Busy Weekend

Friday PM

Regatta with the Vision of Hope girls at Adam's Mill. Our family sponsored the event where we taught the girls how to make paper boats and then sailed them down the river in a grand race. The winner got a huge gift basket of snacks. The VOH girls floated down the river with the boats. For some of the girls it was the first time they'd ever been in a creek.

Saturday

Event #1 - 7 am - 10 am Sort out the many, many piles of clothes. Begin some loads of laundry while doing the dishes that seem to sprout and reproduce on the counter.

Event #2 - 10 - 11:15 am Take the girls to their surprise adventure for the Saturday - a car wash where they get to do the work. FUN!

Event #3 - 11:15 - 12:15 Stop and pick up lunch from Subway, race home, and eat on the picnic table

Event #4 - 12:15 - 1:15 get the fastest baths and showers you've ever seen, throw on our wedding clothes, and head out to our friend's wedding.

Event #5 - 1:15 - 1:45 travel to VOH to pick up the VOH girls for the wedding

Event #6 - 1:45 - 3 Wedding of Rachael Lanz.

Shelby with Danyelle, an intern at VOH, at the wedding.

Hailey and Nicky, her special friend who just accepted Christ as her Saviour, together at the wedding.

One of the reenacters at the wedding with VOH girls. The bride and groom do historic reenactments.

Event #7 - 3 - 3:45 pm Wedding Reception

Hailey, Shelby, and her VOH friends riding the funky little bike thingy at the wedding reception.

Shelby playing at the playground at the church where the reception was held.



A rare photo of me (albeit it with my hair all needing to be colored really badly)

Event #8 - 3:45 - 4 pm Transport the VOH girls back to the house

Event #9 - 4 - 5:15 pm Crisis counseling with a VOH girl having a hard time handling a difficult situation

Event #10 - 5:15 - 5:30 pm Travel to Kendra Adamson's Graduation Open House

Event #11 - 5:30 - 7:30 pm Kendra Adamson's Graduation Open House. Visit with friends, talk to Shane and Christine Bolton about their precious triplets.

Kendra, Hailey, Rebecca, Shelby, and one of the VOH girls that attended the open house (Shelby is totally attached to her). Kendra and Rebecca are Miss Teena's daughters and they are like big sisters to the girls.

Event #12 - 7:30 - 9:30 pm Fly home, have supper, cuddling time, and throw the girls in bed telling them to fall asleep as quickly as they can so we can get to church on time the next morning.

Sunday

Event #13 - 8 - 11 am Church

Event #14 - 11 - 12 am Lunch at The Great Wall Chinese Restaurant. YUMMY!

Event #15 - 12 - 2 pm Playing at Columbian Park. While we were there we ran into Dana Todhunter and her son, Connor, who is in Shelby's Sunday School class. We had so much fun and rode the train around the park.

Event #16 - 2 - 2:30 pm Travel home

Event #17 - 2:30 - 5 pm Nap in sweet bliss with the wind blowing in the windows

Event #18 - 5 - 7 pm Lay outside cuddling with the babies in the beautiful sunny afternoon.

Event #19 - 7 - 8 pm Supper, Cuddling Time, Bed

AHHHHHHHHH. . . . . . . . . . What a wonderful, busy, marvelous weekend!

Monday

Event #20 - 5:30 am Up and ready for the day

Event #21 - 6:30 am Drive the girls to Frankfort for their Summer Daycare. That's going to be a long commute every day, but it's worth it to have them go somewhere good.

Event #22 - 7:30 am Fly into work, get ready for an 8 am - 4 pm meeting with people wanting to start a home similar to VOH

Event #23 - 3 pm Surprise, got done with meetings early

Event #24 - 4 pm Counsel a VOH resident

Event #25 - 5:30 pm Tornado Warnings going off all over the place; Decide whether to drive home or stay in the Tornado Shelter; Decide to drive home since the tornado looks to be south of us; Encounter the most freakishly scary lightning experience of my life as I see an ENORMOUS cloud to ground lightning bolt hit the ground in the field about 50 yards from my Jeep while I'm turning onto my road; hightail it home and kiss my kids and praise God that I'm alive.

Whew!!!! What a weekend!

Kindergarten Graduation

In fact . . .

Tonight we decided to have our spaghetti and meatballs on the picnic table outside. It was a blast. Having 10-12 hours of sleep every night for the past 3 nights has made all of us seriously delirious. We should really try to do this more often.

So anyway . . . back to the picnic supper. Brian has bible study in Lafayette on Tuesday, and we were being totally silly at supper. I said "Wouldn't that be so funny if every sentence started with "In Fact?" So we spent the rest of the supper starting every sentence with "In Fact." "In fact, these meatballs are delicious."

"In fact, I would like some more carrots."

"In fact, this breeze is totally delightful."

"In fact, I love our new picnic table."

"In fact, this garlic bread is scrumptious."

"In fact, i just burped, excuse me."

Finally, Shelby turned her little head to me, with her Princess Lea buns, and said "In fact, you're a poopyhead."

Oh my word, we laughed so hard spaghetti almost came out our noses.

That's okay, we needed that laugh after our whole morning was spent at doctor's offices of one sort or another (along with a $1100 dentist bill for Hailey and the news that Shelby is allergic to some sort of tree that's flowering right now that are helping her tonsils to be the size of grapefruit.)

In fact . . . that was a lot of money that got spent today on those two little stinkers.

In fact . . . they're worth it :-)

Cuddling Time Today

Poor Matilda Jane!! She gets played with so hard.

Raw

Hab 3:2 LORD, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.

http://www.wlfi.com/dpp/news/local_wlfi_flora_Florafirekillstwochildrenmother_200905161540

http://www.wlfi.com/dpp/news/local_wlfi_floramotherchildrenremembered_lafayette_20090517

http://www.wlfi.com/dpp/news/local_wlfi_Wagonervisitation_Flora_20090518

http://www.jconline.com/article/20090519/NEWS/90519011&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL

Happy

You know how there are times when everything about life is not all well, but there are pieces that are so happy you don't know what to do with yourself? This weekend was like that.

I know there are things with life that are not right.

But it was so happy. The weather was in the 60's and 70's, perfectly sunny, and lazy. We've spent the last 3 days outside (before and after work, school, and church) on the picnic table Brian and the girls bought me for Mother's Day, laying in the hammocks, reading novels (for the first time in about 2 years), dreaming of the bonfires we will have in the fire bowl I got for Mother's Day.

Today, Brian and Hailey were fishing in his little boat. I was reading my second novel of the week, and I looked over at Shelby and said "Isn't this so happy?" She just smiled and kept swinging.

The last 3 or 4 days have been so happy. Peaceful and happy.

Surprise!

So tonight we had planned to go out on a triple date with friends to PF Chang's and then we realized that we're the world's lamest parents. We have been trying for almost a year to go on this triple date, we are all just so busy none of us are ever available at the same time. We were so excited that we finally got a Friday night free and we could all go out.

Only on Monday night we realized that the world's lamest parents don't know how to read school calendars and in our failure to read as 30 year old should be able to do we failed to see that Hailey's Spring Program was tonight. So we dutifully postponed our triple date, stopped longing for fabulous food, got a sandwich at Meijer, and ran back to school, dripping with sweat from running errands at the speed of light, hair all windswept because it had been rained on all day, and plopped into our seats to be "excited" about the event that is a Spring Program.

I will try hard not to be cynical or sarcastic about that.

Hailey looked so adorable. We realized the first time around in Kindergarten that kids generally get dressed up for these events (after we realized we were underdressed the first time) and so we did her up for this one - new dress, hair in Princess Lea buns, rhinestones in her hair, rhinestones on her bracelets, rhinestones on her shoes. She did look very very cute.

I was sitting there all proud of myself for managing to get the whole thing pulled together, work almost caught up for the weekend, and our whirlwind weekend just on the horizon. We have a Saturday that could possibly kill a cow. It's all going to be very very fun, but I've never needed a watch to keep track of a Saturday schedule until this weekend.

Anywhoo, I digress. . . .So we're sitting there enjoying Hailey being so cute, thinking how she's seriuosly the cutest kid on stage, in seriously the cutest little rhinestone outfit when she steps out from the crowd walks to the front of the stage and SINGS A SOLO. It was during the "Wiggle Worm" song.

Brian and I were so flabbergasted that by the time we were done we realized that we needed an instant replay to see what she'd just sang. She sang her little solo, then walked back into the crowd, and continued looking beautiful.

We were stunned! She never even breathed a word of it. She's been practicing her lines for kindergarten graduation, (in fact practicing all the different kids' lines for kindergarten), but somehow failed to mention that she was going to have a big solo.

We didn't even have a camera, so I popped these photos with our cell phone.

I can't believe we didn't get to video record her first solo :-( What if she becomes famous some day and we don't have a video of her first solo?

When we saw her after the concert we asked her why she didn't tell us she had a solo and she simply said "I wanted to surprise you." Guess she got what she wanted. :-)