He's home! Reed made it home yesterday afternoon. I picked him up from the airport and we went straight to the boys soccer game. He is a little tired and still recovering from the time change. We are soooo glad to have him back! He will have to tell you all about his adventures including getting food poisoning the night before he was to leave. So much for that weight gain! Sounds like he had a good experience despite that though. They were able to do 130 surgeries!

Update

Hey all, just an update on Reed. He is doing very well. He has interent access so we have been able to email and even instant message a few times. Sounds like it is very busy. He is seeing alot of people with vision so bad that they can only count fingers or see light. I can't imagine how great it is for them to be able to see after surgery or even glasses. He said the challenging thing is the language barrier....at one point today he had to have 3 interepreters to communicate with one patient! But overall he is really enjoying being able to help them in anyway he can. He rarely leaves the hospital complex but says the mountains around them are beautiful. He was also able to enjoy a trip to a nearby lake over the weekend and see lots of animals including crocodiles and hippos. Today, he was also able to tour the orphanages that Stephne Bowers oversees. He is actually staying in the Bowers house and sounds like eating very well with Stephne's wonderful cooking talents. Says he may be gaining weight but I'll believe that when I see it! Anyway, that is the update so far. He has been gone for 11 days now, only 4 more to go! I am ready to have him home. He will head out for Addis on Fri., fly out on Sat. and arrive around 2 pm in Detroit on Sunday. If you want to see the hospital where he is at you can go to the website at www.soddo.org You can see pictures of the hospital and surrounding areas there. Pray for a safe trip home for him. The kids and I miss him terribly.

He made it!

Hey everyone. Happy to report that I got an email from R. and he made it to Harry and Stephne's in Soddo. Sounds like it was a very long, tiring trip. His flight was 16 hours long and then some of the surgeons on his team had trouble in customs getting their equipment through, apparently taking hours til they finally got it. Then he had a 9 hour bus ride with the 12 member team and got a flat tire! But now he is finally there! He said that people are already starting to line up at the gates.

Ethiopia, Africa!!

Taking Reed to the airport this morning.....He is going on a Medical Mission trip to Ethiopia Africa! This is where the Bowers (the owners of our house) are serving so they will be hosting Reed. He will be joining a couple of other doctors and be gone for 2 weeks. They will be doing eye exams, surgery, etc....at the Christian Hospital where Dr. Bowers has set up an eye clinic.
He will probably also be visiting two orphanages that Mrs. Bowers helps run. He is delivering two huge bags of baby clothes, etc... to be given to the orphanages. Please pray for his safety, health, and overall experience. We are going to miss him terribly....so pray for me and the kids as well. We are not used to him being gone at all!!

Soccer

Hunter and Ethan have been playing soccer this fall. They are learning alot and loving it.

Ethan even scored a goal in the last game! Though it is a strictly "just for fun" league, they will proudly tell you that they are undefeated so far...(mostly because of a really good kid named Will who scores about 3 goals a game).

Here are some photos....one of Ethan in action and the other of Hunter taking his turn as a team captain.

Go Bucks!

Here is Ethan at his first OSU game. He went with Reed and loved every minute of it! He was also very happy to tell me that he got to drink a Dr. Pepper on the way to the game because apparently the pop machine didn't have anything else. What a great day, football and caffeine!

"Mommy, I'm a One-eyed monster!"

This was how Izzy woke up one morning before church. She came into my bathroom and said "Mom I can't open my eye!" Then after looking in the mirror at herself she exclaimed that she was a "one-eyed monster" and laughed. I was not so amused and told her to go show her dad, the eye doctor, of course. Well, we figured out that she had two mosquito bites on her face, one right in the middle of her forehead and the other right by her swollen eye. It took about a whole week of antibiotics to get her eye back to normal!