Bethel School

Another beautiful day here in Mississippi.  I decided to get out and take some pictures.  I explored the church yesterday and today i explored the inside of the school
 
This school is a unique school … the ages of the children are from 2 weeks old to 8th grade.  The school has around 150 kids.  Kids start arriving around 5.30 AM until 5.30 PM.

Lunch time at school .. of course after lunch is recess!

they have a very nice fenced in play area.  There is a tall privacy fence around the entire outside playground and then inside is another fenced off area.  It’s very nice.
 
These kids were waiting to get their blankets for nap time .. the smaller kids have nap time from noon – 2 PM

they have a Christmas tree in the lunch room

Lunch room workers getting things ready for the next group of kids

There are several rooms that have these mats .. this is where the little kids take their naps at.  They have a TV and DVD player for those kids who do not sleep.

The nursey is so adorable!  I love this table and look how cute the rest of the room is
 
Here are some more of the rooms .. i snapped some pictures as i toured through .. looks like the kids are ready for Christmas too


This gym is very cute .. i love all the murals painted on the walls
 
Yes I am so enjoying spending time with these kids .. i’m such a pushover when it comes to children.  God has really blessed us to be able to spend time volunteering and witnessing to children through out the USA.

A Beautiful Church

Another beautiful day and I just had to get outside and do some exploring.  This church is huge.   It hold 300 people!  It’s a beautiful church.

There is 3 sections in the sanctuary
 
I love the ceiling and this stained glass is beautiful
     
They are setting up their displays for their drama they are putting on this weekend .. all i’m going to tell you right now is i can not wait to see it.

This extra lot is part of the church .. they have a huge area here
 
They have a large parking lot on the side of the building and in the back
 
Yes that is my home parked in their back parking lot.  see how huge it is?  We have all kinds of space and were actually enjoying being parked here by ourselves. 

the houses near by must have been rebuilt after Katrina and they are now up in the air.  Sure glad it’s not me that has to carry things up all those steps. 

The weather has been beautiful here and i am so enjoying the warmth .. hope your staying warm where ever you are.

The Work has began

I got up this morning and decided to head over and get some pictures of the work that’s beginning.  The mixing of the concrete has began.

Next the pouring and leveling
 
This is being done in sections and it’s going to take some time.  There is no way a concrete truck can get into this area or for that matter you can not even push a wheel barrel to the area so it’s all being done inside of this very narrow room.  3 sections were poured today and several more to go.
It was a beautiful day and the temps reached the high 60’s and expected to continue to warm up all week long .. yessss  .. i feel the beach in my future this week :)

I spent the day with my door and windows open to let the fresh air in. This is my kind of weather .. short pants and T-shirt was the dress code today.

Happy Birthday Tyson

WOW .. today is our oldest son Tyson birthday.  He turned 28 today .. oh my I'm getting old.  We haven’t done much this weekend.  It’s been a lazy relaxing weekend for us .. after our stressful week.  I needed a weekend to just do absolutely nothing and just relax and that is what i did.
We went to church this morning and then a needed trip to Wal-mart to get the things i have forgotten the last 2 trips.  YES .. i got everything this time around :)

I’ve spent my entire weekend watching Christmas shows .. i love them .. I know I've been spending all month watching them and guess what .. i plan to finish watching them all month long :)

I spent a bit of the morning Saturday changing the way my blog looks .. i wanted to dress it up for Christmas .. how do you like it? 

Trying to relax

Today would have been my father in law birthday.  He was a wonderful man and he is deeply missed.  Our oldest son carries his name in his middle name.  Hubby has thought of his dad often today and still misses him very much.  We miss you so much and know that you are in heaven with no more pain and suffering.

Well after a very cold night of sleep.  Hubby got up and hooked things back up and got some heat going before i even attempted to get out of bed.  Hey, i wasn’t the only one who didn’t get up until he got us some heat .. the dogs wouldn’t even poke their heads out from under the covers when hubby yelled for them to go potty. 

Once he got our home warmed up using our furnace and a electric heater.  I got up and before i knew it he was growling for me to get some clothes on so we could run over to Lowe’s to get the needed supplies.  Hmm last night he was growling i would have to call and have someone come fix it.  He made some calls this morning and found out that there is no one in the area that can come to us .. we have to pack up and go to them .. guess he decided he would try fixing it first instead of packing up.
Wow, wiring is expensive! 

After our trip to Lowe’s hubby went to work on replacing the wiring and then the GFI receptacle.  Come to find out when hubby went to work the lug nuts were very loose on the one wire that was the culprit of starting this mess. Were praying this was part of the cause and we will not have to have a new convertor box .. were talking some bucks if we do.

Once that was all done and we tested things out and they seem to be working okay and there is no sparks at all now.  Hubby says we will have to keep a very close eye on things and until we know for sure were on conserve electrical mode.  He told me that means i can not run a electric heater and a electric appliance at the same time.  I will have to bit the bullet us our propane furnace when I'm cooking. 

Later in the afternoon we needed to just get away, hubby needed to escape today being his dad birthday and my nerves were in an up roar with all the excitement.  So we took a trip to Gulfport to visit our friend Steve.  Of course i insisted we take the dogs with us as i was still concerned of fire.  Hubby grumbled but he knew there was no need to argue as i was still not sure about a fire wouldn’t break out and he knew i was not leaving my babies.

We met Steve at Island View Casino for dinner.  I was in no mood to cook.  (I think my cooking 3 days in a row caused our horror .. think I'm being reminded that I'm retired and have stopped cooking? or i have to use propane to heat with if i cook?)  Oh those both sound like good excuses. 

While we ate and visited with Steve we left the dogs in truck nestled in their blankets. We heated the truck up pretty good before we left them in there.  It actually wasn’t bad outside, a bit on the cool side.  Steve left after dinner as the retirement home was having a dance and he loves to dance.  Hubby went out and check on the dogs to make sure they were not getting cold. We decided we needed something to take our minds off the past few days.  What better way then pressing a button on a slot machine.    Hubby won 30 dollars at the view and so since the dogs were sleeping so good and I needed a drink .. man they salt the food at those places.  We decided to stop by Hard Rock Casino and walk around.  We decided to play a bit and hubby hit another 50 bucks of course we couldn't go home just yet .. Yes you got it we played another machine and hubby hit it for $40 .. I only had a hit for  $5 which isn't bad for a penny machine:)  I decided to stick with the penny machine tonight after the past few days i've had .. i played 5 cents at time .. i used $2 to make $5 and cashed out with $7 .. not bad huh?  Hubby played the quarter machine 1 quarter at time ahd his total win after deducting our meals for the night was $80!  Not bad huh?  We ended up with free meals and more money then we left home with.   The entire time we were playing i wasn't worrying about our home and he wasn't thinking of his dad.  Yep, Casino's can do that .. of course if you do not have money to lose then you shouldn't go to one because they will take it and not even say thank you. 

We got home around 10 PM and i was praying that our home was just like it was when we left it.  I was thrilled to see it was and now came the big step of sleeping in it with everything on.  Hubby and the dogs had no trouble at all going to sleep.  Me on the other hand .. I had trouble getting to sleep as my mind would not shut off so finally around 12.30 AM, I took a sleeping pill and by around 1.30 AM i was asleep.  Of course we purchased a fire alarm that sits on the sink right above the convertor box for that just in case.

Oh It’s One of those Days!

I had a ruff night last night between my allergies and back!  The cold weather has me down in the back and i shouldn’t have gone near that Alley with my allergies and asthma.  I couldn’t sleep between my itching eyes, nose, throat, coughing, labored breathing and my aching back!!  It was almost 5 AM before i finally got some zzz’s.  Then i was awaken around 9 AM by a load noise.  I started complaining and looked out the window to find a dump truck dumping dirt.  After they left i snapped a picture.  Well let’s be honest .. much later in the day i took a picture .. Wow that is a lot of dirt.

Hubby kept complaining he was smelling something electrical burning.  I told him I had used some bleach and that was probably what he was smelling. He kept complaining he thought that what he was smelling wasn’t bleach.  I just brushed it off.  After dinner I went to get the dish soap under the cabinet to do dishes and thought i smelt a strong chemical odor and i went to digging under the cabinet … well all of sudden there was a popping noise and all the lights, TV and everything but our 12 volt lights went off.  Hubby comes out of the bedroom yelling at me.  “What have you done now and what are doing under the sink?  I told him i smelt a horrible strong chemical smell and was digging for the source.  He accused me of touching something under the sink.  Apparently that is where a box called a convertor box is that runs all of electrical.

Ooops it wasn’t bleach or chemicals after all. Hubby went to open the door to check the breakers and he couldn’t touch the door, it burnt him.  After getting something he could use to open the door, to his shock this is what he found.  Yep, he had been smelling electrical burning after all .. OH MY!!

Well of course he isn’t happy and after unplugging us from shore power he went to work on investigating what happened.  Needless to say the breaker i kept popping yesterday with my roaster was the source.  Hmmm I didn’t know you couldn’t run a electrical heater and roaster on the same circuit .. I’m a woman and i know nothing about electrical .. I just use them.  If they come on .. great they work and if they don’t their junk!

Well after lots of turning things on and off we found the source.  The outlets in the kitchen and bathroom are all GFI and i guess that is why my breaker kept blowing.  I had it over loaded.
We found out that my freezer, our refrigerator, the electric heater and my roaster were all running off the 15 AMP breaker … OUCH!  

After several hours of investigating hubby turned that breaker off and the sparks and burning stopped.  Yes, the one wire had sparks and was actually burning.  That is how close we come from having a tragic, horrible nightmare. 

Because i was afraid to go to bed with anything running and it was too late to try and fix it hubby unplugged us from shore power and even shutoff the convertor completely so that meant a night of sleeping with no heat, no nothing.  There isn’t a 110 outlet outside so we couldn’t run a cord through our slide out to use for electric and since the satellite dish is so close to our camper we couldn’t get the generator out to use it.  YES we spent the night with no electric, no 12 volt and NO HEAT! 

Alligator Alley

Oh it's frightful outside! The wind is blowing and it's only 42 degrees! Oh man O man when the south get's cold it gets cooold!! temps are suppose to only be in mid 50's today .. i want my warmth back .. i baked a cake in the oven and it heated it up nicely so were nice and warm inside. It's going to be a day of just being lazy and hibernating.  !! I'm going to put a turkey on to cook in the roaster so it will keep us nice and warm .. mmm turkey for dinner.

This hall way connects the church buildings.  They call it Alligator Alley .. hmm interesting choice of names.  Anyway it’s in desperate need of renovating big time.  The mildew smell was horrible when the door was opened.  Oh MY Allergies!  I didn’t get a picture of it before they cleaned it out.  The task today was to get it emptied out so that it can be prepared to have a concrete floor poured.  These pictures are …
 
After the Alley was cleared of all it’s junk.  There was no way i could go into the room because of my allergies and asthma.  I barely stuck my head in the door and i could feel my breathing starting to labor so that left me out on helping.  After about an hour they had the room cleaned out. 

As you can see today has not been a day of excitement when all i have to post about is a dingy and musty smelling room .. sorry it’s just too cold to get out and do anything.

I did finally get my turkey cooked.  I was frustrated as the breaker kept blowing on my roaster. What is going on we are on 50 amps … ughhh