Long time ~ no post...

Wow! It seems like forever since I have posted. ( That's because it has been , huh?) :-) Anyhow, God has been so faithful to our family in sooo many ways. I recently was sick, and unsure of the outcome, but God showed us that His will was to touch me and make me well. For that I AM truly greatful. As Greg already posted, we have turned in our Missions application here at H.I.M. and things seem to be happening really quickly to my human eyes. However, I KNOW that God's timing is perfect and He is allowing things to happen according to His perfect plan. When I say "quickly" I mean that in a positive way. It just amazes me how once Greg and I felt God leading us in a certain direction, and we obeyed Him, things that we have prayed about and discussed for quite some time are starting to take place! God truly is WONDERFUL!
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The Children are doing wonderful! I think this Christmas is going to be really different for them (and us) without snow. We have our tree up, and our decorations out, and our air conditioning on!! :-) We are still going to make it as "normal" as possible for ALL of us.... making Christmas candies, shopping, wrapping presents, eating our Christmas candies, sending out Christmas letters and photos, doing our Christmas puzzle, did I mention eating our Christmas candies!!! :-) Wesley is REALLY close to walking, and he now has seven teeth. I am going to have to bring this post to a really quick close because the library here on campus is going to be closing in about ten mins.
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I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and a wonderful week in the Lord!!
~Tasha

We're still alive!!! :-)

For those of you that have seen our previous post hundred's of times, I apologize! We are not able to keep up with our blog like we would like to. Life has been incredibly crazy. God has been showing me some things since we've been here! ( Maybe I will have the liberty to post about those at a later date!) In the meantime, as our friends and family my one request is PRAY!!! We need your prayers.... If God brings our family to mind- please pray, as we will do the same for you as God brings you to mind!

Well, I should go for now! I need to get to work! Have a great week!
~Tasha

P.S.
Bottle up some cold weather and send it our way! I think it's supposed to be in the 80's here today! :-)

Nice breeze.

Hey it's finally a little easier to breath, the temps are falling and so is the humidity, (thank God!) The house we have been in, has some serious electrical problems, so we are moving to a different house. The new one has extensive termite damage, so I have been ripping things out and repairing everything from window sills to built in shelves. I have inadvertantly become a painter down here, I am getting one house prepared and the post office. After a few years these block buildings can use a good paint job. Well, enough of my rambling. I need to get to work.

~Greg

....and Church History makes two.

Hey, I received my books and other materials yesterday to start class. I will be taking Church History and Intro to Counseling. It's a start......

I am starting art class for the boys this week, to supplement the curriculum we are using. Our first project looks like it will be a load of fun. We are studying different Buildings (structures, arcitecture.) then to just add a bit of fun I am taking them down the road a couple miles to lego city. At lego city we can pay a little less than a dollar a piece to "build" the structures we are studying, then of course we can just play the rest of the day. I will be sure to get some pictures.
Have a great day!
~Greg

Prayer request.

As some of you already know, we are in a VERY small house (family of seven in 500 square feet.) As you can imagine things are pretty tight. We have heard that FEA will have a house empty the first part of November, and it is 4 bedroom 2 bath. As you can also imagine this house would be a HUGE blessing for our family. Please pray that the powers that be at FEA will allow us to move into this new house. Everything is progressing with my classes, I will only be taking two (starting next tuesday.) Church History, and Intro to counseling. I am excited to start. Tasha and I also have another prayer request for all our family and friends. In January there is a TLC trip to Nicaragua, it is a "backpack project" to take over one thousand backpacks filled with school supplies to needy children. I am signed up to go on this trip. Please pray for everything from my passport getting here on time to evengelistic oppurtunities. I am very excited to be going. I will be involved in some roofing projects as well as possibly having some preaching oppurtunities. Pray for God's direction. God is good!! Keep us in your prayers, as you might have already guessed we are a little homesick. The kids are making a lot of new friends, but they miss the ones from back home. Well I really need to get busy, Tanner had to come to the library for some of his school work so I thought I would take advantage of the time to write a short post. Take care!
~Greg

Blessings.

I had believed that I would have to wait until the January session to begin my classes, but I was just this morning told that I will in fact be able to begin October 21st. (By going through the adult distributed education department.) and that my pell grant will cover the complete cost of my first three or four classes. Praise the Lord!!! This is such a blessing to me. We were also offered another part time position in the thrift store this morning. This will help to supplement What we are doing in the housekeeping department already. So, as you can see, (as you said Liz,) where God guides He most certainly provides!! We are enjoying the ministry of the church as well as the relationship God is helping us to build with Hope International Missions. Keep us in your prayers, I have a feeling that things are about to get busy. Love to all!!

~Gregory

FINALLY.... some pictures of our trip!!!!!

We left Bluffton, Indiana at around 6:30 p.m. Monday Sept. 8th. We drove as far as Lexington, Kentucky before we stopped at our first hotel. The next day we headed out for Tennessee. We drove as far as Valdosta, Georgia. On Wednesday we continued on in Georgia. (Did I mention how LONG you are in Georgia?) We arrived in Florida at about 3:45 p.m. Wednesday afternoon. The children were WONDERFUL, the trip however was long. However long the trip, God was faithful, and we arrived to our destination safe. Here are some pictures of the trip and a few of our new life in Florida. I hope that you enjoy them!! :-)

Greg bringing the moving truck to our house in Bluffton to load.

Our dear friend Danny Flowers (Greg's "other" brother.) helping us load the truck.

This is the van that the Lord supplied for us the Saturday before we left!

The kids LOVE it!!!

Elizabeth (my best friend) kept Elli and Wes while we packed the truck. What a life saver she was. She also prepared a pork roast that we used to have pulled-pork sandwiches with. Thanks Elizabeth. :-)

This is what I saw for 2 1/2 days. It became a comforting sight to me that I didn't want to lose sight of!

At the hotels that we stayed in I needed something for Wesley to sleep in soooooo....
I emptied out our suitcase, laid down a towel inside and PRESTO~ a baby bed!! :-)

Day 2: Daddy and the crew ready for another day of adventure!!!

This is the first palm tree that we saw in Georgia. ( Notice that it is blurry, I took it going down the road while driving.)

After going through downtown Georgia, we stopped to eat at a Wendy's. This is what the boys saw out the window. They wanted me to get a picture of it! :-) Of course it says "eat more ckikin'!"

Day 3: Mama and the crew ready for our final day of adventure!

What a welcomed sign!

Our new home!

Skyler, "hanging out" at the park.

Elliana having fun at the park.

Tanner, well.... just being Tanner. He'll climb anything!!!

Cory enjoying himself.

That's a smile that can't even hide behind his foo-fee! :-)

I hope that you enjoyed some of these photos of our trip. I will post more of them soon!

~Tasha

New Faces, New Places

We are so glad for what God is doing in our lives. Leaving Indiana (Home) was very hard for me, I think Tasha and the children are accepting the new-ness better than I am. I think in my old age I want to put down roots, but God has a plan, of that much I am sure!! I am waiting to start classes until next semseter (January) I am ecxcited to begin, so I can be finished. I want to be better prepared for what ever ministry God has for us in the near future. We have had a couple invitations already, as well as Hope International Missions always being a possiblility as well. Pray for us, that we will hear God's voice clearly amid all the noise. For someone with a passion for missions, Florida carries a lot of noise. The children say "Hello" to Grandma and pa Quakenbush, Grandma and pa Hood and to Ben, Becca, and Abby. We sure do miss all you guys. We have been comforted by the fact that I have a cousin and his family here, we go down and bug them as often as we dare:) I am working hard on getting our internet up. The IT guys says we can't do it in the house we are in, but I am out to prove him wrong! Tasha want's to get new pictures up. We are trying. More later.
Greg

We made it!!!

Well, we are finally here in VERY sunny Florida. We cannot post any pics b/c we do not have internet at our house yet! Hopefully we will be able to get it soon! The trip went really well as far as the children are concerned- it was just really LONG!!!!! We are trying to find our "new normal", I know, normal is just a setting on your dryer! :-) But hopefully we will get some kind of a new routine soon!
Please pray for Wesley, he seems to be wanting to nurse a lot, and is really fussy as he is cutting teeth! Pray for all of us as we adjust to a lot of new things in our life right now! We love and miss all of you greatly and hopefully we will join the blogging world again real soon!
~Tasha

And We're Off..... :-)

Well tomorrow is the BIG moving day! We're getting the truck by 9:00a.m., then loading, we'll be eating a meal with our BEST friends before we go, and then we're off! Please pray that all goes smooth, and that there is very little stress! Also, we got a "new to us van" that I will be driving so please pray that I feel comfortable with it. ( After two-three days of sitting in it I'm sure we'll know each other REAL well!) :-) One of my main concerns is nursing Wesley. We've tried two different formulas and he likes the second kind a LITTLE better than the first, but will only take a few sips! So I guess we will see what happens!

We will be sure to post pics of our trip as soon as we get the Internet hooked up in Florida. I will be anxious to catch up with all of your blogs when we get settled in- until then may God bless. Have a wonderful week!
In Christ,
~Tasha

Please Pray-Part Two!

Thank you for all of your prayers from my earlier post! Things are coming around, however we have another matter of prayer! We have been battling the stomach flu since last Saturday. It has hit pretty much everyone except Wesley. I talked with the Dr. today and if I understood correctly he should be o.k. since he is still nursing! The reason I had to be at the Dr. today anyway was because I noticed that Wesley had a couple of patches of white inside of his mouth this morning. My first thought was thrush. He hollered out a couple of times last night, and I mentioned to Greg that I thought that maybe he might be getting an ear infection... Well then this morning I noticed that he had the white spots. I wanted to get him into the Dr. before our long trip, and also not knowing how long it would take to get into the Dr. down there. When I called the Dr.'s office she said that they didn't have any appts. available today and once I explained my need to get him in right away the Lord allowed her to work us in. Diagnosis: Thrush & an Ear Infection!! Poor little guy! Please pray that God will touch his little body as well as those of us who are recovering from the flu! We appreciate your prayers!
God Bless!
~Tasha

Happy Birthday!!!!

Happy Birthday to my beautiful wife!!! September the 17th. We will be really busy unpacking and getting settled in (in Florida) on your birthday, and I'm not to sure when we will get our internet back up down there, so I thought I better say Happy Birthday now.


Please be patient with us, we have a malicous virus on our computer (the one with all our pictures.) We can not even run antivirus programs on it. I am in the middle of saving our data to be transferred to a new computer. Moral of the story, Oh be careful little bloggers what you download!

~Greg

Busy Week!

We are feeling a lot of emotions right now! It seems as though we have prayed for all of the details of this move to fall together for awhile now, and here we are just days away from departure! Feelings of excitement for what God holds in our near future, nervousness of the unexpected, sadness from goodbyes that we said to my family in Ohio this past weekend (and will soon be saying to family and friends here in Indiana), a lot of emotions.... but one thing that we know for sure that is not based on human emotions is that we are in the center of God's will and as long as we rest in that exact spot, we will be comforted and continue to see things orchestrated by God's almighty, never failing hand! Please continue to pray for us as this will be a busy week! Thank you for all of your prayers already, they mean more than words can express! May you have a blessed week in Christ!
God Bless!
~Tasha

Please Pray!!!

Just a quick note to ask an interest in your prayers! Our family has a lot going on in our lives (Good things) right now and we would really value the prayers of our friends and family.


We have been praying for a while about selling our house. Just four days ago (I think) we finally put a "For sale" sign out front. Today I was at work and Tasha called me, I had been talking with the housing people at Hobe Sound shortly before Tasha called, and found out that they have a house for us. This is nothing short of a miracle, housing is VERY limited right now. So, anyway Tasha called me at work and told me that the same guy that I had shown the house to over the weekend was looking at it again, this time with his Father. Steve wanted to talk to me, so Tasha handed him her phone and Steve and I had this conversation.

" Hey Greg, your house is sold!"

.........." It's what?"

" It's sold! We want to buy it."

"Great!!!!"

At that time Steve asked his Father when they could get the money. He said they could get it tonight or in the morning. We are starting all the paperwork tomorrow. We should be packed and ready to move by the second week of September. Please pray that everything continues to move forward in God's time. Thank you to all of those friends and family members that have been praying for us concerning my returning to school.

Greg Q.

***Check out our handy dandy countdown at the bottom of the page......

A fun week!!

This has been a week of fun activities. Here are a few pics of what we did...



On Tuesday we met our best friends, the Flowers, at the park and let the kids play for awhile. We then went to their house and had a cookout! Bottom row LtoR: Rebecca, Elliana, Skyler, Abigail, and Benjamin. Top row LtoR: Tanner and Cory.



Elliana on the slide.



Our boys LOVE to climb trees! This is Cory in a tree at the park...



... and Skyler...



...and Tanner! ( Tanner lost his glasses at a "Men and Boys Outing" for church, but God has once again provided for our need and allowed insurance to cover another pair! PRAISE GOD!! He should get them soon!) :-)



My BEST friend~ Elizabeth and I.



Wesley "playing" with Caleb at the cookout that we had.



On Wednesday Aunt Glenna (Greg's sister) came over for supper. It was a nice visit.

On Friday we went to Janae's birthday party. (My cousin Monica Myers little girl.) I forgot the camera, so no photos! :-(



Today we celebrated Papaw Dan's birthday. (It was Wednesday.) We had a nice time visiting with Greg's family. His sister Glenna was there, brother Gerald and his wife Laura with there four children, our family, and of course Papaw Dan and Grandma Brenda! Here are a few pics of our time together.



Gerald and Greg. (Glenna says that the older they get the more that they look alike!) :-)



I took this sweet picture of Wesley holding my hand today at the party! I LOVE little dimples in sweet baby hands!



LtoR: Aunt Glenna, Uncle Gerald, and Grandma Brenda outside enjoying the swing! :-)



Here are some of the kids in the tree house that some of them helped Papaw, Aunt Glenna, and Grandma build. LtoR: Tanner, Chad, and Brianna. We love spending time with family, and really enjoyed ourselves this week!

I DID IT!!!!!!

O.K., so to some people this may seem trivial- but I made lasagna for supper tonight and it wasn't too bad! :-) The noodles were a little under done, but a little longer in the oven the next time and I might actually have it!!!! This is an improvement to the last time! I didn't put aluminum foil on the last batch and the cheese burned and some of the noodles were crunchy. I put foil on this batch but only baked it for 45 min. at 350', maybe a little longer next time!(Thanks for the foil tip Elizabeth!) Anyhow, my family didn't starve and this one was better than the last, so there is hope! :-)

**** Does anyone out there have any tips for making lasagna, or extra good ingredients? How about any other good recipes? I'd love to hear from you!!!!
~ Tasha

Dog gone.

Dog for sale!!!! Well, we don't really want any money for him just a great home. If anyone wants him or knows someone who wants a great dog, let me know. He is half Border Collie and half Australian Shepherd. He is about 3.5 months old. Let me know.
Greg

Give it a look see.

Check out my new post on my page, click on the link called
From the desk of Gregory. over on the right side of this page.


See ya there friends............................................

Haircut Day!!!!!!

Today was haircut day for 4 of the Quakenbush's! The real kicker is that I broke down and gave Wesley his FIRST haircut!!! It was really needed! ( If you saw my last post with the picture of Wes and Elli you already know that!) Here are a few pictures...



BEFORE...



THE FIRST SNIP...



He was very wiggly- it took three of us to get the job done.



But look at these results~ how sweet!



Look at all of these handsome guys, what great smiles!!
I am greatful that God has enabled me to do this for our family- it saves a fortune!!!

Please Watch!!

I have just added a short video called "He's My King" at the bottom of this page. Please watch it and let me know what you think.

Gregory

Wesleyisms......

Here are a few shots of Wes, A.K.A. "Wesleyisms"!!!




I love this picture of Wesley. He looks like such a "little man"!!




This is Wesley's first 4th of July.




Snoozin' with Daddy! :-)



Enjoying his meal!!!!



Time alone with Mama. ( I will cherish these moments with all my children!)





That's a smile that can't even hide behind his Foo-Fee!!! :-)



A couple of shots with Elli. ( Notice his hair. I'm about ready to give him his first hair cut at 7 mos., but I love his little curls, especially when it's wet!)





Skyler put Wes in a little lawn chair, they have fun with "little" Wes! Speaking of "little" Wes, he weighed in at 22lbs., and I believe 28 in., at his 6 mo. check-up!!!!



7 mos. old and learning to feed himself.



That's ALL folks...




I'm tuckered!!!!!!

~Invitation~

We have been blogging for a little while now and we have "met" a lot of nice bloggers out there. We appreciate everyone that returns to our blog from time to time to see what is going on in our family. I would like to invite everyone that "stops by" to, please leave us a comment, we really enjoy reading the comments and seeing who has stopped by our little spot on the web. Thanks!

Quakenbush Look-alike Meter

****What do you think? Does Wesley look more like Daddy or Mommy? Let us know!!! :-) (One of my friends blogs directed me to this "Look-alike Meter"!)****

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family tree online - Roots