I was finally able to visit one of my former girls (and a sweet friend of mine).  Her sweet little one, Sean Marcus was born six weeks ago and is doing great!!!  
She is a GREAT mom!  I am so proud of all she is doing to keep him healthy and well taken care of!!!
                                                               Isn't he beautiful???  
         I was able to get him his first Bible!  He is already a big reader!  He is a baby genius! 
                                                                    Kisses from me!!!

The girls like to hang out with the dogs every once in a while.  They love it when Onyx gives a high five! :)

I am now caring for 6....3 girls and three bellies.  It's an awesome responsibility that I truly hope that I live up to in the Lord's eyes. The girls are precious!

The whole Acosta family came to our home in South Carolina for the Memorial Day weekend!  It was a marvelous time with them and also with Tia Myrna and primo David!!  We ate a lot...played a lot and laughed a lot.  The weather was great and we even got to take a family picture out by the BBQ area.  Thanks for coming familia!!!!!!!!

We all sang hymns together. Carlos played the piano and David played the guitar.  

Tia Myrna y mi primo David.  We missed you Tio Edgar, Vivian and Edgar Javier!!!!  

La familia, enjoying the weather and the smell of food on the grill.

The "grilling men" of South Carolina.  We had a wonderful cookout with Carlos's delicious burgers!!!!!! The weather was perfect.

My sweet sister in law!  She is so beautiful!

This weekend, we got out my favorite game of Bolo Ball (thanks grampa and gramma Smith!!) :)  Carlos, David, Claudia and I played some, and Claudia was our champion!  

What a great looking group! :) 

Claudia, my sister in law and me.  We all ate at the hospital together and she let me borrow her hat for a minute for the picture.  

My sweet mother in law and Aunt Myrna while we were out flea market shopping.  Even though we didn't buy the cute table, we got a good picture of it! :)

Carlos and I were off this past weekend and so Carlos took me to Greenville, South Carolina for the weekend.  We hung out in Greenville, ate our favorite Great Harvest Bread for breakfast, went to the zoo, went to the park and waterfall,  read books, ate Italian food, swam in the hotel pool and relaxed (much needed for both of us). It was awesome. God is so good to give us the time and the resources to go away and be together.  

My handsome husband finally got his much needed time to SIT!!!  And read a book.  He forgets how much he enjoys these things until he finally gets to do them!!  I'm so thankful for him!!!

While we were in Greenville we walked downtown.  There is an amazingly beautiful park/bridge/waterfall area right in the middle of town.  It was a beautiful day!!  We were so thankful for some quality restful time.

Carlos and I were able to go to the Greenville Zoo and saw some amazing animals.  I took a ton of pictures, but here are just a few.  

I got to get really close to the turtles.

  He really wanted to make sure that he got into the picture!!   He kept smiling and showing his teeth.  

In February, we were able to visit some of our best friends in the world.  All 6 of us met in San Antonio, Texas for a week of fun!!  We visited some great places, ate some great food, played lot of "Settlers of Catan," but best of all, laughed so hard it hurt.   We are so blessed to know the Kempenichs and the Walkers!!

Since coming to Greenwood, the Lord has provided my dream job.  I work at a ministry called "A Place For Us" that houses 6 (at a time) young women who are going through unplanned pregnancy.  They live in the program until the baby is born (and for a little while after).  I am the program instructor. I am in charge of the girls' Bible studies, adoption classes, parenting classes, crown budgeting, keeping up with the girls' schooling (some with GED, others homebound high school).  I also work with them on job skills and training.  It's hard to describe all that the ministry entails in just a few words.  The team of amazingly Godly ladies I work with are such a blessing and so encouraging as we all go through triumphs and failures together!  Praise HIM!  Here are a few pictures of my girls.  

We met Amanda and Brian when we moved to Greenwood and soon after, sweet Corrie Anna was born.  She is now  6 months (and a baby genius). :)  This was her first try at drinking juice.  We really enjoy our time with Amanda, Brian and Corrie Anna!  And Corrie just happens to be the cutest thing since sliced bread.  

Mom and Gramma Lulu visited Greenwood for a great weekend!!!!!!!!  We had such a great time. We talked and talked and talked (I know all of you that know us are so surprised by this).  We sat out on the screened in porch, they rearranged all my furniture and they did a TON of yard work!!  We made many piles of pine cones and pulled all of the "foreign" plants out of the flower beds.  Gramma bought me a "lopper" to lop off all the small trees and bushes that didn't need to be there!!  We also got to grill out with Carlos and sit on the patio with our new patio chairs (thanks mom and gramma!!)  I would not change that weekend for anything in the world.  I have some amazing women to live up to!!

In mid February, we were able to go visit the Acosta family in Miami florida!  We also got to celebrate Carlos's 28th birthday with the whole family!  We visited Carlos's grandparents and Aunt Fanny and Uncle Brian in Lakeland Florida also.  We had some really special time with Carlos's grandparents who we hadn't been able to see in a while.  Dantes and Onyx also went with us and the Acosta family was gracious enough to let the dogs stay.  Bully and Luna (the Acosta's dogs) and our dogs were not very fond of one another, so they alternated spending time in the garage and the backyard.  Wow...what an ordeal! :)  

We have made some amazing friends in Greenwood.  These are our friends Russ and Karen trying to do a dance in skates!  It wasn't very successful but no one got hurt! :)

Our small group got together recently to surprise one of our members with a Happy 40th 80's Skate party!  It was hilarious!!! (This is one of Carlos's attendings and his son, Ben.

We have joined an amazing church family called Greenwood Presbyterian Church!  It is about 200 people which is the perfect size for us.  It REALLY is a little family!  Our sweet pastor and his wife call us about once a week or so to pray with us and check up on us.  (SO SWEET).  I was able to go our women's retreat a couple of weeks ago!  There were about 20 ladies there from age 24-84.  What a testimony to me to see their lives at all of those stages.  We ALL (except sweet Glenda that is 84) stayed up all night playing Catch Phrase! :)  We have also just joined a small group on Wednesday nights.  A couple of Carlos's attendings are the leaders (I'm so glad he is training under such great and Godly men!).  The ladies have been a blessing to hear from and learn from and ask questions to!  We are so blessed!  I am starting to work with the little kids choir.  They are working on the GT and the Halo Express verses!!!!! LOVE IT!!

Carlos and I have been working hard to conserve energy and save money as well as do our part to help out the environment.  It has been fun to come up with creative ways to do this.   Here are a few:

We keep up our compost pile and recycle as much as possible.

We have been trying to eat some organic foods.

We also try to shop locally (small business) for flowers and food.

We drive less, or we try to carpool if possible.

We have installed a few water aerators on our faucets and shower heads that save a lot of water each year.

BUT, my absolute favorite has been that we have stopped using our drying and so I get to hang all the clothes out on the line!!  They always smell so fresh!!  It makes me so happy to look out the window to see the sheet, towels and clothes blowing in the wind! (I'm pretty sure this feeling is genetic!! :))  God blows the clothes in the sunshine and dries them off for me!! :)

One thing that we really wanted to have was a yard for the puppies and for time with friends.  We have an amazing yard and a fence off to the side for the dogs.  We also have a great patio area for BBQ.

We have loved our sweet little house in Greenwood, SC.  This is our first house and it has been such a blessing from the Lord.  It is ranch style is sits on a wonderful yard!!!  It has 2 bedrooms, 1 study/bedroom, 2 bathrooms, living room, family room, dining room, laundry room, great kitchen, screened in back porch, carport and a large extra workshop/garage.  This house was a great find (as is the neighborhood), and we could have not asked for a better place to live for our years in Greenwood.  God is SO good!

Onyx Acosta is also part of our family.  She actually came with our house in Greenwood.  She was owned by the previous owners of the house and they could not take her to their new place and so we happily added her to our family.  She is a Chinese Shar Pei and she is the queen of the castle (or so she thinks).  She is for sure an oldest child.  She is independent and likes to be on her own.  She does like to cuddle, but Dantes likes to make sure that is she gets to cuddle, he can cuddle too.  She is also called Anika (by the neighbors)  and enjoys all of the food they give her.  She is an excellent guard dog and is always on the lookout!! She DOES NOT like swimming in the lake...although she has had to try!! :)

Dantes Acosta is one of the members of our family. He is named after Edmond Dantes in the book, The Count of Monte Cristo! He is a Cane Corso Mastiff (smaller than most...thankfully).  He is for sure the youngest child and needs to be the center of our attention as much as possible.  He is so sweet.  He is also known as Santos by our sweet neighbors in their late 80's.  (they have a little trouble hearing).  :) Dantes enjoys walks, any food and he also enjoys all of the amazing goodies he is fed by the neighbors (such as steak, cornbread, chicken and crackers!!).  He loves to swim in the lake and wrestle with his sister Onyx.  

WELCOME!!

Welcome to Somewhere Over The Rainbow With The Acosta Family!!  We wanted to start a page for those of you that we wish we could see on a regular basis.  We are thankful for the blessings that the Lord has given us and we wanted to share our lives with you!!