We had an unexpectedly pleasant weekend. :-)

We got a bit of a late start on Saturday. Eggs and toast for breakfast, then the kids played outside for a bit while I cleaned the kitchen. We had devotions, then headed into school. Yes, on Saturday. My kids don't know that "normal kids" don't have to go to school on Saturday. DON'T TELL THEM. We travel so much and our schooling is so sporadic that we need to hit a Saturday every now and then!

We had left-overs for lunch, then we ALL had a nap. Well, the kids sat in bed and read while James and I took a much needed nap!

We got a phone call from Joe & Julie Steele saying that they were in town and would be joining us for church on Sunday. Sister Julie is a sister to Connie Werkheiser and Missy Hawkins. They used to pastor the Fields of the Wood church when James lived in Cleveland and he got to know them back then. Anyway, knowing that we might be able to have company slung me into a frenzied cleaning spree! Wa-Hoo!!! I spent a couple of hours working just on the kids' room. You know, the room that nobody would see or care if it was clean or not. Somehow it doesn't matter--knowing people are coming gives me that motivational shove to do what has been neglected. We pulled all the beds away from the wall and cleaned out under them (KIDS ARE SOOOOO GROSS!) and got everything put in it's place, dusted and vacuumed--and fresh sheets on the beds. It felt soooooo good! Then I moved to the living room. Cleaned the front windows (aren't you proud of me, Mom?!) and dusted and vacuumed in there, then in our bedroom.

For dinner I took out the stew beginnings from the night before (left-over brisket, potatoes, and Keilbasa) and added a can of corn, some carrots and some more potatoes, then mixed up a gravy kind of sauce to add to it. Threw some cornbread in the oven and talked to Bekah Peter on the phone for a few minutes. (Thanks for the call, Rebekah!) I was a little nervous about the stew (I don't know if I've ever made stew before--except Katie's recipe a month or two ago), but it was sooooooo good! Wow!!! And it was so fast and easy! And it used up the left-overs that otherwise would have gone to waste! ~sigh~ Perfect. I think everybody had seconds and we only had one bowl left over. :-)

After dinner it was back to work on the house. Our bathroom was already in good shape, but the guest bath was NASTY. (Have I mentioned that KIDS ARE GROSS?!) So I gave it a real good scrubbing. ~sigh~ We have GOT to get that room remodeled! It's just... wrong. It's just so wrong! Gross and yucky and nasty and dumb and smelly and stained and... just wrong. Anyway, I got it as clean as it can possibly be until we FIX it. I told James that even if the Steeles didn't end up coming to the house I'm sooooo glad that I thought they might! It motivated me to get the whole house whipped into shape and it feels GREAT! :-)

Then it was time to dive into prep for my VLB service. I had such a good time preparing for it! I just felt the Lord so near and enjoyed having the nice, quite, private time to read and pray and study. It was sooooo nice. It's hard to figure out where to go to to be alone in this house. We have the main room (kitchen, dining room, living room combo), our bedroom on one side and the kids' bedroom on the other. So when the kids are in bed and James is working at the desk in the bedroom, there's no place to go! I guess I would be "alone" in the main room, but it doesn't feel very private, you know?! We do, however, have great big walk-in closets in this house and I have discovered that it's the PERFECT place to go pray! I LOVE it in there!!! I've got plenty of room to pray and I can shut the door and feel so totally alone with God. :-)

So by the time I went to bed at midnight I had a nice, fresh, clean house, ready for company--just in case--and I had my VLB service all scribbled down in a notebook.

Sunday morning we got ready and headed off to church. We had a good service and good worship, in spite of the Acapulco thing. ;-) I think we had 14 there, so praise the Lord! The Placencio's were all there except for Aaron. He had gone to a Bible Study with a friend. :-( We were glad to have the rest of the family--they are all so special. And it was good to have the Steeles with us. Afterwards we went out to eat with them and had a nice time visiting.

We came home for the afternoon and I typed up my VLB lesson, then we headed back to church. I felt like service went really well, thanks to lots of participation and comments! I really enjoyed it. I can't say that very often when I'm the one standing up front (!), but I did this time.

After the service the Steeles decided to try to get their truck up to our house. They drive a special FedEx truck--it's the height of an 18-wheeler and we weren't sure if they'd be able to make it up the driveway or if they'd have to take out some trees to do it! We heard a few limbs cracking, but they got it in and didn't seem to damage the trees or the truck (thank the Lord!), so that's good! We just sat and visited for a while before calling it a night. The Steeles have a mini-motorhome type set up in their truck, so they just slept in their own bed out there.

I LOVED having company, even though they had to bring their "house" with them! Worst of all, they had to bring their own FOOD! We didn't know it until yesterday, but they try to stick to a healthy vegetarian style diet. Yipes! I don't know what to give to HEALTHY people!!! That part of it was SO NOT FUN! Half of the fun of being hospitable is being able to bake calorie laden pineapple upside-down cakes and cinnamon rolls and such! As for "real food," it's all about meat in this house--usually red meat, which is a definite no-no to veggie people. It really threw me for a loop. It was great having them here, but you feel like a terrible hostess when your company has to bring their own fat-free ice cream with them! Ha!

This morning we all got up and headed out to Petroglyph National Monument on the western edge of Albuquerque. We'd never been there before and I'm so glad the Steeles suggested it because we probably never would have gone otherwise! It was really, really neat.

The boys were enthralled by the millipedes--and there were TONS of them!!! This was the first one we saw, outside the visitors' center. We saw one near the end of the trail that was at least 8" long!!! They are so eewie (as Abbie would say) and fascinating at the same time--especially when they walk.

Here's the first petroglyph we saw. It was such fun trying to figure out what all of them were and might have stood for. We determined that this was a lizard enjoying a lollipop. ;-) Of course, then we realized that lizards don't have ears... oh, well.

Here's a map of buried treasure. The pirates put the loot at the base of the mountains and just to the east of the airport...

Here's a dog barking at a guy having a bad hair day...

Katie thought this looked like two mermaids and a sea shell. Joe saw birds and a fan. Sam saw a drunk Indian. ?! Only Sam!!!

Here's a dude on a unicycle...

"Revenge of the Mouse" -- Can you see it attacking the bird?!

Hello Kitty???

It is, however, NEVER a problem to get Katie to strike a pose!

And--miracle of miracles--Sister Julie DID manage to get some really good pictures of Joe! I love this one. :-)

And Sam the Ham...

This is the other angle of his pose! Ha!

Joe & Julie Steele

And the trek down the mountain...

It was great! It was a beautiful day and we were all done there by about 11:30, just as it was beginning to get too warm. We went out to Cece's Pizza (is that spelled right?!) for lunch. The veggie weird-o's picked it. Ha! By the end of the day James was saying things like, "Yeah, we need to start eating better." I said, "See! Now look what you've done--you've got him feeling guilty. Not me though--I'm fine!!!" :-) The pizza was good and we all had a good time.

We came back to the house for a little while and everybody got cleaned up and I was even able to grab a little bit of a nap. We said our farewells to Brother Joe & Sister Julie and they only cracked one branch and broke one antenna from the truck getting out of the drive. !!! I felt soooooo bad! I hope it's something that will be easily fixed. This lot just isn't made for things that BIG, you know?! I'm so glad we didn't know that ahead of time and we were able to spend so much time with them. We enjoyed their company and had some really good conversations. They are good people.

We headed back into Albuquerque tonight to go to Sister Grimes' house for dinner. Her daughter Pat made enchiladas for us. Sister Bailey came, too, and we all had such a nice time visiting together. It was GREAT! But I am sooooo tired! I'm going to go take a nice, hot bath and get cleaned up, then hit the hay. It's been a great weekend and now I need to recover from it! Ha! Tomorrow we get back into laundry and school. :-)