Saturday was a nice family day for us. We loaded up the fam and hit a few garage sales, just for the fun of it. James got a few boxes of screws and nails for 50 cents each, I got a huge basket (a cute one, no less) chock full of craft supplies (colored pipe cleaners and such) that I can use for Sunday School for $3, Katie got a little book of animal stencils for 25 cents, Joe got a word search book for free, and Sam got one of those sling-out light sabers for 25 cents. $5 even, I believe. It was a beautiful day, so we enjoyed just driving around and stopping here and there at the different sales. I'm surprised at how MANY yard sales there are for a rural area. (I can WRITE the word just fine, Ma--just can't SAY it! Ha!)
We stopped by the library because I had heard that it was sign-up time for the summer reading program. It's for all ages here, so I ended up with a card, too. The kids are all wound up and came home and dove right into their books. It's rated by the hours spent reading rather than the number of books read, so this is new for the kids--and a little more challenging. And that's good. :-) They've been reading up a storm lately, and loving it.
Seems like we did something else that day, but I can't think of what. I know I came home and spent most of the afternoon preparing for Sunday School class the next day. It was one of those spend-3-hours-getting-the-crafts-ready-but-they'll-only-take-20-minutes-to-do-in-class things. I hate those! Ha! They were really great, though. We've been learning about the days of Creation and we were on Day 5 this week: birds and fish. We made a robin out of construction paper (nothing special really--especially the ones who's legs I accidentally wripped off!), and we had fish sun catchers (those are ALWAYS a hit here--oh, I had gotten them at the yard sale on Saturday, too!), and then we made little portholes with small paper plates. The kids painted one plate blue, then took the edge of a second plate and colored it brown and stapled it (upside down) to the first plate... but first we glued sand and strips of blue and green and yellow yarn (coral) and little fish cut-outs and stickers on the blue "water." They turned out great! Anyway... I think I was so well prepared that I was able to just take the night off and relax on Saturday evening. That NEVER happens!
Yesterday was a good day, but long. We woke up a bit later than usual, so we did the rush-to-get-ready thing that I try to avoid on Sundays. It all worked out okay and we were in the van right on time, though completely out of breath. ;-) We had a good service that morning; good Sunday School and good worship that just kind of lingered on and turned into a prayer time. I was able to visit with a lady after service who's been having some really difficult family problems. They attend church regularly on Sunday mornings, but really don't understand what true SALVATION is. I've been praying for an open door to talk to them and I was thankful for the opportunity to hopefully plant some "beginner" seeds in her heart and mind. Pray that God will touch her and let them really take root and begin to grow! I look forward to some more opportunities to talk to this lady.
One of our members has been sick and hasn't made it to church for three weeks now, so after church Sunday morning we grabbed a bite to eat then drove the 40 minutes south to go visit her. She's doing much better and we hope to see her at church this coming week.
We made it back into town just in time for service that night. James preached the message that he didn't get to preach that morning, then we had a good season of prayer. Until my cell phone rang (~ahem~) and interrupted the whole thing. (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.) Actually, I can't really blam Mom. ;-) I should've had the thing turned off. I'm new to the whole cell phone thing and it just never occurred to me! Anyway, we had a couple of extra fella's at church that night, so that was exciting.
James took the fam out for dessert after service, so the kids were thrilled. Don't know if we've ever replaced dinner with just dessert! Came home and threw the kids into the bed.
This morning we did the usual stuff, then scarfed down our lunch and the kids and I headed into town to go to Sam's Club to check on prices for our grocery shopping for Family Camp. It only took a little over 2 hours at the store (!), but it wasn't nearly as bad as I had expected. Sam crawled onto the rack underneath the cart and slept for at least an hour of it, so that cut down on the violence substantially. :-) I found just about everything on the list and was pleasantly surprised to see that most things were actually a little cheaper than what was available online.
I came home and reworked the numbers, e-mailed them to Cathy (the real mastermind behind all of this camp food stuff--thank goodness!), then called and hashed it all over with her. I can't believe how much work all of this is. I'm really not cut out for this sort of thing. Just not my cup of tea. But Cathy is TERRIFIC at it and seems to just thrive doing it. PRAISE THE LORD! Ha! She is a God-send. :-)
We had left-overs for dinner tonight, then James loaded everybody up and we went down to Charlie's and let everybody pick out an ice cream bar, then drove a couple of miles up the mountain to a picnic area to eat them. The kids were soooooo excited to be "in the forest" and had a wonderful time running and climbing all over the mountain side. It was beautiful. After a little while we piled back into the van and decided to drive a little further. We ended up driving the whole 12 miles or so up to Sandia Crest on a tight, windy, switch-back road that was very, very steep. It's much more intense than Monarch Pass in Colorado, although not as long. We saw 5 deer, lots of pretty irises on the side of the road, and the fantastic view back over the valley to the east. When we finally arrived at the Crest (felt like it took forever!) you could look over the other side of the mountain range, down on the city of Albuquerque. Soooooo cool. And for all of this--I DIDN'T HAVE MY CAMERA! ~sigh~ I also didn't grab my camera when the kids were having a picnic under the trampoline today or when Sam was sleeping so adorably under the shopping cart. I hate that! I'll try to do better.
But for now, I'm going to go. I've got WMB service tomorrow night and I've got to go work on it. Say a prayer for me, please! I just had a service 2 weeks ago and it's usually hard enough for me to get inspired for another service after a whole month, let alone just two weeks! Ha! I'll try to be back soon. But you know me. Time will tell. :-)
~Becki~
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