A Whole Week!

Well, I actually went a whole week without blogging. I didn't set out to neglect my online journal for quite so long, but it was a busy week and things just got away from me. Here's a quick update on what has been happening around here:

• Last Saturday afternoon, we packed up the car and headed to Culpeper to visit Ken's family. His sister, Christie, and her boyfriend, Brian, had flown in from Florida for a visit and we wanted to see them. Ken's brother, Dan, had also come up with his wife, Nikki, and baby daughter, Abby. It was a crowded house! We had a great time visiting with them and Frances got to hold her baby cousin and just LOVED it. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures yet because while I did remember my camera; I forgot my memory stick.


• Sunday we spent the day in Culpeper with Ken's family. We tried to go swimming, but Mother Nature had other plans for us. Ken, his dad, his sister, and Brian did get to play golf before the major downpour. We headed back that evening and stopped at Dairy Queen for some ice cream on the way back.


• Monday I was back to work. It was all set to be a crazy day because of all the summer kids being there. I was not disappointed!


• Tuesday I worked at the church. I got quite a bit done in between putting out fires at the Day Care. I managed to get 100 youth registered for religious education classes this year. The bad news, is that is only about half to a third of the ones that were registered last year, so there are a lot more coming.


• Wednesday, I had a fun day planned with Katie. She is going off to college soon *sniff* and we will miss her tremendously. We met for lunch at Burger King. Frances made her a picture frame that says "Frances" and "Henry" on it and we promised to send picture for her to put in it while she is away form home. Then we went to the pool. Frances had fun in the baby pool and Henry "borrowed" an inner tube from another child who wasn't using it and had a great time running around. He did manage to flip himself over in the inner tube, The result was that he floated upside down in the water for a second before I picked him up by the thighs and tried to turn him around. Of course I couldn't get a good grip on him because he was wet and surrounded by an inner tube, so it is quite a good thing that Katie was there to help me out. I aged about 12 years in that instant.


• Thursday I was back at the day care. We took the kids to the Rockingham County Fair. And by "kids" I mean everyone over the age of 2!! We took about 35 kids and various parents on the school bus, church van and Kristen's personal van. We got there and walked through the poultry barn. Then we went to a "Safari Comedy Show" which was rather amusing. After the safari show we ran over to the circus, but we didn't get there in time to get seats, so the kids had to stand. That coupled with the fact that they were hot, tired and hungry means that they mostly grumped during the show. After a pit stop to get some lemonade, we went through the petting zoo and then headed to the park for lunch. It rained while we were there, but no thunder, so we just let the kids play in it. After they were exhausted, we headed back to school. My memory stick wouldn't work, so I borrowed these pictures from Kristen's camera. (Thursday night we went back to the fair as a family.)


• Friday, oh Friday. In retrospect it wasn't actually that bad; but man! did we have some chaos. We had two sick teachers and another with sick kids. We sent a bunch of kids home sick-not fun. And the kids were wild that afternoon! I was ready to pull my hair out-so of course, it rained just enough so we couldn't really go outside. Another one of those days where I can say I earned my weekend!


• Saturday was supposed to be my day off where my wonderful friend Julie was going to kidnap my kids and give me a day to myself!! Apparently Henry got wind of the plan and didn't like i. He threw up three or fours times between 5 and 8 Saturday morning. Never very much, but enough so I couldn't pawn him off on Julie with a clear conscience. But Frances went, so it was just Henry and me home all day. He slept quite a but, ate very little and never threw up again. I slept off and on all day and accomplished nothing of great importance. Oh well, I guess that can be considered a good day.**One exciting thing I forgot...I went to the bathroom and left Henry in the living room with my cell phone. It made a strange beep, but when I came out he had closed it. No big deal, right? Nope, you guessed it-a few minutes later the phone rang, "This is 9-1-1 dispatch. We received a hang up from this number. Do you have an emergency?" Um...no...just a handy 14 month old. OOOPS!!**
  
• Sunday (today) we met Julie at church and retrieved Frances. After Mass I met with some more people who want to get involved with out youth program-AWESOME!! I took care of about 10 more registrations and did a LOT of laundry. Right now there are five baskets that are clean and folded and waiting to be put away. Ken made us dinner and then we went for a walk. No pictures of that because I washed my memory card along with the laundry and apparently that isn't good for them! The new memory card we have is too sophisticated for our camera, so we will have to either upgrade the camera or downgrade the memory card....I'm guessing it will be the card. :(


• Tomorrow starts the last official week of summer for us at the day care. While I will miss my summer class, they and I are all more than ready to move on and get the school year underway.

Thankful Thursdays

It has been a busy, but mostly uneventful week. I haven't had much time to reflect on thankfulness, and it seems lately that if I sit down to think, I end up falling asleep. This week I am thankful for:

• My bed. It is nice and comfy. It have a wonderful pink, plaid, flannel pillowcase that I just absolutely love. Ken brought me some lavender linen spray from when he was out of town. I spray it on my pillow and on the sheets before I go to bed and it smells so good!
• My mommy. She came to visit us this week. She arrived Monday afternoon and stayed until Wednesday morning. Tuesday she kept Frances home from school and took her to the pool for a day in the water. It was nice having a visit with her, even though I didn't get to see too much of her. My mom and dad are leaving very soon for a month-long trip to Alaska to visit with family. I will miss them terribly, but I am very happy for them to make this trip.
• Teens! I am the youth ministry coordinator at my church. I work with teens in all different ways. Just this week I met about 90 teens on their way to perform a service project in Appalachia and this weekend I will meet another 70! I have been in contact with lots of teens who are coming to and/or planning our yearly Youth Convention. I am inspired and refreshed by all the positive things that the teens around me are doing. Way to go guys!!

A busy Saturday

Today was quite a busy day, but it started out very nicely. I slept in until 7am!! Frances and I woke up at about the same time. She was excited to watch a new Rapunzel video I found for her. Henry slept VERY late today. I think he woke up around 8!! We all had breakfast and then played our new favorite game: Cinderella. How to play? I set the timer for 15 minutes and we clean the house like Cinderella for that whole time. Frances plays very well and I get to get a little bit of the house cleaned.
I had to meet Paula at Costco to buy supplies for the Senior brunch at church tomorrow, so I headed out with the kids. We bought our supplies and then I delivered them to the church. They were just finishing the yard sale and Fred invited me to look through all the stuff that no one bought. There were a ton of Fisher Price toys!! I packed the car as full as I could get it and headed home. Frances put on her bathing suit and helped me wash all the new toys and we went in for lunch.
Heidy met us at 3:00 to pack up the toys to go to daycare and then head over to pick up the food we got through Angel Food Ministries. You should seriously check this group out. The food we got was awesome. I am very excited about the apple pie. Frances likes the chicken nuggets (they are just like the kind at Burger King). While we were dropping off the food at the day care, Rolando invited Frances over to swim in his pool.
We went home and fed Henry and headed back out. Frances and Rolando played in the pool while Heidy and I laughed at them. Henry went in the pool twice, but he got splashed in the face and then he was done with that! They had a really good time and then Heidy made us all dinner. Henry fell asleep in the car on the way home because he was so exhausted and now Frances is playing with a toy castle that I said she could keep from the yard sale.
It was an exhausting day, but in a good way. Heidy took pictures of the kids, so hopefully I will be able to post some soon.