Friday: Delayed, Like the Rest of the Week!

Woke up to Deckster singing "Rise 'n Shine!" The morning seemed to drag on - we had a very slow start getting out of the base camp.

Josh's van didn't go to the Rush's right away. We went to Wal-Mart to get pics developed to make a photo album and get things to fix Aristotle's bike.

We went back to the Rush's to meet up with the rest of the gang and to finish up whatever needed to be finished...up. Which wasn't very much at all. Nathan repaired Aristotle's bike while the rest of us made our way to the pool which was now fully filled and ready to play in.

The pool was wicked! We spent a whole working day in the pool just having good laughs with the 4 boys and performing somersaults and other crazy jumps into the pool. We got pretty sweet tan lines.

This is where the hard part of the week came. It was time for the good-byes we were dreading all week. Claire, Stacy, Martha and Connie sang for the Rushes. We shared a heartfelt prayer and said our good-byes, which were not easy at all. I don't think there was a dry eye in the house the Rushes can now call home.

Ms. Rush told us to be grateful for things we have. She asked us to tell our parents how much we really do love them as well. She was so very thankful and appreciated everything we did for them.

We would just like to let everyone reading know that we may have helped the Rushes in a small way but they impacted OUR lives in a much bigger way than they'll ever know. They have managed to find a place in each and every one of our hearts.

Almost as soon as we were back to the base camp, it started to rain. This was almost symbolizing to us a closure of the week. We couldn't go to Biloxi because of the rain unfortunately, but we did however get to watch movies, go out to the Cracker Barrel for dinner and ... CUT JOSH'S HAIR!!! Muhahaha...

~ Connie and Nathan

Friday: Photoblog

More photos here.

Here are some photo entries as a temporary place-holder for Friday's entry from Connie and Nathan. We were caught up in last-day in Moss Point activities and didn't have much of a journaling time. Look for a more extensive post tomorrow.

For now, enjoy the pictures and head over to the Flickr page for many, many more!

Thursday: Let the Good Times Roll

More photos here

We slept all day. We did just about nothing but eat and that's it. Just kidding! So we got up and ate some "Tootie Frooties" for breakfast and headed for our worksite.

We walked into the house and boy were were we surprised! Ms. Rush had basically finished all of the painting (including a 2nd coat!) She's crazy! We then had to think fast and come up with a new list of things to do. This list included cleaning and refilling their pool, doing a little more painting, and cleaning out the garage. For the rest of the day, we played with the kids, ate some lunch...

and Martha enjoyed a nap on the concrete kitchen floor.

We then went to the local phantasmagorical bowling lane where we played for 2 hours. The bowling was wedgielicious! Some boys cried - Andy, a few fell, and others jumped for joy from this magical bowling experience.

Then we came back to the center where we enjoyed some of Fuhrer Josh's exquisite cuisine of fettucine alfredo with broccoli on the side for the Conaboys. We were all having the hinkering jinkerings for Klondike bars so we naturally were thrilled when Josh, Pat, Nathan, and Andy pranced in with platters of perfect Klondike bars on them. So with one last song and dance from Josh and Nathan we're out! Peace Home Dog.

~ Mattie and Martha

Wednesday: Beauty and the Beach

More photos here.

Today was RAD. We had the usual breakfast: cereal and bagels. Of course, this was after about 20 minutes of Josh saying, "C'mon, guys, its time to get up."

We breezed through our work today, piece of cake. We got two rooms finished from scratch, and we put the second coat on the kitchen. Miss Rush was super excited to see the house shaping up the way it was. Of course the best part of the day was playing with the kdis.

We introduced the Red Hot Chili Peppers to them, and I'm pretty sure Tchaikovsky loved it but I'm not positive about the others. Christian finally came out of his shell and he's a cool kid.

After working we went to the BEACH!! The water was sooooooooo warm and shallow. We were like 250 yards out from the sand and could still stand!

We hung out at night with a guy named Eric who is an amazing singer, and it was sweet. Conaboy...out

~ Pat