Saturday, August 26, 2006

Yes, I'm Still Here!

I’m not feeling very inspired, but I’ll try to update a bit here on our week… Church camp-out was, um, stressful. I decided that camping with a large group of people when you have little kids (including a baby), plus you’re in charge of the weekend, is, well, stressful! I didn’t feel like I relaxed much at all and I was really glad to get home. Usually I want to stay another night. :-) But there were some bright spots…
-the gorgeous sunset on Friday night
-playing games on Sat. morning with nearly everyone getting involved. Mary Leschied and Esther Mast even ran the three-legged race!
-Ryan, Melissa, and Emma stopped in on their way back to MN. It was nice to chat with Melissa!
-We ate frogmore stew with the Hartmans Sat. afternoon. Delicious!
-Tammy and Menno and family were there for the weekend! It was so nice to see them again!
-Shelley McKenzie and her daughter Courtney were baptized Sunday after the worship service.
-There were virtually NO mosquitoes!! But lots of bees. :-(

On Monday, Keith picked up our Sonlight order which had come over the weekend. Yay!! It was a lot of fun to look through everything. I told Caleb we might be ready to start next week. I have just a little more reading to do so that I’m familiar with what we’re doing. I ordered Math and Language Arts from Abeka and that’s not here yet, but I’m in no hurry for it…

This past week was more laid back than the last month or so. No blueberries to pick. Not as many beans to pick. No big deadlines looming. Mary-Jane was staying here until tonight. She’s going to stay at Kendra’s for the rest of her time here. We watched a Nicole Johnson DVD on Monday morning. Good stuff!

This morning we all went garage-saleing. We found some great stuff. I now have a punch-bowl and Little Scotty has a life-jacket. My family is having a “garage-sale”, Christmas gift exchange in October when Matthews and Rachel are here. And the Grabers are having a “garage-sale” birthday party for everyone when everyone is home next week or the week after. We got almost everything we need. Yippee! So, tonight after supper we had fun wrapping stuff in newspaper. I hope you all like what we got you! :-)

Tonight we had a first for our family – a shabbat meal! I’m sure it was pretty far from an actual Jewish Shabbat, but we tried to do some of it. The purpose of it wasn’t to "be Jewish", but to hopefully benefit from some of the aspects like just having a special meal together, speaking blessings to one another, reflecting on the past and what God has done, etc. Hopefully it will become a family tradition. Time will tell.

Okay, it’s time to sample my dessert for tomorrow (chocolate chip blondies) and then head for bed soon!!!

6 comments:

Rhonda said...

so good to catch up with you! thanks. see you soon!!

Jenni said...

Whooweee! I like the sound of that! Can't wait!

Anonymous said...

100% approval on the dessert. =)

rachelslab said...

hey - that was your longest post I think - atta girl

Rhonda said...

two questions:

1. what is frogmore stew?

2. When will Iris be back?

Jenni said...

2. I don't know. I expected them by now.

1. Ah yes, frogmore stew! It's a big pot of boiled chunks of meat and lots of vegetable, with a bag of "crab boil" (spices in a bag that you remove before eating), and some ketchup. I think it's supposed to have seafood in it, but when we had it with Hartman's it was chunks of sausage, chicken breast, green beans, carrots, potatoes, onions, mushroom, cauliflower, broccoli, and maybe more that I can't remember. Then the fun part is, you drain off the water and put a disposable plastic table cloth on the table and dump the whole thing down the center of the table. Then everyone "bellies up to the trough" and you eat it all with your fingers. Various dipping sauces are poured right on the table too. It's really tasty and fun!