The Last Week in Review

Monday:
Melani and kids--school in morning, Bosque del Apache wildlife refuge field trip in afternoon, Melani's bell choir at night
Jon--work in morning, meeting in El Paso in the evening, at which we got the go ahead to proceed with Morning Star's expansion project! we should break ground by/around April 1st!

Tuesday:

Melani and kids--school, cleaning, Melani has long doctor's appointment in afternoon where she finds she will be having major surgery on Feb. 25, Brishen's acting class, Melani gets spoiled by sister who takes her out for big, yummy dessert

Jon--meeting in El Paso in am (consultation with District Superintendent... a church thing), hanging with the kids in the pm, squeezing in a bit of work before taking Brishen to acting class, and then staying up until midnight to file (by the deadline) the budget request for the 7 Methodist campus ministries in the area (he chairs the board that oversees the campus ministries in the conference... another church thing)

Wednesday:

Melani and kids--school, Melani watches little E while her parents work, Brishen's bell choir, Wednesday night pot luck and activities at church

Jon--work like crazy and packing for trip

Thursday:

Melani and kids--Basia spends morning with her grandmother and even gets to visit her baby cousin, Melani and Brishen make our first ever fire in our fireplace and then do school, Melani watches little E, Brishen has acting class, Melani and Basia do laps and lunges and bleachers at a nearby track
Jon--flies to Florida for "Quadrennial Leaders Training" conference... along with 1300 other United Methodist leader-types from all around the country

Friday:

Melani and kids--school, library visit where we gets three totes full of books, lots of reading of library books, baked cookies to take on our Saturday hike

Jon--a day full of meetings: plenaries and workshops on things like new church starts, finding money for campus ministry, and developing youth and young adult leaders/ministries

Saturday:

Melani and kids--hike with our church group, definitely one of the most difficult hikes to date and we don't get back until 4:30 (there was no trail to follow, so there was a lot of scrambling through cacti to find our way to the top of a ridge), post-hike ritual of Caliches for ice cream, then home for some recovery

Jon--meetings all day: plenaries and workshops on worship, poverty, and global health and disease

these were often pulled out of our shoes and pants and once out of Basia's hair

Sunday:

Melani and kids--worship and Sunday School (Melani teaches), baked cookies to take to Super Bowl (the batch we made on Friday for hiking was a small one), went to friends' house for the BEST WAY TO WATCH THE SUPER BOWL EVER--the game on a small screen and all afternoon Wii playing on the big screen right next to it

Jon--meetings in the morning (a networking group with campus ministers and people, like me, who serve in organizational support mechanisms), call to Melani around noon to let her know that he is in the same city as the Super Bowl (get this -- flying from Jacksonville to Tampa (!!), then to San Antonio (where he watched the kick-off 3 minutes before boarding) and finally on to El Paso), flying all day and home just before 8pm in time to see the Cardinals almost win and then lose (like we need more posturing from Steelers fans!)