Morgan's Mission Trip to Xalapa, Mexico

2am came very early to the Reeves' household today!

Some of you know that Morgan left today for her 1st (out of country) mission trip to Xalapa, Mexico. She had to be at DFW Airport at 4:30 am. She will be traveling with the NEXT organization along with three other youth members and one adult from our church.

While visiting Xalapa, each day they will partnering with local believers to share the gospel in the community. They will also tart a brand new church while strenghtening an existing one. Each morning they will be going through Catalyst Leadership Training. And each afternoon they will be going door-to-door with a translator working to share Jesus with the people of Xalapa.

Morgan has been looking forward to this day for many months. I remember how excited she was when the training started. She practiced witnessing many times using her Evangi-Cube and then also learning to use the Spanish Bible.

A few days before leaving, Morgan was a little overwhelmed with her emotions about this trip. She started getting a little nervous, but at the same time, she was still very excited about getting to go. Dirk and I believe that this trip is going to have a huge impact not only on the lives of the people Morgan will come in contact with, but also on her life as well.

Will you please join Dirk and I in praying throughout the week for Morgan and her team?
Pray for their safety and well-being. Pray for no sickness to occur. Pray that the local community will have open hearts and ears that are willing to listen as they share the gospel.
Pray for the new church that will be planted. Last but not least, please pray that God would reveal Himself in a way like never before to this group of young people.






Thank you in advance for your prayers.

Galveston Pics

Okay, I took close to 1000 pictures of practically everything that we did while in Galveston. Don't worry...I don't plan on sharing all of them with you. I know that you're probably thinking that taking this many pics while just visiting Galveston is ridiculous, but on a family outing to Six Flags, I've taken as many as 200 pics before. I can't help it!!! Anyhow, I've had the HARDEST time just trying to post the ones that I have below.

The first five pics were taken at the beach owned by the resort where we stayed.

Yes, I am actually sitting in what appears to be dirty salty water. Imagine that friends? Nope...this is no where near the comparison to the beach we went to in Florida a few years ago, but it was enjoyable.
I love this picture of Dirk and the girls!


The next few pics posted were taken at Palm Beach at Moody Gardens.



This was really neat. It was a water tower that would fill up and then dump tons of water on people below. Dirk and Jae loved this! Morgan and I stood back and watched. Well, I was taking pictures, of course!

Jae LOVED Palm Beach. We stayed there for a few hours and it still wasn't long enough for her.







We had this grand idea to bury the girls in the sand. It turned out to be a little too freaky looking for me though.


The next set of pics were taken on the Strand. It's the historic downtown shopping district in Galveston.


This was taken at Gaido's, a popular seafood restaurant in Galveston. It's been around for 94 years! It was a pretty nice place!
This picture below of Morgan was taken at the Aquarium Pyramid at Moody Gardens.

The last set of pics were taken in the Rainforest Pyramid.

I know that I posted probably wayyyyyyyyyyyy too many pictures. I know out of all the friends that will view them, Jessica will appreciate them the most.

Anyhow, as you can tell, we really had a great time in Galveston.

Vacation is Officially Over!

So, we arrived back home on July 4th around 4pm.

I was not looking forward to “catching up” on things. In fact, just the thought of it was already making me tired again!

To name a few of the things-to-do that were continually running through my mind as we got closer to home;

I knew that it would take us at least an hour just to unload the van.

There were A LOT of clothes to wash, dry, fold, iron and put away…Groceries to be bought…Phone calls to be returned…House plants to be watered…Visits to be made…Bills to be paid and mailed…

I also made a mistake in logging onto my work computer and found that I had 1526 emails waiting for me!

Needless to say, we didn’t go out and lay under the stars and watch fireworks!

We were (well let me say, I was) happy to drive up and see that our lawn and flower gardens looked beautiful. We also walked into a clean and fresh smelling home. I probably shouldn’t share this, but every time we go on vacation, we always clean the house the day before. Dirk never forgets to point out how we have to leave the house clean for the burglars. Yes, I am aware that this is one of those OCD issues. Pray for me, okay? In any case, we have managed to get everything done at home. However, I am still working on cleaning out my 1526 emails at the office! DELETE…DELETE…DELETE…DELETE…DELETE

Day Six of Vacation ~ Last Day

Today the girls actually did sleep late, until 11:00am.

Since this was our last day in Galveston, we wanted to take it easy and make the day last longer.

We ate lunch at our place and then headed out for the girls’ special treat. I told you all that I would post how it went at the over-priced ice cream parlour.

Today, we even went against something that we normally don’t do at our house and that was telling the girls that we had a special surprise planned for them. Our main reason for usually not telling them is because we are harassed about it until the surprise actually unfolds.

Jae asked if the surprise was for both of them? Go figure???

Morgan asked questions like, “Do I need to get dressed up? Should I wear makeup? If I wear makeup, should I not wear eyeliner? Do we need to wear our bathing suit? Will it be outside? How far is the drive to it? Will we like it? Will I get a tan?” Finally, Dirk requested for her to be silent (He told her to “hush.”).

Well, we finally got them to the ice cream parlour which by the way is called, LaKing’s Confectionery. Go figure…unless you walked into the place, who in the world would know to come inside and enjoy some old fashioned ice cream?

In any case, as we walked inside…Morgan (mainly) and Jae nearly jumped out of their skin once they realized that mom and dad were going to actually spend money on this over-priced ice cream.

Morgan asked, “Can we have anything we want?” I hesitated…Dirk said, “You can have any one ice cream item.”

Okay, I had prepared myself that this was the last day here and that it would probably be a long time before we visited Galveston and most importantly, that my girls would love this!

Morgan ordered a cup of cinnamon ice cream. Jae ordered a cup of raspberry sherbet. Dirk and I ordered a banana split to share. I had prepared myself that this special treat would cost us $30.00. Not a big deal and not a lot of money, I know. It’s just the thought that for $30.00, I could purchase ten ½ gallon tubs of Blue Blue Ice Cream and be set for the entire summer. Okay, I must admit…. and I know it was ONLY because I had prepared myself. This special treat only cost us $15.00. I purposely didn’t ask the girl at the counter how much a banana split was when we ordered. I didn’t want to know. I did freak out when she told Dirk that it would be $9.00!

Okay, stop laughing at me being a cheapskate! I already admitted that I can’t help my way of thinking in this area.

In the end, the treat was fabulous, but it still wasn’t any better than good ole Blue Blue!

For remainder of the day, we took it easy. We did some more shopping on the Strand. We ate dinner at a place called, Nate’s Seafood and Steaks. It was a pretty good place.

We finished our last night with a long walk on the beach, despite the fact that there were hundreds of crabs running every which way…it was a great walk!

Day Five of Vacation

So, the plan was for all of us to sleep in late and not have a schedule today.

Okay…Dirk and I got up at 7:45 and the girls got up at 8:30. Yes, this was sleeping late for Dirk and I. However, we were surprised that the girls got out of bed so early. Morgan had already asked if they could sleep until noon. Apparently, they couldn’t sleep any longer either.

We ate an early lunch and decided that we would go down to the Strand. This is a historical district in the heart of Galveston where there’s lots of old buildings and lots of restaurants and kitchey places to shop. The weather was perfect (not too hot) and it was a lot of fun just walking and shopping for a few hours. There was an old ice cream parlour and candy shop where they still serve ice cream in a tall glass. I forget the name of it though. In any case, we plan on taking the girls back to it for a special treat on our last day here. Okay, I must admit something here. I normally do not like spending money on over-priced ice cream places. In fact, I usually don’t. Morgan is at an age where she earns her own money and is allowed to spend it on over-priced ice cream and Starbucks coffee if she wants. For some reason, every time I take her to a place like this, I can’t get the thought out of my mind that I can buy a whole thing of Blue Bell (1/2 gallon) for the price she’s paying for a couple of scoops. I know that most of you are probably thinking that the over-priced ice cream is better than Blue Bell. Not to worry, Morgan has already made this very clear to me, but I can’t change my way of thinking in this area. Soooooooo, treating them to this ice cream parlour on our last day here will be a stretch for me. I am already trying to prepare myself for it, though. Don’t worry…I’ll make sure to post how it went.

So, after our visit from the Strand, we went to eat at this seafood place called Gaido’s. This restaurant has been in Galveston for 94 years! Many of you know that I don’t like seafood at all, but I wanted Dirk and the girls to have the experience of dining at Gaido’s. Since this place is very popular and seems to always be crowded when we’ve passed by, we made a point of arriving there early to beat the crowd. It was a treat! It was a very nice environment. Our waiter was an excellent server, which is always a plus for me!

And guess what??!?!?!?!? Instead of ordering a chicken pasta entrée …I ordered a seafood platter. Can you believe it? Okay…I must also admit that it wasn’t the typical seafood platter that Dirk orders. It was just a catfish platter. This place is really pricy, but you definitely get your dollar’s worth. With each platter that we ordered, we got; a salad, choice of soup, lots of buttered bread, an entrée and DESSERT! It was great! I actually ate so much that I felt a little sick as we were leaving. I know…I should feel ashamed. Dirk and Morgan were really thrilled that I ordered a seafood platter and actually liked it. I think that they think that we may get to try Red Lobster more often than once a year now. Hmmm…we’ll see!

Day Four of Vacation ~ More of Moody Gardens

When we have something planned that we’re spending money on, we believe in getting our full dollar’s worth out of it. My reason for stating this is because we arrived at Moody Gardens again today when the gates first opened at 10:00 am.

It was another perfect day for visiting this place though. We didn’t have to wait in any lines at all. We finished touring what we didn’t get to see yesterday.

A couple of things that are worth mentioning that we saw were;

Another IMAX 3D movie called Dinosaurs Alive. It was quite a movie. I didn’t think that I would care for it too much, but it was actually pretty good. It was educational for us and for the girls.

Later in the day, we went into the Palm Beach area. It’s completely separated from the other attractions at Moody Gardens. Moms with small children would love this place!!! Every area of this beach was built with kids in mind. It had two different waterslides. The slides were big enough for a parent to join their child if need, but small enough for a kid to ride down alone. The slides branched off of a structure very much like the playground equipment found in most school playgrounds. Kids can climb all over the structure, which is also liberally sprinkled with water cannons, jumping fountains, and other ways for kids to get each other wet. Smaller kids had an area where they could play in the water jets and fountains without fear as the water is only a few inches deep. The water was not over 4-feet in any part of the beach, even in the main pool. It was all clear water and clean sand.
It is priced right, too. One day runs about ten dollars if purchased alone, or you can go for an entire season for twenty-five dollars. A nice value for a family with a number of kids to entertain.

After a few hours there, we were ready to go back to the resort for a much needed nap.

BTW – I just want it noted that I am no longer embarrassed about the smoke alarm. The alarm has gone off twice more since then and I was not responsible either time. We must have some really enthusiastic cooks staying here this week.

Day Three of Vacation ~ Moody Gardens

So, we arrived at Moody Gardens when the doors opened yesterday (Monday). Fortunately for us, we picked the best days (Monday & Tuesday) to visit this place. We were told by the lady who checked us in, that the crowd for Monday was generally expected to be around 4,000 to 5,000 visitors as opposed to 10,000 that was there on Saturday! Since we wanted to visit the entire grounds of Moody Gardens, we purchased the 2-day pass.

Some of the things we saw were;

Rain Forest Pyramid ~ Beautiful exotic plants and flowers (which I just love!!!) and free roaming animals (which I didn’t care too much for)

Discovery Pyramid ~ Titanic Exhibit
I couldn’t finish this one. It was too sad for me. Yes, I’ve seen the movie, but this exhibit really put some things into perspective for me where the movie did not.

Aquarium Pyramid ~ Lots of sharks, sea turtles, and beautiful tropical fish. We loved it! We took lots of pictures in this area.

IMAX 3D Theater ~ We saw Wild Ocean. It was about the wild coast in South Africa and all the animals that depend on the sardine shoals. It was okay. Morgan and Jae loved it because of the 3D effects. Jae kept telling us throughout the movie that this was the best movie ever!

Ridefilm Theater ~ This was a theater that holds 18 people. It had moving seats that matched the motion of the film. This was definitely not a ride for me. I was sick when we came out. This was Dirk’s favorite. Not the part about me getting sick though.

4D Theater ~ This is where they add physical effects to a 3D movie. Wind in your face, water sprinkles when a whale splashes into the ocean, the seat pokes you when there is a sea snake on screen, etc. We saw Planet Earth. It was about the shallow seas. Roughly 90% sea animals live in 8% of the sea. Again, the girls loved it.

Because the crowd was not big at all, we were able to cover a lot of the grounds yesterday at Moody Gardens. There were no lines at any of the places we visited and because Tuesdays are also slow days …we’re looking forward to going back today.