Class is done and I am now a certified diver!
Here are a few more photos of the dives we did today:
Me and my diving buddy kick back and relax after getting all our gear on. (nice goggles! 
)
Our instructor, Joel Talley, puts us through the paces.
Bouy group hug! We used the line attached to the bouy to descend and stay in the area – there was very low visibilty in the lake due to the rain. The line is right before we play “follow the leader” on a little exploratory dive.
Here is the whole group of us in our “super-suits”, aren’t we “incredible”? 
27-Jun-2007
27-Jun-2007
I’m taking Scuba!
The Dive Instructor here at ALERT is giving a class for any STEP girls that could stay a little longer and learn Scuba diving. I’ve always wanted to do this so Brian signed me up and I’m having the time of my life! We had classroom and were issued our gear on Monday. Yesterday we practiced skills in a pool then moved to the lake to try a “real ” dive. Rain hurried us out of the water and we spent the remainder of the afternoon going over dive tables in preparation for our test. Today we hope to log three dives and take our test. I’m having a blast!
23-Jun-2007
STEP Deployment – Flood Relief, Gainesville Tx
Waiting for our first assignment……. Issuing gloves.
Hauling out the ruins (notice Lori in the picture on the right).
One lady tires to salvage what she can…..another homeowner has to stack it in her front yard to be hauled away.
This lady directs which things to salvage and which to trash.
I rip out wet carpet while others clean up debris out of a yard.
At the end we sing and pray for the victims, trying to instill some sort of hope and sense of new beginning despite the tremendous loss. The whole deployment caused me to contemplate how quickly a lifetime can be lost. One man had a priceless stamp collection that was now all over the garage floor, muddy and ruined. Another old man had stacks of 8-track tapes and old records half of which were ruined by water. Others had little more than junk, and yet it was their life and memories. They had all traded time and effort for those things that were so quickly swept away, nothing remained to show the value of their effort. Is the foundation of our efforts on the rock of Jesus Christ and the things that last for a lifetime, or have we built up a house of human effort on the sand of worldliness. What are you trading your time here on earth for?
19-Jun-2007
Wow – busy!!!
Just got back from the STEP camp out. I had left the house in a complete shambles but Brian cleaned the whole thing as a surprise for me when I got back! What a great guy 
It was so nice to come back to a nice, clean, refreshing house after being dirty and sweaty all of yesterday and today!
And for the exciting news – STEP is going on a deployment first thing tomorrow morning! This is one of those unscheduled events God gives to us and everyone is really excited. We’re going to do some disaster relief in Gainesville TX cleaning up after major flooding.
Well, I have to go and pack – I’ll try and post some pictures on Friday!
17-Jun-2007
We have had a ton of rain this last week – so much, that the lake is way above all normal boundaries. Below is a picture of the dock…or everything on top of the dock.
Here’s a picture I took just last week – the water as it is now, would be up to the girl’s knees!
Lori, shows the entrance to the dock.
Of course, we had to take advantage of the unusual situation and had a blast swimming on the dock.
