This past weekend we were able to go to a Christian conference center/camp for some worship. It was great and really needed. This guys sang their hearts and souls out to God. It was a great thing to see…around 150 people all praising God in a country where God is impersonal and someone only the priests and the pope have access to. It gave us hope and encouragement. Not only are these guys full of worship but their desire is for other people to know Jesus so much that they hit the streets talking to folks.

First, I would like to introduce you to our new nephew, Benjamin Isaiah. He was born on Sept. 2 weighing a whopping 8 lbs. 5 oz. I want to congratulate my sister for just having a baby that big.
There are pictures of him below.
Second, I would like to say thanks to my Aunt Harriet, Uncle Johnny and little cousin Faith and Paul’s parents for the packages they sent us recently. You’ve never seen folks get so excited over Twizzlers and peppermint. And I have to say that the grape Kool-Aid my aunt and uncle sent tastes soooo good. Probably the best I’ve ever had due to the fact that I haven’t had it in about a year.

“I don’t know mommy, let me think on it.”

The newly born Isaiah and my sister.

Can you smell the hamburgers grilling? Feel the excitement in the air? Hear the cowbells ringing loud and proud? That’s right! It’s gameday baby!
Today at 5:45 p.m. Central Time the LA Tech Bulldogs host the the Mississippi State Bulldogs….and thus our house is divided. Dooley’s Dawgs come out of last season 5 and 7 and the MSU Bulldogs 6 and 3.
Will Sylvester Croom and the MSU Bulldogs wipe the floor with Dooley’s Dawgs? Or will LA Tech show up the Mighty Maroon and White? We can only wait to find out.

Today Paul and I are celebrating our two year anniversary. I can’t believe how time flies. It’s seems like only yesterday we were dancing in the hay field at my parent’s house under a canopy of lights.
The past two years have been eventful. In the just the past year we’ve decided where we want to spend several years of our lived overseas, moved four times and said goodbye to friends and family.
We have been blessed with parents who have stayed together through good times and bad. My parents have been married for about 35 years and Paul’s parents have been married for almost 30 years. Not to mention grandparents who have been married for 50 + years.
We just want to say thank you to our parents and grandparents for showing us that even though marriage is not always fun and easy it is doable. You may not like the person you live with some days but that is not an excuse to quit.

Beware: This is going to be a sentimental and sappy post.
We, like the rest of the world have been clued to the TV watching the Olympics. Here they were shown live, which meant we would have had to get up at 1 a.m. in order to watch anything good. What was showing during the hours when normal people are awake? Fencing, rowing, kayaking, ribbon dancing, and skeet shooting are just some examples of the exciting bouts of strength that we got to see.
But all this watching of the Olympics had me thinking about the last time I watched the summer games in Fort Worth. For two weeks I spent every night in an apartment with three other young women enthralled by the exhibitions we saw. We were amazed as Phelps swam to victory six times.
Those three women (plus one more who I met later on in my seminary days) are not only my sisters in Christ but are some of my closest friends. We have held each other accountable, laughed and cried together, lifted each other up, and had times where we had to forgive one another. We’ve been in weddings, shared boy trouble, buried parents, rode rides at Six Flags until we got sick, and been glued to the TV on Thursday nights.
These are some of the greatest women I know. And over the past two weeks I have thought of them a lot and honestly part of me wished I could be with them.

Sunday some friends invited us over to eat lunch, and since they are excellent cooks we quickly agreed. We started the morning by going to a monastery that overlooks Napoli. WOW!! It’s so beautiful there. A completely different view of the city.
The picture to the left has Mt. Vesuvius in the background. That’s the volcano that wiped out Pompeii in 70 A.D.
The picture on the right has the island of Ischia in the background (for those of you who read the blog Big Waves, that’s where that “incident” occurred).

From the heights of the monastery we headed back down to start on lunch. Gnocchi, potato pasta, is a huge dish here on Sundays. Our friend Pepe wanted me to learn how to make it so into the kitchen I went. I am going to briefly explain the process so you can better appreciate the two hours it took to make the gnocchi. Well, I guess if you want to get technical about it, it takes longer than that because you have to begin by making a red sauce. When I make it, I let it cook for two hours or so…Pepe let his cook for six hours!! But back to the gnocchi itself. You first boil the potatoes with the skin and then peel the potatoes. They had cooked 2 kilos of potatoes. Then you press them and you will have a mound of potatoe strings like in the picture. Then, you put salt on them and start needing in flour. Two kilos of potatoes equals 2 kilos of flour. Talk about a tiring process.
Then you roll out the flour and start cutting off little tiny pieces. You boil it for about 5 minutes, drain, and stir in some mozzarella and sauce and the result is nothing but goodness all the way down.
I am including a picture of me eating octopus just so my family will believe that I tried it. I will not be trying it again.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent soakin’ up the sun. Wednesday we went to a beach about an hour south of Napoli with our friends Alessandra and Enzo. Please note the stark contrast in skin color between me and Alessandra. Below are pictures of the beautiful beach. There is one picture of a guy jumping off a really high cliff…don’t worry it was some random guy.
Thursday we went to a pool with some other friends. It was wonderful to swim in water and afterwards not feel like a block of salt. Needless to say after two days of sun, I was a little red and will be avoiding the sun for a few days.
MacKenzie

So, this past weekend Paul and I went to Rome to see some friends, the Graves, who were going on vacation for a few weeks. We all decided it would be a great idea to do our visiting over Chinese food. Let me tell you…when you haven’t had anything really but pasta (albeit the pasta is fantastic) you begin to have cravings in the middle of the night for any other kind of ethnic food. You begin having dreams of fajitas from Uncle Julios (those of you in Fort Worth know what I mean), burritos from Chiptole, and a rice bowl from Pei Wei….needless to say the Chinese food was absolutely wonderful and we will frequent the restaurant every time we go to Rome.
After the wonderful eating of Chinese, we headed to another family’s house, the Watts. Thanks to the cooking wonders of Colleen Watts and the grilling techniques of Chris Watts we ate some really good tequila lime chicken and then played cards. A wonderful day.
Sunday we awoke with anticipation. We had homemade cinnamon rolls – can anybody say WOW!! Then we all got ready and went to the new mall, which was like stepping back into the States for a little while. After a little shopping we headed for the food court – yes a food court. And it was packed. What do you think we ate….I’ll give you a hint…it’s made fresh the way you like it…that’s right..we ate Subway. And it could have possibly been the best chicken teriyaki (I know I spelled that wrong) sandwich I have ever had!
Then we made our way to the English showing of Batman. Oh, how the excitement was building for all of us. I must say after the 3 hour and 15 minute movie was over, I was very happy with the production. And just for the record…I think Heath Ledger’s Joker is better than Jack Nicholson simply because he was not so cartoonish/clownish. If the Joker can be realistic, Ledger did it.
After the movie I was saying goodbye to one set of friends while trying to keep up with the Watts who were crossing the street. So I wasn’t really paying attention to the traffic light or the traffic….and I got hit. Ok, it was more of a slight bump. There’s not even a bruise so I can’t even milk it for all it’s worth. Everybody forgot it happened 30 minutes after it was over. Now it is just kinda funny. I had to go all the way to Rome to do something as stupid as not look both ways before crossing the street. Lesson learned folks, lesson learned.

Wednesday we went on a hike with two friends from language school, Jim and Antoinette. We traveled by train south to Sorrento, which only takes about an hour. Then we got on a bus and snaked our way around the coast to the little town of San Agatta. A brief pause in the story…as we were snaking our way around the coast, I was getting sick (thanks busdriver who drove way to fast around sharp curves). Anyway, back to the main story. We finally made it to San Agatta, without me dying from carsickness, and began to follow the directions in a guide book. It told us to follow red and white markings along the road. So we followed the signs and the coast and began our journey. There were a few points where we didn’t really know where to go, but that’s half the fun, right? At one point we all looked ahead (and up) and saw this huge cliff. Jim joking said, “We’re going there.” Little did we know, he was right. See the cliff to the left – yes, we climbed it. As we fought through some underbrush I could help but think following my dad on on early spring morning in pursuit of the sound of a gobbler…..
Anyway, somehow we ended up going the wrong way (it could be because the book we were using is about eight years old) and we did not make it to our final destination but instead made one huge circle. But it wasn’t so bad because we got to go to the beach. You will notice I am not in any beach pictures due the fact that the water was very cold. Below are some pictures that Paul took of our hike. Hope you enjoy!!