Fun at the Gilmores

Jessica had the itch to play the guitar!

Hey Sam!

Joy is a really good singer! (And Mr. Gilmore is pretty great on the guitar too.)

Mrs. Gilmore showed us her scrapbooks

Joy did my hair!

My braids

And here they are after a couple days! Still nice!

We had a great time at the Gilmore's this past Friday! It was sad that Mercy and Jessie were gone (waaa! :( they're at the Wisconsin family camp) but we all still had lots of fun. Jessica showed the movie that she had made (its amazing--she is so talented!), and then Mr. Gilmore and Dustin and Sam showed us some of the short movies and commercials they had made. LOL! They were great!
Joy (who is an AMAZING hairstylist) braided my hair in all these little African braids. She did an amazing job! I'd never had it done that way before. It did hurt a bit, but my scalp got used to it after a while. (I still have them in today!) She did such a good job, and I think it looks pretty cool. :D
We all had some really good discussion too, and just had fun fellow shipping. The Gilmores are so hospitable! Its so fun to visit them.

A Great Day with Great Friends!

Angie, Chloe, Kasie, & Annie!

Mmmmm! Starbucks!

Angie's first Starbucks :D

Cheese!

Mmm....purple girls, purple lavender :)

These funny guys in costumes were making a music video for their band right there on the street of downtown Franklin! They would walk down the sidewalk and throw that lady in the background against the brick wall! Hmm...I don't know if I want to hear their band...

We are playing Mr. President!

Here we are playing Guess-tures!

Mr. President Nate and Vice President Chloe!

Now Annie has moved up to Vice President!

shopping!

They look so cute in these hats!

This picture was completely staged, but I love it! :)

standing at the corner

Mr. and Mrs. Willis

Chloe and Angie at Subway

Annie and Kasie Nate and Walter

This past Wednesday, Annie and I were so blessed to have the Willis family come and visit us! They've become such good friends, and its really amazing how we met up in the first place! Angie and I, and Annie and Kasie first 'met' through pen-pal ads that we had put in a small magazine for girls. After about three years of writing letters, I got to meet Angie for the first time last year, and this year Annie was so excited to meet Kasie! And it was great to see all of them again! :)

We had SO much fun. We walked around down-town Franklin, got to go to Starbucks (yay! And they had never been there, but I think they liked it!) and just had such a good time fellowshipping. And when we went to their hotel to wait a bit before dinner, they taught us some dances! Yay! We all tried it in the hotel room first, but since that was rather crowded we ended up moving out to the parking lot. It worked out so good! We even had music, because they found a way to play it from the van. Annie and I were so excited to learn, and we don't have a lot of oppertunities to try it at home, so it was such a blessing!

We went to Subway for dinner, and then got to visit for a couple more hours at the hotel before it was time to go. We played Guesstures and Catch-phrase and Mr. President, and it was so much fun! I think we made a lot of noise though. :)

It was so sad when we had to say good-bye, but God blessed us with such a great time!

Thank you so much Willi fam, for making the effort to come see Annie and I! We were so blessed, and had so much fun. Hope to see y'all again soon!

<3-Chloe & Annie :)

Work-Days

Work has been pretty busy once again. Its amazing how many jobs can suddenly get uncovered! But its certainly much nicer to have lots to do rather than to have things be really slow. Work, work, and than hopefully a sunny walk afterwards. :)

Oh, thanks to all who were praying for our health over here! I had a pretty dreadful case of the stomach flue about a week ago, (as well as Mr. Campbell and Jessica, and all of us were fighting off stuff) but we're so thankful to be feeling tons better now. Praise God!

Goodbye Emilee!

Our dear friend Emilee Rowland has left us for her home in Illinois! Awwwe. We will miss her! She is soo awesome! When Chloe and I first arrived she was SO GOOD at making us feel at home, teaching us all the tricks and jobs of the office, and adding a fabulous sense of fun! We pestered her constantly with one question after another, but she is the most patient person! Wahoo! We've had a blast with her! And when Loretta and Jessica arrived she was terrific at teaching them everything they needed to know and helping them feel all relaxed and settled in as well.

Goodbye, Em! Love you!

~Annie, Chloe, Mercy, Loretta and Jessica

Above Rubies is SO COOL!

Today is Friday. Cleaning day! We were all upstairs going about our business when the doorbell rang. Yikes! Mr. Campbell was in town. Mrs. Campbell was at a retreat. I ran down the stairs to answer the door. Loretta asked, as I went flying by, if I wanted her to come with me. "Yes!" I shouted as I thump-thump-thumped down the stairs.
There was a guy with a clipboard outside, surrounded by dogs. The Barrette's dogs. Yay. They would intimidate any strangers. :) Loretta and I peek out the door. Not peeked. We opened it. Like we owned the place. :)
"Hello!" Said we.
"Hello!" Says he. "My name is Dustin."
We blink. We know of another Dustin, and HE doesn't look anything like him. An imposter!
We smile. "What can we do for you?"
"Say, this is quite a house." Says he.
I don't know if we grinned or frowned.
"And these are quite the greeting dogs."
We nod. One of us might've said, "Yeah, their great!" I don't know.
"Well, like I said, I'm Dustin with F... H.... I am trying to interview everybody in the Primm Springs area on the subject of cancer. Not a very pleasant subject I know, but it's one that affects so many families in America."
"For sure." We say.
"Are one of you the ladies of the house?" He asks.
"No." We say. "She's not here today."
"The man of the house then?"
"Mr. Campbell is not available at the moment. Perhaps if you tried back in the evening."
He writes the name on the clipboard. "Okay, in the evening you say? Good. I don't want to miss anyone." He looks at me. "So...Mr. Campbell, eh? So YOU must be Mr. Campbell's daughter!"
Heheheh. "No I'm not his daughter." An awkward pause. "I'm here volunteering for their ministy."
"REALLY? That is SO COOL! What ministry?"
I glance at Loretta. "Um, Above Rubies. They put out a magazine to enourage woman all over America."
"That is SO cool! What is your name?"
Grrr..."It's Annie." I shake his hand as he tells me how nice it is to meet me.
He directs his attention to Loretta. "And what's your name? Ahh. Where are you from? Australia! Wow. Why are you here? This Above Rubies thing? WOW. That is SO COOL! I wonder why I've never heard of this before. Is it because I'm a guy?"
Ding. (The 'lightbulb') "Hey, do you want a sample copy?" I say.
His turn to blink. "Sure..." I take off to go get one, but I hear him ask Loretta, "Is this a religeous thing?"
I grab the first magazine I see. Issue #76. I give it to him. "Hey, THANK YOU." He says. "Above Rubies...." (He is scanning the cover) "Well, thank you so much, I'll take it home and give it to my wife."
Score. "Great!" Said we, and we bid him goodbye.
Who knows? :)

Sunset Walk

Hey, what do ya'll think of this picture? The camera took it like this naturally with no special affects or computer stuff or anything!

Shoudn't it be illegal to leave little bits of your car behind as you drive along?

We all LOVE Friendly! He insisted on coming with us on our walk. :)

What a gorgeous evening for a walk! Enjoy the pictures!

Invisible Chairs

Did you know that Germany just invented an invisible cloak? Wow.

Here is a great exercise to try against any wall in your home. We had great fun seeing how long we could last. Don't fall...!

A Package From Home!

The Box

The BOX

OOOh! THE BOX!

In the Box

Surrounding the Box

You can tell we were excited about this thing just by the amount of pictures we took of it, eh? Chloe and I got a box from our family in Michigan! Wahoo! It was just filled with exciting things! Movie we couldn't wait to watch, snacks we couldn't wait to eat, and cards we couldn't wait to tape to our wall!

Yay!! What a blast!

Thank you, Mom, Dad, Lindsey, Elizabeth, Gideon, Jacob, John, Sophia, Christian, and Angelise!! We loved it! Missing you!

~Annie

Loretta and Jessica Arrive!

Hi everyone!

Last week, we were thrilled to meet sisters Loretta and Jessica who have traveled all the way from Australia to come help at Above Rubies. Yay! They are such wonderful girls--from the very first day we have had so much fun with them! Its been a blast learning different things about each other's 'cultures', practicing each other's accents, (SO great!! So funny!) and just getting to know them!

Hopefully, you'll here directly from them soon. ;) Gonna try to catch up on what's been going on around here!