesay Tribe! I have been reading their blog since before I left Haiti in February of 2006 and I have never met them but would love to!

I am looking forward to just spending as much time as possible with Ronel and getting "recharged" before having to come back home by myself and waiting again till Ronel is able to join me here.

M'ap vini cheri mwen!

I'm leaving on a jet plane....

but not yet! So today I started looking into flights to go see Ronel - I am looking at going mid July for 3 weeks - possibly a little bit more. I wanted to wait till our anniversary & Ronel's birthday in the fall but last night Ronel asked me if I could come while he was on vacation for the summer and I said that I would look into it. I would rather not take my vacation in the summer as it is a fun time at work and it is going to be HOT in Haiti but Ronel would like me to be there when he doesn't have to work and I want to see my hubby so I will handle the heat (somehow!) and go in the summer. There is a 4 week period of time that I can be gone from work in the summer. We have two large events in the summer - our VBS which is the 3rd week in July and then the Lower Mainland Foursquare Kids Camp which is the 2nd to last week in August.

So I started looking at flights leaving right after we finish VBS and I found some good flights for around $850 Cdn flying out of Seattle (Tickets were $1250 or more Cdn flying out of Vancouver!) then tonight I started looking at American Airlines website and I almost have enough AA miles for a flight to Haiti - I need less than 5000 miles and it turns out the I can purchase the miles I need for approx $150 Cdn and then there is approx. $120 in flight taxes & fees. This way requires me to take an extra 3 days off of work but that also means I get 3 more days with Ronel!! so before I can go ahead and book it (and purchase the additional miles) I need to find out if I can get those 3 days off. I should be able to work & bank the hours needed to cover those 3 days so that I don't have any unpaid time off so I just need to find out if I can get that extra time off (especially since it is 7 days more than my vacations days!) I have the flights on award miles on hold until Jan 31st so that gives me some time to figure it all out!

So hopefully very soon I will be able to put up a countdown to my trip to Haiti! It is so absolutely amazing to think that in 6 months I should be seeing my husband face to face again! (for the first time since December 1st, 2006 - 18 months!)

You can also be praying for a miracle in Ronel's immigration paperwork - I am hoping to have it all filed by mid February (am just waiting for my notice of assessment) and I would love to be able to bring Ronel home with me in August but that would be only 6 months and for that to happen God has to have His hand on the paperwork and make it fly through. I know that God can do this but your prayers are all very appreciated!

Okay I have to go to bed now but wanted to share this with you all!

Look what I did!

I did this up tonight after going shopping for the paper & the embellishments. I am quite happy with the results! It was super easy and looks so cute!

no fun or interesting title!

Saturday was a jam packed day - It was my sister, Rhonda's 27th Birthday and so we all went out for breakfast - all except for my youngest sister Leslie as she was working.

Our Grandmother was also there as she was in town as she was heading out for vacation yesterday along with my Mom & Jacques. They are heading to Boqueron, Puerto Rico to visit my aunt & uncle and also my great aunt & great uncle - they have both rented condos down there and are staying there for 3 or 4 months. My mom, granny & Jacques will be there for 2 weeks.

Yesterday after breakfast, we (Mom, Granny, Jacques & I) headed down to Seattle. We stopped in Mount Vernon to check out some antique shops (Mom & Jacques both love to antique shop!!) and while we were there I stopped to check out Skagit Valley Food Co-op. Well, they had a great selection of gluten free products, many of which I had never seen here. One brand I had heard alot about on a GF Google group that I am a part of, but had not found it here, well, SVFC had it and it was very reasonably priced and so I picked up a box of GF cereal, two different brands of GF baking mix (use it to make pancakes, waffles, muffins, and a wide variety of baked goods!), a box of vegetable rice noodles and then Mom & I both got some locally made yogurt for in the car and it was also labelled GF! When I told the cashier how happy I was to find the GF items, she went and got me a pamphlet which lists all the GF items aisle by aisle!!

After we were done in Mount Vernon, we continued to head south and we stopped in Lynnwood at the Target there where I got a GORGEOUS knee length winter coat in a beautiful charcoal gray. It is incredibly soft and it was 50% off! I paid only $29.97 for it! ( I will try and get a photo and post it!)

I also picked up 5 white mini mailboxes from Target

(mine are just like this but white!)

which I have been reading all about on Splitcoast Stamper's and am excited to alter them! I am planning on doing one up for Ronel and sending it to him with the other stuff that Sandra & Dickie are taking down for me. You can see some finished ones here.

After Target we headed to the Outback Steakhouse for dinner and it was DELICIOUS! It was a first for all of us - I found it online when I googled gluten free restaurants in Seattle and so we decided to try it. It was alot of fun and the food was incredible! I had the Drover's Platter which comes with a half order of baby back ribs, a full chicken breast and french fries, but the fries aren't GF there so I substituted it with a dressed baked potato. It was a great meal and while it was not cheap, I would definitely treat myself to dinner there again (and next time save room for dessert! They have a totally GF dessert called Chocolate Thunder from Down Under! It looks delicious and I am sure it tastes fabulous!

After dinner, I dropped them off at the airport and headed north, I did stop off at the Super WalMart in Tulalip so that I could pick up another pair of jeans (I bought one last week when Mom & I whipped down to Bellingham and they fit great and are only $9.98 so I knew I needed atleast one other pair! I have the worst time finding jeans that fit well!) I also got two long sleeve t-shirts that I love!

I got home late but it was a great day and I really enjoyed it!

update on paperwork

So my 2006 taxes are filed! My mom dropped off the paperwork at the Canada Revenue Agency office in Surrey today. As soon as I get my notice of assessment back I can send off our immigration papers!!!!

Plus I should be getting a nice chunk of change back with my taxes and that will help with both the immigration expenses as well as me taking a trip down to visit Ronel this year (plus I should also get $$ back with my 2007 taxes!)