Black Belts, Mother's Day, and a Soldier's Homecoming

I pulled a few pictures off my camera from the last month, so I thought this would be a good time to catch you up on our activities. Rather than put these photos in separate blog entries, I decided to combine them into one.

In April, we received our Black Belt recommended through the American Taekwondo Association, which means we are now eligible for our 1^st Degree Black Belts. This has been a 2 year journey for us, so it's exciting to be close to achieving this milestone. We started down this path so that I could do something fun with the children. We have learned several traditional Taekwondo forms, many different kicks, self defense, board breaks, and how to use weapons like the bow staff and nunchucks. I'm looking forward to continuing toward our 2nd Degree.

Last week was Mother's Day and my daughters wanted to honor their Mom by throwing a party. Their idea was to decorate in a Hawaiian theme since Hawaii is one of her favorite places (we went to Oahu and Big Island for her 40th birthday). The girls helped me get the decorations and organize. We also purchased her a mango tree since she loves adding mangoes to her homemade smoothies. I grilled marinated chicken and pineapple for her and she loved it.

There were two funny things about the party. The first was that the day before, Kim looked me straight in the eye and told me she wanted to wear her Hawaiian dress to church. Now she had no idea we were doing this. Does she read minds or what?! The second thing that happened was we had to set up right after church while Kim went to the mall so that she could come home and be surprised. We were literally running around the house frantically getting everything ready and in the process I burned myself on the grill. Then I went inside to help make the smoothies and we panicked and let the smoothie maker overflow one of the cups because we couldn't turn it off. It was hilarious because Mom's do this stuff every day and even with 4 of us we still couldn't get it done.

Last night we threw a party for our good friends, the Nobles. CAPT Chaplain Jason Nobles and his family were in town for a welcome home party. Jason returned from Ramadi on April 1st. It was a huge blessing to hear Jason's testimony of answered prayer. Not only did God protect him while there, but he was able to share the gospel with many Soldiers. Please remember to pray for the Nobles as they head to their next assignment in South Carolina.

It is hot here in Orlando as we look forward to the rainy season. It's been a while since we've had rain, so much of the grass is withering. It certainly makes you appreciate the rain when you don't have it.

Peace and blessings,
John