CORRECTION!

Correction:

I gave the wrong website for my new store. The correct one is:

www.earthchasers.etsy.com

Sorry!

Just a Quickie

Hello to all!

I would like to dedicate this post to informing all of you about my new store! As most of you probably know, I enjoy doing various arts and crafts. Recently, I have discovered the art of jewelry making. In order to raise money for Nathaniel and I to go to Honduras, I have decided to start a store where I can sell my handmade goods. All profits will go directly to sending Nathaniel and I to Honduras in 2009. (20% will go to Touch of Fire Ministries to cover costs of accounting and money transmitting).

I encourage you to check out my store at www.etsy.com. My products would make great Christmas gifts! My store name is "Summer Rain". You can also access my store via www.summerrain.etsy.com. My username is EarthChasers. Thanks for all your support!

Love,
Nathaniel and Mallori

The beauty of nature

I love it when God surprises me with tiny little glimpses into His majesty and beauty. We had Bible study at our house a few months ago. In the middle of it, a really bad storm rolled through with lots of lightning and wind. It ended up knocking down a couple of trees on our block. the storm only lasted about 15 minutes, and then it was about sunset. The sun sort of peeked through the clouds, and a rainbow came out. It was so beautiful. but because there were so many clouds, the setting sun reflected off of them and turned the whole atmosphere a bright pink color. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. So, I snapped a couple of pictures (which of course, don't do it justice), but still you get the idea.

Touch of Fire Campout

a few weeks ago, Touch of Fire went camping at a state park near muncie. We had a great time. This is a picture of our campsite.



Kevin and Jill brought their 2 year old son, Malachi with them. He had a great time. We finally got him to go to sleep at about 10:00pm, but then he woke up at 2:00am. I think the whole campground could hear him crying. Kevin finally decided to take him to their car to go back to sleep, and when he stepped out of the tent (which was right next to ours), he started yelling "Memo! Memo!" Which is what he calls Nathaniel.



Here's a picture of Nathaniel being a dork.


and more pictures:






On saturday morning, we played scavenger hunt. Since we were in a state park, however, we decided that instead of bringing back the items, we would take a picture of at least one team member with the item. If your photo was creative, you could receive extra points for style. It was a lot of fun, and we ended up with some really funny photos.

This is me sniffing a wildflower


One of the items we had to find was a Y shaped twig. This is my team spelling YMCA with the twig.


This one is my personal favorite. As you can see, the item was a 3 leaf clover, so we put our heads in the shape of a three leaf clover as well.


Maybe soon I will have pictures from the boys' team, but Kevin hasnt sent them to me yet. More to come soon!

Back From Pennsylvania!

We are now back from our wonderful vacation to pennsylvania. we had a really great time, and got to see lots of neat sights. We arrived after a 10 hour drive in Dillsburg, which is just south of Harrisburg on Sunday night. We stayed with Nathaniel's grandma and aunt for the first two nights, and got to spend some time with them. Then, on tuesday morning, we left Dillsburg and headed about 30 minutes south to Gettysburg. Nathaniel, being the history dork that he is, was very excited to explore the battlefields. This is a picture of the fences that they built during the civil war.



This is a picture of what the country side probably looked like at the time of the war.



Here is Nathaniel next to one of the original cannons.



This is a picture of where Pickett's charge was supposed to end. the grove of trees in the background are all thats left of the place the men were aiming for. They attempted to cross a huge area of open ground to reach the enemy's army, but of course, they failed miserably.



after spending the day in Gettysburg, we traveled on to Washington D.C. We had reservations for a four star hotel, where we quickly learned that four star does not mean that you get a bunch of extra stuff for free. We relaxed in the hotel the first night, then went to the Smithsonian Museums and saw all the national monuments the next day (wednesday).

The Washington Monument:





The White House (this is about as close as you can get. Notice the security guard in the background):


The Archives Building, which we went in, but forgot the camera. This is a picture from the road.



The Capitol Building:



While we were heading out of town to go to six flags the nest day, we stopped right outside the white house on Pennsylvania Avenue to buy a sweatshirt I just HAD to have. A Police officer told us not to leave because he had blocked off the road to the white house. He said he had "somebody important" coming through. The next thing we know, there is an entire processional of motorcycle cops, SUV's, and a limo. I snapped this picture, which didnt turn out too well because I was too concerned about the police officers holding rifles inside one of the black SUV's with all its windows down. Afterwards, we asked the officer who it was, but he said "he didn't know".



This is a picture of all of us having breakfast once we got back into Dillsburg to finish the vacation. Notice the sunburn from the Six Flags Waterpark.

South Bend with the family

Here are some pictures of my visit up to South Bend to see mindy, cory, mom, and the boys. We had some fun, and the boys were so cute, I couldn't resist these pictures.

mindy and Cory relaxing on the couch



mom, ryin, and adan enjoying a dilly bar


adan being a cutie


during most of the visit, we were busy cleaning out everything from the house. As mom and mindy were throwing things in the trash barrels, ryin and adan had a ladder against it and were pulling things out. Ryin found the hat first, then decided to adorn the porch with some Christmas decorations.


Ryin being a cutie


well, thats all for now i suppose. more to come soon, hopefully. :)

Meet Jasmine

We finally got our new kitty cat, Jasmine. Our Petsmart has a section of the store dedicated to adoptions through a group called Action For Animals. I picked her because she was pretty and soft, and playful. Plus, we have the same birthday. :) She is one year old.

This is a picture of her relaxing on top of my conga.



Jasmine loves to be right up against your neck for some cuddles.



Jasmine has long black hair that is really soft and shiny. Its hard to get a good picture of a cat that is looking at the camera because of their shiny eyes.

Inside of the House

As promised, here are some photos of the inside of the house.
This first one is the living room. Can you spot the bird playing on the floor?



This one is a little dark, but it is the dining room. It has hard wood floors, which are beautiful. this is where we keep the bird. You can kind of see his cage off to the left.



This is our very blue kitchen. It has a built in table which you can see at the far right end, and we love that feature. Also, above the sink on the left is a ledge that sticks out farther than the rest of the house. It has windows all around it, and its one of my favorite places in the whole house. This may sound silly, but we are living in the lap of luxury with our FULL SIZE stove on the right hand side!



If you were to walk through the kitchen, you would end up out here, on the back deck. That small building on the left is our detatched two car garage, and around the corner of that building is a small grassy area that is fenced in.

New House!

This is a picture of the outside of Nathaniel and my adroable new house. Sicne this picture, we have added hanging baskets to the porch, but everything else is as you see it. Ill snap some pictures of the inside and the backyard soon. We have recently gotten the internet all figured out in this house, but with the end of the semester for me, things have been CRAZY. This week is finals week, but it shouldnt be too stressful. We should be getting a kitten soon, too (YAY!) We'll see how he and the bird get along, haha! Maybe he will get along with the kitty next door who always comes over to let me pet her.

More to come soon!

I Promise!

I really will post soon, I promise. We have been "in limbo" for a while now with moving to the new place and all, so the computer that i upload the photos to is at the other house. Sorry this is sort of a fake post. Ill try to spice it up with a picture on this computer. Keep in mind that there arent a lot of choices...


This is me preaching at one of the crusades in Africa.

Well, this post is going to be boring. I dont really have any pictures to put on here this time. The one i wanted to put on is of my sister and I at halloween of '89, but it wont' load. Oh well.

The weather here is insane. Right now, the ground is covered in white, but its not snow. Its ice and frozen rain. While walking to class today, it felt like someone was poking me on the head and in the face with little needles. Conveniently, Ball State sent a campus wide text message that all night classes had been cancelled precisely 3 minutes after my night class started. So, we had to stay for about half of it.

There really isnt much going on around these parts. Zaide has become completely obsessed with his mirrors, so that he wont come out of his cage if they are anywhere near it. I have to take the mirrors and hide them so he wont bite me. I think were going to wean him off of them. The behavior is probably due to his coming into "maturity", because he is also obsessed with dark spaces (for nesting, I think).

In about a month, we will be moving across town to a very cute house. Its also really cheap, so yay! Well, thats about all. Sorry its been a while.

Love,
Mallori and Nathaniel

SuperBowl!

Hello Everyone! I hope you are all doing well. Things are great here in Muncie. Nathaniel has recently gotten back from his 4 day trip to Pennsylvania to visit his Grandma and Aunt. He had a great time out there. I am continuing to forge through this semester of classes, and that's not too fun. Yesterday I spent the morning at the Justice Center in Muncie because I had Jury Duty. I didnt get chosen for the Jury box, but to be honest, it was all a very interesting experience. I learned so much about our Justice system, and I actually wish I would have been chosen. The case was Neglect of a Dependant resulting in bodily injury, which aparently is a class C felony. I wonder how it turned out.

Last sunday I went over to our Pastor's house (Kevin and Jill DuBois) for a superbowl party. It was a lot of fun, and I'm glas the Giants won (even though I'm not much of a football fan). Here is an adorable picture of Jill and Malachi.




This is a picture of my friends Michelle (front) and Rachel (back)



Kevin wouldnt let me take a good picture of him...



This is Jill and Heather



I put this picture on here because this is their cat, Grace. Mom and dad, you may remember this cat because shes the tiny little kitten that we found underneath the house a few summers ago. She is one of the most hilarious cats Ive ever met. When I took this picture, she had been chasing a tape measure all over the house.



well, thats all for now. Hope to hear from you all soon!

Just some Randomness

I know that it may seem like we post a lot of pictures and things of Zaide on here, but believe it or not, hes pretty much the most interesting thing in our lives right now.

Lately, things have been pretty calm. We may be moving soon, however, into a house across town that a friend of Nathaniel's family owns. She bought it for her nephew to live in while he was in college, and he has recently graduated and moved to florida. Its a cute little place, and it has a lot more room than we currently have. Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures of it soon.

I have recently purchased a set of Conga drums so that i can learn them for when Nathaniel and I start leading worship at Touch of Fire. We're pretty excited, but learning takes time, and I find myself trying really hard to be patient and learn it thoroughly. Nathaniel is doing great on his guitar, and we are beginning to build up a good repertoire of songs.

Other than that, nothing much is going on, and so I found these couple of funny pictures of Zaide to post in the meantime. I hope you enjoy them!

Zaide loves to play in the cupboard above the sink when I wash dishes, but sometimes he gets a little bit clumsy around the glasses.... (dont worry, i wash any glasses that he crawls around in)



I think you can probabyl figure out what this one is...
Yep, something spooked him into a flying frenzy, and he flew smack into the glass door. Their feathers naturally create water repellant powder, and it left an imprint of his wings and body. If you look closely, I believe you can even see an imprint of his little crest. I left this imprint on the window for a while because i thought it was so funny.




I hope you have enjoyed these pictures. We love you all!

Just a Quickie...

So, by popular demand, I am publishing this very short post because people have been asking to see this picture. It is a picture Ryin drew while staying at our place about a week ago. In case you can't read it, it says "By Ryin A." in the top left hand corner. Then, it says "I like to go to the park" after that. Keep in mind, that he did this all by himself. No one was helping him write or draw any of this, and we ended up finding it in his room later. After the sentence, you'll see two people standing in a box. The first one had what appears to be a "D" on top of it, and the other has an "R". Pay close attention to the large, triangular shaped beard and the moustache, plus the curly hair on top, and I think we can all figure out that that person is Nathaniel. Ryin calls him "Uncle Dafaniel" which is where the "D" came from I believe. I cannot decipher what is underneath the box except for Ryin's name.

Anyway, I thought this was adorable, and I think all of you will as well. We love you all!

What a Weekend!

So, obviously, I will not be able to post videos on here, since i have tried multiple times with different lengths of videos and nothing has worked. I really thought those last four would go through since i could preview them and they worked correctly. Oh well, we will just have to settle for the pictures until we get a new computer.

Well, what can i say about this weekend? It was quite interesting. On thursday, Nathaniel and I made yet another trip to our beloved Perfect North Slopes for another fun day on the slopes. The weather was PERFECT, as was the snow. It was the best day of the year for snowboarding so far this season. Here is a picture of us before we went:



And another:



And this is us after 5 straight hours of snowboarding:



Ok, not really. :) Actually, this was after 5 hours of snowboarding:



This is a pretty picture of the slopes at night. They were making snow at the time, which caused it to look a little foggy.




So, we picked up the boys (Ryin and Adan) for the weekend, expecting to have a lot of fun sledding and going to a new place called "Eatza Pizza" (which is kind of like chuckie cheese). Plans changed, however, when we got a real dose of Parenting 101. At 4a.m., Ryin came into our room and vomited all over the floor. The poor little guy was up all night making trips to the bathroom. Needless to say, we didnt go sledding. Even if we wanted to, the snow had melted by then anyway. We spent all of saturday trying to entertain them while staying home so Ryin could feel better. I must say, he was quite a trooper through the whole thing, and only complained once or twice. When we put them down at 8p.m. the next night, Ryin was asleep within minutes.

The rest of the weekend went much better. We took them to church with us in Greenwood, and they behaved pretty well during children's church. Then they had a great time playing games at Eatza Pizza- until it was time to leave, that is. Our next lesson of parenting was never to let the children choose their prize when you only have enough tickets for about 10% of the toys in the display case. They threw a royal fit because we couldnt get them what they really wanted. I ended up picking out some things, and once we got home, they were perfectly happy with what they got: 1 sun tattoo and 3 pieces of candy each.

The boys had a lot of fun playing on Nathaniel's video game chair. Here are a couple of pictures of them:






Well, I think thats all for now. Please Please Please leave your comments. I love reading them! Love you all!