I'm so excited this week because my home church is in town and they brought my oldest brother. They left Des Moines a 6:30 p.m. Saturday night and arrived at the Yellow House around 11:30 Sunday morning. We went to lunch at VooDoo BBQ and they enjoyed being able to eat outside in the warm weather.
Sunday afternoon Andrew, Jen, Kevin and I took a trip to Starbucks on the way to pick up Marc at the airport.
It's been so good to have my brother here. The team has been working on two Habitat for Humanity homes about two miles from the church. The site supervisor is actually an Urban Impact employee who helps us maintain our relationship with the organization and help rebuild our community.
Monday afternoon I found some time to joine the team on the site and they even let me work some. Andrew and I framed some windows, although I didn't have much luck with most of the nails. I blame it on faulty nails....
Apparently it's not all work.
Tuesday I had to take pictures at all the other worksites but I stopped by for lunch. Tonight we are headed to Trinity Church to hear from Pastor Michael and have a worship service with the teams staying there.

The past few days have been nothing short of amazing. Thursday night Jon and Emily found out that Extreme Makeover Home Edition was in town, and not only that, they are only about 10 blocks from where we are. So cool! So we hopped on over and signed up to be volunteers and then went to the spectator area. They had closed the area because they were filming the demolition, but we ended up making friends with the security guard and he let us stand there and watch.

About 15 minutes into our time there he asked us to move closer to the fence, which we assumed was because of his boss. A minute later we hear a British accent and turn around to see Edward, one of the designers, and Ty Pennington himself walking by. They greeted us and were very friendly.



Early Saturday we went back to volunteer and spent most of the day standing around, however, we did get the official blue t-shirts. That made me happy. :) The designers Paige, Michael and Edward were all on set Saturday and it was fun to see the filming and work being done. About midday Jon and Daniel were able to be on set helping with the flooring and you could tell they were excited.

The best part of my day was talking to a woman from North Carolina who we had met the day before and telling her about the ministry here. She took my information and is considering bringing a team to work with us! God is good!

We gave I love N.O. shirts to a few of the security guards and we are working on getting a pink one to Paige as she is totally decked out in pink for each show. I think it would be so amazing to get her to wear it for the reveal on Wednesday!

All day yesterday we awaited the bad weather that had been forecast. All day we waited. I wore my rain boots to dinner, expecting rain. Finally, at 10:30 last night it came. It was the most amazing storm I have ever experienced. Lightening and thunder, so much thunder! It was the kind you only hear in movies. It seemed to start on one horizon and travel clear across the sky. It shook the ground and brought chills. I lay in bed curled up warm and dry under the covers and just reveled in moment after moment of pure bliss. Oh how I love a good thunderstorm!