Karl was here

Hello from the Dallas Koepkes. hope ya'll are well. Mom said you wanted my e-mail address: karjoreli@aol.com

PLEASE HELP! anyone use paypal??

Hey sorry to plead for help but desperate people do desperate things :) We had a paypal account but then cancelled it like a year ago... I needed to buy some used books off the internet and the seller ONLY takes paypal.. I then tried to sign up for a new account but they refused me because my e-mail already had an account yada yada yada... Sooo does anyone out there in Beaird land have a paypal account that could send this person their $$ and Lanell will send you a check from us??? I will be eternally grateful and Rachel will get some much needed books when our friend Jeremy Nunez comes over 2 weeks from now. Happy thought indeed friends with full suitcases!! :) Anyway, if you're willing to help let me know and I'll e-mail you the amount and person's e-mail address



In other news we're enjoying beautiful fall weather - we pretty much dropped school last week to spend every moment playing in the leaves, picking up apples, baking squash & pumpkins, making sun-dried tomatoes, and making/freezing lots of applesauce.. we feel like little squirrels getting ready for winter. (don't worry grandparents we will do school more school soon - i mean what else do you do when it's -40 outside? :) We also took some loooong walks to a beautiful woods (6 km away!) and there Rachel got to feed an adorable squirrel sunflower seeds. She was so excited and now has plans to have a pet squirrel named AnnaBelle (hmmm she loves her counsin's name so much!:) Well that's about all that's new with us... have a good week everyone!



I wish you could watch Caleb work.. cracks James up - says he reminds him exactly of Grandad.. just constant busy busy carrying hauling, has to help me with the dishes, make breakfast, sweep the floor.. now David on the other hand.... :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRIANNA!!

Happy Happy Birthday precious Brianna! We hope you have a wonderful day celebrating! I can NOT believe it was five years ago today that Joel & Marla became parents! (have the past five years passed fast for ya'll too??!?) Seems like just yesterday we were at your wedding :) Well we love you Brianna and pray God's rich blessings on this next year of your life. Your cousin Rachel can't wait to see you again.. and David & Caleb I'm sure will look forward to wrestling with you and playing their famous 'scary snake' game.

We just got back from the Moscow ZOO! What a day!! Our friends Will & Phyllis Hunsucker (also missionaries in a city called Kovrov - about 4 hours outside Moscow) met us with their children Jaan & Raia who are the same ages as Caleb & Johanna. We had so much fun! David was hilarious.. I mean I laughed so much just watching him - when we got there James bought this little map of the zoo as a souvineer. Well David held it the whole time directing us and telling us which way to go.. was James like this?? He does the same thing at home with James' car map. Caleb loved the lions and went around the rest of the day 'roaring'. Rachel loved the horses - when she went to bed tonight she told me 'maybe when we go back to Texas I could get a job working for someone who has a horse.' (hee hee!! maybe Erinn can hire her on!! :) Here's one picture of all four of them.

Ohh and Rachel - I am praying for Mooky! I was so sad to hear about this and praying God will show you what the source of the poisoning is.. I wrote you yesterday but left it on the 'comments' section. Go below where you posted and it will read '1 comment' - click on that and you can read what I replied too. I know several missionaries who have had to leave Russia because of Cadmium & Uranium poisoning so I've done a little bit of research about this topic. Keep us updated on how Mooky is doing..

hmmmm can't seem to upload pics tonight - will do some tomorrow - our water has been off the past days and you would NOT believe what my kitchen looks like right now!! (i should post a picture).. yeah for water that comes out of the faucet!!! anyway, the water just came back on and I need to race james to the shower....:0

YAY!! GB is a blogger too! :o)


We are goint to TRY to have a normal school day today. Now that I know Mooky needs to eat protein every two hours I am hoping the school day will go much more smoothly.
Update for those of you who havent heard about Mooky's recent problems:
We took him to a natural doctor in Fredericksburg and found that that the reason he is having fatigue and depression is because he has heavy metal poisoning, fungus, severe vitamin b deficiency, parasites, food allergies and a blood sugar problem which may or may not be either diabetes or hypoglycemia. As severe as his problems are, the dr was surprised that he has ANY good days at all! We have sent off a hair sample and water sample to see if we can find out where the heavy metal toxins are coming from...
Please pray!
Rachel

Betty Nall here~~~~

I am a blogger now too...... :)

We want to go to YOUR school!!

Wow! we just loved all the pictures and stories - thanks so much for letting us share your experiences. When we're in the States next time we're coming over to help... Aunt Betty can help evicerate next time. (btw that was the word for the day for us! :)

well our funny memory for the week was Thursday evening, I kept thinking I wish Grandpa was here he'd sure enjoy this feast. James decided to make fried eggplant & shrimp.. it was so so much fun. I guess David had overheard me say to James something like 'you know this isn't really that good for you.' (while he was frying away), so at the dinner table with his mouth overloaded with eggplant David said 'you know for this stuff not being very good it is sure yummy!' Wish I could have got it on the camera. Rachel was so excited she got up from the table and exclaimed 'I need to go write about this in my dairy!!'

James, Rachel, David & Caleb are at a birthday party right now - their friend & neighbor Natasha is turning 8.. they were SO excited about going.

Here's a picture I took at lunch of JoJo - she's getting too cute!

No school today?

Snowflake looks like a really nice dog Rachel!!
How do you like that headless horse that Erinn is riding? That's Glory.

Wellll... no school today, but we were learning anyway!
We have about 8 or 10 roosters who are a never-ending source of aggravation to Mooky and Erinn. Mooky has them all penned up so they cannot harrass the hens, which they do whenever they can bribe a goat to jump on the pen and knock the lid to the cage off. Then Mooky has to go catch them all again. I never have to ask him to do this - he just cant stand to see them pecking the hens bloody. Having them in this pen makes extra work for Erinn as well who has to feed them separately from all the other chickens.
So, we've been saying we need to butcher them, and one thing after another kept stopping us.
Last night Kris sharpened knives for us and then went off to work today, wishing he could stay home to help with our butchering party.
First, Mooky caught a rooster.

Then we hung it from a tree and checked the temperature of the water to see if it was hot enough for scalding the chicken which makes plucking SO much easier!

The water was just right so we dispatched with the chickens head, but didn't take a picture because we knew if we did Granny Betty would never read this blog again. (haha!)


Then you dip the chicken in hot water to loosen the feather so you can pluck it easily. The trick is not to leave him in the hot water too long or the skin starts to cook and it rips when you pull on the feathers. OTOH, if you dont leave it in long enough the feathers wont come out easily!


These pics are taking FOREVER to upload so I will spare yall and not put them ALL up. This post is probably way too long anyway. Sorry about that!

All in all, we had a great morning! Got 10 pesky roosters into the freezer, and the kids learned how to bucher chickens! They enjoyed it, surprisingly, and next time I will teach them how to eviscerate. I did that this time, but Erinn really enjoyed cutting the feet off. :o)

Hi Rachel, David, Caleb and Johanna!

Hi Yall!
We didnt have to do any school today because we had to butcher chickens instead. It turned out to be kinda fun!
Love, Mooky and Erinn

Rachel & Snowflake

Rachel wanted me to post this picture yesterday, but didn't get a chance. Also just ran across this picture of where we live... we used to live in the pink apartment building, but now we live on the other side of the street where there are rows of individual houses. We still go for lots of walks down this street on our way to the store.