Neal's Croatia Trip

Neal is back from his week mission trip to Croatia! I'll get all the details from him and pass them along soon. He came home and crashed! In the mean time, here are some pictures from his trip:

New Scrapbooking Layouts

So I've been working on some scrapbooking lately. Newest idea...pre-made scrapbooks for gifts! I make the layout and all you have to do is put in your pictures! Neal says I should sell them on e-bay!

Here's the latest one in an 8" x 8" book:



Page 1


Page 2


Page 3

There are 20 total pages in this book, so if you want to see them, just e-mail me and I'll send them to you.

Six Parker Birthday's

Last night we drove up to Athens to see David & Caroline, Sharon, Grandma & Grandpa Farthing, Danny & Beckie, and Blake. We were celebrating the six birthdays that occur during the months of February and March. It was a great time enjoyed by, it seemed, almost everyone! Caroline had prepared some Tapas that smelled delicious, and then a homemade cake with lemon filling and homemade icing with fresh coconut. Yes, I ate coconut and it was scrumptious! Here are a few of the highlights:

February Catch-Up

So what has happened since the last update.

We spent an evening at the Georgia Aquarium for Georgia Tech night at the Aquarium. There were a TON of people there, but we did get a couple of cool shots of the fishes!






That night, around 10:00pm, out of the blue, I got a severe pain in my lower right abdomen. Well, after it wouldn’t subside after 4 hours, we went to Piedmont Hospital. They admitted me right away and ran CT scans, blood work, and all this other stuff. Luckily, they ruled out appendicitis. Most likely the diagnosis was a ruptured cyst. Should be fully healed in a week or so!




Friday evening was the beginning of the Biblical Counseling Conference. Although I was still drugged from being in the hospital and had to go to bed and missed half of it, what I heard was really good! We are learning so much and anticipate amazing growth from this in our own relationship as well as our relationships with friends and families.


Now we are to Neal’s semester midterm. He’s got about 3 tests this week and 3 tests next week. He is spending all his time preparing for them and that causes him to be quite tired each day. Please pray that he would be able to recall all of this studying at each test and that the outcomes would be satisfactory!


Neal had 2 interviews middle of last week. One with a local energy consulting group and the other was with GE Energy. He should hear something back by the end of this week.


This Friday we are heading up to Athens to spend the evening with David & Caroline & little Dmitri along with Sharon & Andres, Danny & Beckie, and Grandma & Grandpa Farthing. We are celebrating the 6 family birthdays in the months of February and March! Can’t wait, it’ll be fun!


I think that’s all for now! Hopefully I’ll remember to update before the end of March!

The Birthday Week

The birthday week has come to an end. It was a great week of celebration with friends and family!

Tuesday was my (Deborah’s) birthday. A wonderfully simple evening with chocolate, a movie, Chinese takeout and no dishes! Oh the simple joys in life!

Wednesday was not such a good day. Neal unfortunately was in yet another small fender bender. Nothing major and no one was hurt thankfully, but the car does need some more work. He came home afterward to chocolate cake with chocolate icing and fresh amazingly good strawberries, so that kind of helped with the bummed-out attitude!

Thursday was Neal’s birthday! After a full day of working and school, we met up with Neal’s parents, sister, brother and sister-in-law. We ate at P.F. Chang’s and had a good time with all of them. We are headed up to Athens in two weeks to meet with almost everyone on Neal’s side of the family so that we can all celebrate the 6 birthday’s in February and March. Should be fun!

Friday I had plans to surprise Neal. Yes, I kept the secret for about an entire month!! I didn’t cave until Friday at lunch! I had booked a suite at the Marriott Marquis...on the 29^th floor!! Amazing views of Atlanta! Then, that evening, we walked a block and a half down to Agatha’s: Atlanta’s original comedy, murder mystery dinner theater. The show was Mayberry R.I.P. It was HILARIOUS! I think we laughed the entire night! Everyone in the audience has a part, Neal was Jud Clumpett, a hillbilly and I was Doodle, one of the ‘Fun Gals’.

Saturday we were able to relax and enjoy the day. Neal had a lunch meeting with a friend, and I was able to do some shopping with my mom!

On Sunday, Neal told our Pastor that he had decided to join the mission team that will be going to Croatia in April. We have been praying about this for several weeks now and believe that this is the right timing for him to make this trip! It is during his “dead week”, the week before his finals. He has been able to move several of them around so that he will not miss anything important while he is out of the country.

On Tuesday I got a call from my mom telling me that my on Sunday the 1st and Monday the 2nd, my grandpa had two minor heart attacks. He was able to get to the hospital immediately, the second one actually happened in at my grandmother's doctor's appointment. The doctors were able to go into his veins and arteries and find two separate blockages. One of them they were able to leave alone because the blood was able to find a different route of sorts. The second one they cleaned and removed the block as well as put in a small stint. The doctors were very positive after both surgeries and expect him to fully recover. Tuesday the 2nd was his 80th birthday. Please keep him and my grandmother in your prayers as they make some adjustments and start to recover.

So, another year older and we can’t wait to see what adventures and opportunities are going to come up in this next year of life!