The kind of place you see in your dreams

Be still my heart. Today we went to a castle. It was stunning. Seriously a dream come true. I'm pretty sure it's the oldest thing I have ever been in. (built 300 B.C.) It was just breathtaking. How blessed I am to see so many beauties of the world. Im so grateful and will treasure the memories I made today and the past week always. Enjoy the photos.










Well my day was all together lovely. I hope yours was too!

xo
-esther

more

more time with the children

Below Alex and I are telling them the story of Jonah.

more time with the elderly

This is Iris. I have spent hours with her this week. She is as sweet as they come.


I just adore her. I realy cherish talking to her, feeding here, singing with her, and reading to her. She doesn't remember much so she gets very frustrated with herself and it breaks me heart. Simple questions like "what is your daughter's name?" can be so difficult fo her to answer. Which leaves her angry and feeling "stupid". She is one of the few people in the home who speaks English. It's also hard for her to communicate with the staff at the nursing home because she gets very frustrated due to the language barrier. So please pray that she has peace in the home. Oh I just adore her.

The guys continued working on a fence for the nursing home.

We ended the day with a dinner at the home. More delicious ice cream. My favorite. We also went to a twenties themed birthday party last night. It was so fun. I'll post pictures of that later.

Adios.
xo
-esther

Yo Amo Espana

We are continuing our work both with the children and with the elderly at the nursing home. We are really starting to build relationships with the people here. It's so exciting.




We even did a bit of yard work outside the nursing home and will continue to do so tomorrow.


After a day full of work we went to fill our water bottles with fresh spring water in this pretty fountain.

Then we came back to the church and spent some time with the youth. It was so fun. The group is so sweet. I even got to take a short ride on a motorcycle with one of them. Riding on the back of a "moto" is something I have always wanted to do. And doing it in Spain only made it ten times better.

Well that's my day in a nutshell.
I can't wait to see what else the Lord has in store for me.

My heart is so full.

xo
-esther

wonderful

We are having so much fun here in Spain. It makes me sad thinking that I only have a little over a week left to spend in Spain. But I am SO grateful that the Lord sent me serve him in this beautiful country.

Today we spent time in the morning with the children at the church school and the evening with the elderly. I just love people, so being able to spend time with such a wide range of wonderful people is truly amazing. I got to start my day loving on one year olds and ended it chatting with someone a hundred! My heart is so content!
Below are a few photos from our day. I can't wait to do it all again tomorrow.





Happy Monday dear friends.
xo
-esther

We have arrived

After an extremely long day of traveling(3 flights). We have arrived in the beautiful country of Spain. I am already starting to fall in love with this place. The people are lovely and really affectionate (anyone that knows me knows that I am someone who loves affection) So this country suits me well. We have toured the church that we will be working out and have already enjoyed to delicious meals with the people of the church. Enjoy the photos!

^paella

^the team

^make your own ice cream sandwhich

^Coryn and her new friends.

^our second meal. The meat was so good!

^peanuts and olives were served before both meals.

^Gaby, Alyse, and I

^Thank you Lord for new friendships.

Sorry most of the photos were of food... But we spent a lot of time around the table enjoying a meal and getting to know each other. Tomorrow im sure we will be doing lots more. Thanks again for all your prayers.

xo
-es

EXCITED

I am absolutely thrilled that I am heading to Spain for a mission trip tomorrow. I can't wait to see how the Lord will use me and the team to honor his name in a nation foreign to us. I feel so blessed that he has provided me with yet another opportunity to travel. He has gone above and beyond in answereing my prayers to travel this world that he made. He knows that my heart longs to see all the nations and I love that he is allowing me to do so.

Oh and something even more amazing is that after the mission trip a few of us are going to take a trip to Italy. ITALY!!! A dream come true. On my list of places to travel, England was my number one and Italy my number two. Oh my heart is full of happiness.

Please pray for the Spain Mission Team. I'm hoping I'll be able to blog a couple of times on the trip but im not quite sure if I will have internet. If not I'll be back in a couple weeks with tons of pictures.

xo
-esther

a little late

I wanted to post a few more pictures from our lovely family vacation. I don't know what I would do without a camera. Photos are the perfect things to capture all my memories. The following pictures are from the 4Th of July.

^David's new glasses + the Boston sky line = amazing

^ My mother and father, the people who took us to the east coast and spoiled us with delicious seafood dinners and nice little road trips in the east coast. We went to Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut.
^Walkling around in Salem. Their was so much neat history there. I wish we could have seen more of the little city.

^mother and daughters <3

^Lastly a picture of the whole family before the fireworks in Boston.
I love them all so much. Words can not express.

xo
-esther

Flea Market

Yesterday I went to the Rose Bowl Flea Market. It's one of my favorite places to go. I really look forward to it each month. Often I go with my dear friend Julian but she is currently out of state.

The market is by far the biggest I have ever been too. I just love looking through all the beautiful vintage goods. Who doesn't like to hunt for vintage treasures? This time I found a real gem. An absolutely perfect hand pieced hexagon quilt top. I can't even imagine how long it must have taken the maker to stitch up. I'm planning on completing the quilt it soon.



I'm kind of in love with the two pink dresses. Gah beautiful vintage formal wear makes me weak in the knees.

xoxo
-esther

please slow down

ohhh life..
you go so fast.

sometimes I can hardly stand it.
In fact most of the time I can't stand it.

Why wont you slow down so I can just soak it in.
but no
quickly you go often leaving me a bit frustrated.

am i the only one who feels like they are not living in the moment because their mind is on a 1000 other things.

unlikely

this must be a common problem.
right?

I pray that I can always live in the moment.
May the Lord help me to focus on now.
Not tomorrow or next week but NOW.

To breathe it all in.

Each day is a blessing and should be treated as one.

DAVID

The weather was absolutely lovely yesterday. Pretty blue skies called for lots of pictures.
p.s. the two photos in the middle look a lot clearer when you click on them. I can't seem to figure out why they are blurry...