So, it’s been a big week for us here at TC.

First of all, the root canal. Let us just say that any time you put the word “micro” with dental work it really means “macro” in the billing department. And that’s all we have to say about that.

Friday we drove to Mobile, Alabama. As hard as it is to believe, we were going to finally (sit down) pick up some of the A/C equipment for the Big Blue Building. We brought along two strong teenagers, rented a 24 ft. Budget Truck in Mobile, filled it up with equipment at United Refrigeration, and drove it back to Bonifay (about 400 miles round trip). Here are some packing shots….
Getting started….

While they could still get to the back of the truck….

And finally with the truck all filled up…..

I’m pretty sure we won’t be here long enough to actually get any of it installed, but at least it’s here. And that is a good thing!

The weekend flew by – a trip to Dothan (to return the truck), a quiet afternoon, a good service on Sunday at the little Baptist church we’ve been attending, and then our standard Sunday dinner – soup and PB&J’s for 70 hungry boys.

And then today – well, today is Gary’s birthday :-). I figured “our boys” would like to celebrate Brother Gary’s B-day – and I KNEW they would like to share in the cake!

I did manage to convince them not to throw him in the lake! He would have been a good sport about it, but I wasn’t sure his body was up to the event!

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Honey!

So, after being on the road for almost 4 years (can you believe THAT!), we’ve decided to “move” to Florida. Since we no longer own property anywhere, and home is basically where ever we park it, we’ve been trying to figure out the best state to call home. We still love Pennsylvania, but everytime we pay that 3.01% income tax (like this month), we start to re-think our residency there. There are only a few states that have no income tax and different states have different residency requirements. Can you believe it, some of them actually want proof that you LIVE there! Florida (I guess since it already has so many snowbirds) makes it pretty easy. All you need is a street address, which we got when we signed up for a mail forwarding service in Lake City. So, after checking out insurance quotes, vehicle registration costs, and tax levels, we decided to become Floridians. Here is some of our new “look” –

One of the hardest parts of this change-over was when the girl at the DMV handed me my new license and threw my PA one in the trash. Ouch. It seemed so final.

One of the funniest parts of our change-over was looking out the window of the DMV to see this house in the middle of the road.

See the police cars behind it? Well, they had just pulled the house over (and that’s a trick, believe you me!) because they failed to get the correct permits. We were back in town today to finish up the RV registration and were happy to see that the house had moved on its way. Apparently though, not before it collected SIX tickets for various house moving violations! Oops!

And on another entirely unrelated subject….
Somehow, several months ago, I wandered onto a really fun webpage called The Pioneer Woman. The writing is very funny, she posts great recipes and takes amazing pictures. And one of the things I have especially enjoyed is the fact that she explains how she gets her photos to be so wonderful (apart from the fact that they are just plain good pictures). I recently purchased Photoshop Elements 6 since I “needed” a photo editing software for my HPI work (oh, and maybe because I really enjoy messing around with my pictures!), so it’s been fun to follow some of her steps in making a good picture even better. I’ve been having a good time playing with my pictures in Photoshop, plus, when I upload them to Flickr there is another option for more editing with Picnik (I’m sure you’ve noticed some of the different edges and effects in recent posts. Yep, that’s just me playing!)
Here are a couple pics of that new little foal – check out how long his (her?) legs are! Almost as long as mama’s!

These two were taken on the same walk – can you tell we’ve had some great weather? 🙂

There’s still alot to learn….stay tuned.

Oh, and tomorrow? We head to Dothan for Gary’s root canal.

I’m so far behind in catching you’all up with our adventures – I’m sorry! Right now I should be packing for a little weekend get-away we have planned. But first……

California.
It was a wonderful trip. Lara and I had lots of “girl time” – soaking up girl-goodness at a beautiful spa, working together on one of her beautiful knitting projects that actually required sewing (that’s where I came in handy!), taking in the sights of San Francisco with both Lara and Jeff, eating out and eating in! She and Jeff even took me out for a Karaoke night – yikes! She (and all her friends) were great. I, on the other hand, left just a little to be desired! I need to find me a good song and work on it!
I didn’t have a working camera until our day in San Francisco, so my pictures don’t really tell the whole story, but here are a couple of my favorites….
Lara and Jeff- with Alcatraz in the background-

I think this bird has a little attitude, don’t you?

Can you see the Golden Gate Bridge in the background?

If you’d like to see the whole batch – from the two of us sewing, to our beautifully manicured toes, to more sights from Fishermen’s Wharf feel free to visit here.

In other Conrad Family news, Ellie has lost her first tooth!

I told Toby they’ll be packing her up for college soon! 🙂

And in a little Teen Challenge news – and our life here – an additional cook has been hired! She has lots of experience and seems very comfortable in the job. It has really freed up my schedule – enough so that Gary and I are getting away for the weekend and meeting our dear Sower friends, Bill and Dolly up in Albany, GA. (He’s retired military, so we’ll be staying on the Marine base there. Even though the weather is calling for rain, we are totally looking forward to getting away – even if it’s just to play cards and watch movies! We got them hooked on geocaching, so I’m sure we’ll be trying to fit some of that in too!) Gary has been getting a little discouraged on the A/C installation front – some of the equipment is in at the warehouse, but TC had no money to pick it up. But today he learned that they are expecting a promised check from a foundation they have been working with on Monday. Praise the Lord! Hopefully he will be able to get a fair bit of it done before we head out the end of May.

I won’t bore you with the fact that we’ve had our A/C on the last couple of days, or that the trees are all beginning to bud. I’m sure spring is well on it’s way where ever you are too!

I better get packing!

So today was a little different than our last jaunt into Dothan! OK, Gary was still the driver – he had several TC related errands to do and offered to be our chauffer so we ladies could all ride together on our official Ladies Day Out. Gary dropped us off at a strip mall that featured a Christian Bookstore, a Hancock fabric store and a Tuesday Morning store. What more could we ask for! He picked us up in time for us to do lunch at Mildred’s Tea House while he went on to Sam’s Club to pick up some birthday cakes for two of the boys. A quick stop at the Salvation Army (really, what is a day out with the girls if we don’t stop at at least ONE thrift shop?), a drive by the World’s Smallest City Block (don’t ask, it’s in the guide book!), and a quick stop at the DQ, and we were on our way home. Just in time to squeeze in a nap before we all gathered together again for a hot dog roast and good ol’ just hangin’ around fellowship. Sigh. A very nice day out. It’s so good to have a day off, and even though Gary was officially doing TC stuff, I think even he enjoyed driving the gang of us around. 🙂
The smallest block – and the ladies at Mildred’s

Above are the guys, working hard, back at the ranch!

Tomorrow it’s ham sandwiches and cheesy broccoli soup for lunch and PIZZA for dinner (with one of those birthday cakes for dessert!) Gotta love those birthday boys!

This was Parents’ Weekend here at Teen Challenge, and all but 5 of the 30 or so 2nd platoon (they are the ones that have been in the program the longest) had parents come. Although ALL of the boys that didn’t have parent visits were pretty sad, these 5 seemed especially pitiful (:-) ), so Gary and I took them on a little road trip to Dothan. Whooeee!!! After about the 3rd stop (yes, we were running errands!), we had pity on them and took them to the movies. Now since we are mostly out of the loop on what would be a good movie to see (let alone what official guidelines there might be from TC), we decided to play it safe and saw College Road Trip – rated G. Okay, so there weren’t alot of teenage boys in the theatre, but it actually was a pretty funny movie (in a classic Disney sort of way), and there was obviously noth objectionable about it. It’s funny how when you are incharge of 5 boys who come from very different (and often very dysfunctional) families, you suddenly listen to all of the jokes and dialogue through different filters. Of course it had a happy Disney ending – Dad came around to understand Child, and Child came around to understand Dad. Oh, if life could just be that simple (and wrapped up so tidy) for these boys!

After the movies we headed off to CiCi’s – an all you can eat PIZZA BUFFET! Can’t beat that plan!
Here’s the whole gang of them – pretty good looking crew, eh?

We saved our last errand – Sam’s Club – for the final stop of the day. They had a good time checking out all the TV’s, computers and other electronics – and even managed to find the one food sample table (after all that pizza! GAH!). And we had a good time picking up over $200. worth of breakfast bars, oatmeal, jumbo-sized spices and various odds and ends for the kitchen. We had the boys back to the barracks only an hour after curfew (oops!), but nobody got into trouble! It was a fun day, and a good chance to get to know these young men on a different level.