And in the morning, we GO!!! And, at long last, I finally feel ready. As ready as I'm gonna get, anyway! I don't know what the deal was with this class for Ladies' Retreat, but nothing ever would come together for me until tonight. I finally felt like I "got through" tonight and have a lesson prepared that I feel good about. Not great about, but good enough to go with! Ha! I'm still praying and trusting that God will help me. I'm flexible--if He wants me to change any of it it's fine with me! :-)

Although it's not nearly as late as I expected it to be when I finished up on my lesson (which is why I'm taking time to blog!), it's still late enough that I should probably head to bed pretty soon. Got a long drive tomorrow and I think we're going to head out at 7:30. At least that's the story I heard. We'll see how it goes! Tammy is riding with the kids and me, and Sister Marcia and Sister Annette Deitz will be following us, or vise versa.

Monday was a good, full day. It was Sam's 4th birthday. Hard to believe my baby is already 4 years old!!! That's so wild. We all went and "worked" at Aunt Sue's store for about 5 hours that day. This coming weekend is the big Open House at all the shops in Andrews and after Merry Marketplace the store is a WRECK. With James out of town and Tammy helping out at the store, too, that left nobody to watch the kids so I could go help. So I just took 'em! And they actually did really, really good. They ended up being lots of help and hauling all sorts of things to wherever they were told. I don't think anybody broke anything all day long. Except Sam--he busted his chin pretty good! Ha! I still don't know how he did it, but when I found him he was laying flat on his back on top of the stool--that was flipped upside down, with the feet up--and his chin was all bloody. How do you bust your chin and then land on your back?! Wouldn't you have to be going forward to hit your chin, not backwards?! Unless he did a complete flip, I guess. Who knows! Anyway, we told him it was his birthday bruise and to be proud of it. ;-)

We left the store at about 3:30 so we'd have time to go buy some ingredients for Sam's cake. Came home and whipped it up. (Don't laugh when you look at the pictures in a minute--it was supposed to be a LEGO! It sounded like a good idea and the picture online looked terrific... Part of the problem was the food coloring--I only had these funky Spring colors instead of traditional red, blue and yellow LEGO colors!) The house was a wreck again when we got the phone call. Another showing. They wanted to come at 7:00. ~sigh~ So I ran like crazy and got the house all cleaned up, dishes done, blah, blah, blah. (I'm so tired of this routine! Ha!) We headed out the door just before 7:00 for a late dinner. I just left all the party stuff on the table, but I was a little concerned what the people might think of the strange looking cake, so I left a post-it not on it: "It's a LEGO!!!" We ran to Sonic, got our food and drove back home. We were gone 10 or 15 minutes and when we got home the lady was already done looking at the house--tells me she wasn't too interested! I hate working that hard and then clearing out of my house for people who really don't care anything about it! ANYWAY, James got home from his Albuquerque trip at just about that time, so we went in for the party.

This first photo didn't turn out too good. Katie was sitting on Sam's lap and I don't think he was enjoying it too much.

Take #2

Blowing out the candles, of course...

And with his new loot! Oh yeah, when we went to the store earlier in the day I let Sam buy himself something with his birthday money from Grandma Wanda (a cabin and some little hunters to go with it) and Katie and Joe each used their own money (I paid them each a dollar for their hard work at Aunt Sue's store) and bought a little something for Sam. Joe got him a dart gun (and had enough money to get one for himself, too!) and Katie got him a dinosaur dig kind of thingie. It was really cool! James had picked out this western set--a new cap gun and a cap rifle, a bandana and something else... Can't remember what. I know what you're all thinking. "Doesn't that kid have enough cowboy stuff?!" Nope! Ha! Everything the boys have has been completely, totally worn out, broken and ready for the trash for weeks or months. I'm not sure they could survive without being cowboys, so more guns are always sure to be a hit! ;-)



And here he is with the hunting stuff he picked out for himself earlier in the day.

It was a good, fun day for Sam and the rest of us, too.

Yesterday James decided we'd get Christmas gifts taken care of, so off to Odessa we went! (He also had a real hankerin' for the Baby Back Bonus deal at Chili's! Ha!) It took us most of the day, but we finally ended up with gifts for all of Jon & Em's kids and for my folks, too. We got back into Andrews and I worked an hour or so at Aunt Sue's store while James took the kids on home. Came home and wrapped up all the loot we bought, then worked on my Ladies' Retreat lesson, but to no avail.


Today I've been packing and cleaning and packing some more, then cleaning some more, and, of course, working on my lesson. Like I said, it finally all came together tonight (PRAISE THE LORD!!!), so now I'm rarin' to go! I'm soooooooo excited about Retreat!!!! It's going to be so great!!!! I'm sure this is the last you'll hear from me until it's over--probably until I get home Tuesday night or beyond. Be praying for our safe travels (the kids and I go to Colorado, James goes to Albuquerque, then flies to Denver on Monday to drive home with us on Tuesday) and for a grand and glorious Rocky Mountain Ladies' Retreat! I think I'm going to to REST IN THE LORD in my BED now. :-)


~Rebekah~