We had a long weekend at LTC but it was a wonderful time of fellowship ... and reunion. We got to see Sheri, Butch/Suzanne, Stephanie and the Bank's girls ... all but Kaci (sad face). We enjoyed catching up over coffee and visiting while bopping back and forth between events that our kiddos were involved in. It's always wonderful to get together with the Bank's ... but it's always hard to say good-bye, as well.
Our congregation brought home lots of wonderful awards in various areas. They were amazing! Our Estonian congregation also had entries again this year. Always amazing is their beautiful scrapbook with handmade cover and loads of photos of people we love and miss. Of course, I cried when I saw all the photos and special pages ... still, just touching it made me feel closer to all of them. As always, they did a beautiful job. I didn't get to judge their work but they get a 'gold' in my book. =0)
Kayli's hard work paid off with several gold medals. Here are the results of her entries / events:
Bible Reading ~ Silver / Children's Book ~ Gold / Large Chorus ~ Silver / Photography ~ Gold / Puppets ~ Gold / Signing for the Deaf ~ Gold / Service Challenge ~ Gold / Teaching Challenge ~ Gold
She was a little disappointed in the Bible Reading results ... turns out that things are done differently here than we did them in Estonia. There we had all the kids wear their LTC tshirts for all events ... here they are required to dress-up for some. She wasn't prepared to do that, so she lost her gold medal in Bible Reading because she wasn't dressed for the occasion. No big deal ... she will know for next year.
She got lots of nice compliments though on her other judging sheets. One judge told her she should consider being a deaf interpreter (it helps to have an interpreter brother for her teacher ~ smile) and another told her they could picture her photograph for sale in a Christian bookstore. Needless to say, she's a bit pumped. We're awfully proud as well.
Here is her winning photograph -- I think she's turning into a pretty good little photographer, if I might say so myself.