That Darn Cat!

Remember this cute thing?

Yeah, well, she's not just cute. She had a parasite which led to her vomiting in various places around my house. After a night at the vet's she came home with medicine and began peeing in various places around my house - including my couches and my bed! Another trip to the vet showed that she has a horrible urinary tract infection. More medicine. She should be finished with that medicine next week.

Here's the part that really gets me!

My husband left this morning for a wedding in NC and won't be back until Sunday evening. My mother graciously agreed to keep my little one for a couple days. I have been planning and looking forward to a little get-away weekend for just me! I found an inexpensive motel with a lake nearby, perfect for walking, reading, sleeping, or watching TV if I want. (sigh)

But that darn cat has to get medicine every morning and every night! So I'm not going to a motel this weekend. I'm not going to walk around a lake. I'm not going to escape the list of things to do that is ever growing in my head as I look around my house. I'm going to stay home and medicate the cat.

Feel free to call.

VBS Wrap Up

Thursday night: Jesus gives us the power to live forever.
This was "Salvation Night." The exercise we did was beautiful. We talked about sin and whether we would take the punishment for someone else's. Then the kids invisibly wrote one of their sins on a sad-face sticker. There were three crosses on the wall and they had to stick their "sin" to the two outer crosses. We talked about why the middle cross had no sin. They I told them about the two criminals hanging on either side, covered with sin. Each criminal made a choice, and when the 2nd one chose to believe, his sin was transferred to Jesus (I moved the stickers onto the middle cross). It was a great visual for the kids. I told them how we are all criminals because we've broken God's law and have a choice to make too. Which criminal are you?

Friday night: Jesus gives us the power to tell others.
Tonight we talked about evangelism and Pentecost. One of our church members is German so I had her come in and start speaking to the kids in German, setting the scene for a communication problem. I had the kids make up their own language to see the difficulty in talking when no one can understand you. Then we turned on fans and the red and orange streamers blew in the wind. All of a sudden, our German visitor could speak English! I told the story of the disciples at Pentecost and how we are all charged to tell others of God's love, even in our actions.

It was such a fun week! I loved how the activities helped the kids to experience the Bible stories and not just hear them. Hats off to the curriculum writers!

VBS

This week is VBS at our church. We meet in the evenings. There are 5 stations through which the kids rotate in 15-minutes intervals and I run one of those stations: Bible Blast. My room is where the kids get to experience the Bible story of the night. Such fun!

The thing is, I'm teaching kids from 2 years old to rising 5th graders! You can imagine that what works for one, doesn't always work for the other. I've learned to adapt.

Monday night: Jesus gives us the power to be thankful! We experienced the story of the ten men healed of leprosy. I placed stickers all over the kids and "quarantined" them in one big mass with "Caution" tape. They loved it!

Tuesday night: Jesus gives us the power to help others! We experienced the story of Jesus healing the blind man by putting mud on his eyes. The kids were blind-folded and their leaders put oatmeal on their foreheads (over their eyes). The older kids loved it! We just let the young ones feel it with their fingers.

Wednesday night: Jesus gives us the power to be brave! We experienced the story of Peter walking on the water. The kids were in a make-shift boat and leaders misted them with water. We also created a bin of thick water for them to walk on. Ever mixed cornstarch and water? It is the coolest thing! It feels solid, but when you pick it up, it melts right through your fingers. It's solid liquid - soquid! The kids LOVED it and we made quite a mess. Word was buzzing throughout the church that the kids were walking on water. It was a fun and memorable night.

I don't remember these kinds of cool things at VBS when I was growing up!

It's been a great opportunity for me to work with other parents in our church. I'm still meeting people, but recognizing more and more faces. I'm certainly glad I committed to teach - even though I had no idea what I was getting into!!

I'll post the next two nights in a few days. (I think we're done with the mess though.)

Swim Test

Well . . . . he passed!!!!! Cole is a deep-end swimmer now. To make it official, he got a cool green bracelet signifying his life-jacket-free admittance past the red line in the pool! And there was much rejoicing!

Here is my little gangsta showing off the "trophy."

kabooki!

Kabooki

Cole has been diligently working his swimming. I've just never gotten him in the water much, but that started to change last summer. He's done a great job! Brice and one of his co-workers have taken turns giving lessons. This past Saturday was his last lesson. He is now officially a swimmer! His main motivation was the swim test at camp this week. He doesn't want to have to wear a life jacket in the shallow end!

We wanted to show him how proud we are of him, regardless of whether or not he passes the swim test, so we celebrated Sunday night before camp. He got to pick dinner and then we gave him a new Wii game - the best one ever!

We LOVE the Cranium games series! What a great idea to make one for the Wii!! You spin a wheel (like Wheel of Fortune) and do whatever activity comes up. Like all Cranium games, the activities fall into the standard categories of datahead, wordworm, star performer, and creative cat. It's fun for the whole family - and challenging!

So, "Yea, Cole!" We are proud of all your hard work!

Visitors!

I love having company! I especially love when my dearest friends come visit! This is one of my good friends from Troy who was also in my wedding. Don't let the hair fool you - that really is her daughter! It was such fun to catch up. She finally got to have a conversation with my husband and both confirmed that they like the other. :-)

Busy as her time was here, I cherished the time we did have together. Thanks for coming, HG!!!

Cow Appreciation Day

So yesterday was Cow Appreciashun Day at Chik-fil-A. If you showed up at Chik-fil-A dressed like a cow, you got a free combo! Um, free food? I'm in! Cole had a friend over so we made him participate in fun as well. Here I am with my Jedi cows:

Free food!!!!!

It was mooooey much fun.

We were the only ones dressed up when we got there, but several more arrived as we were eating. It felt like a community! Of course, Brice's costume topped all others. He borrowed it from our pastor!

Two thumbs up to others of you out there who got a little crazy to create a memory with your kids - and get free food.

Just Because

I just love this picture

Summer Vacation

We took advantage of the 3-day weekend over July 4th and went to Chattanooga, TN for our family trip this year. We packed so much into two days and had a blast together. One of our first stops was at a quaint bookstore. Cole was excited to get a book on palindromes. (Look it up!)

We ate at Sticky Fingers which we discovered has the best children's activity booklet of any restaurant we've ever been to! The maze was quite difficult . . .

Then it was on to the aquarium. They had a fabulous seahorse exhibit. Did you know male seahorses carry and birth the babies? Up to 1,000 at a time! Wow. They also had a "Nemo" tank with several of the fish from the tank in the movie. Cole loved that.

We saw "Dolphins and Whales" at the IMAX. Not what we expected, but some cool footage.

Then we did the best thing of the trip:

The signs have beckoned us for years and we finally obeyed. It was really cool too! Great view, interesting rocks, and a fun fairy tale land. There is a great swinging bridge for the well-balanced . . .

There were several places to take pictures with your faces in signs. We stopped at every one!

We also went to the TN Valley Rail Museum and rode an old train to the East Chattanooga Station where we watched the engine rotate on the turntable in order to take us back to Grand Junction Station.

Brice loved it!!

We've created a tradition of taking our picture with name mugs at gift shops. This one didn't have Cole or Brice so we all did our middle names. (except Jeremy is actually Brice's 1st name)


We also visited Ruby Falls, saw a movie, and ate at a dinner theater - though it was a kids' show with a pizza lunch - before heading home Saturday night.

Sunday was our "staycation" which we themed Disney Day. We stayed home and watched Disney movies and played Disney games all day. What a great weekend! I love my family!