I realize that Camp happened a month ago, but I never did post about it! I wanted to wait until I was sure all of the campers had received their Camp paper before I plastered all the great photos all over the Internet. But now it's time to plaster! :-) I'm too busy (I prefer "busy" to "lazy") to pick out all of the best pictures and post them individually, so I thought it best to just post pictures of the Camp paper itself. If you click on them they should enlarge enough for you to be able to make everything out okay. I hope. James wanted to print the paper on glossy magazine-like paper, so it was hard to take pictures of it without getting a glare. Nonetheless, here it is! Everything you wanted to know about Camp and more! (If you don't wanna read the whole thing--or can't make it out--the highlights are the page with the "Death of a Beloved Friend," the Wednesday Service page, and the Late Night Weirdness picture page. Those are my favorites, anyway!) Enjoy!!!
There are 119 pictures there. That's far more than you would have gotten had I tried to post them individually. Of course, they're not all MY pictures. My secret crew of photographers worked long and hard to get some of these to me, so big thank you's to C.C., D.H. & G.A. Actually... Chris, Dustin and Grace were taking pictures for their own personal pleasure, but I was able to nab their camera cards and swipe their pics. Thank you all, nonetheless! ;-)
That's us. I didn't actually time us, but I think all in all we worked on the dumb play fort for 8 or 10 hours. No matter though--it is now FINISHED and the kids have been having a blast...
I'm not sure this mountain God gave us could get much better. The kids have mentioned missing the Blob (our swimming pool, of sorts, from last year), but I think they've got way more than any kid could ever ask for already. They've got a great mountain to run around on, a pond, a trampoline, and now a play fort and swing set. Not to mention great weather in which to enjoy it all! And it's soooooo great to be out of town. Since living here we have experienced snakes, lizards, frogs, bunnies, caterpillars, butterflies and who knows what all else--all in our very own yard! I'm certain this is what God intended for childhood to be like and I'm sooooo thankful that He's made it possible for our kids to enjoy the great outdoors a little bit--all right here on our little plot of land. :-)
We worked on the fort throughout most of the day today. We got to the end and found that we were one little nut shy of being able to finish up. Wouldn't you know it. One dumb 12 cent nut. James went to the hardware store and we were able to get the final swing up and going. :-) By far the most difficult part of this task is making sure that everything is level and square. It's not as easy as one might think. At least if that one is me! Ha! Still, it's kind of fun to take a pile of boards and hardware and turn it into something. Feels good, you know?!
We ran out to Edgewood tonight and went to DJ's Doghouse for dinner. Much nicer than the name would imply. It's a super clean diner kind of place; black and white tile floor, chrome chairs with pads and Coca-Cola stuff here and there. I read an interesting article about Brett Farve in Sports Illustrated. (They had magazines sitting around the diner.) I didn't know he was retiring (I'm so out of the loop!) and enjoyed reading about him. I've always kind of liked him, although he seems to be rather melancholy. Sort of deep and pessimistic and sad. Sometimes he seems downright gloomy. He was a great quarterback... but totally lacks the lovableness and pep that John Elway always had. But then, I'm probably biased. :-) Remember how we cried when we watched Elway give his retirement speech, Mom?! Ha! Bawled like a couple of babies. ~sigh~ He was like part of the family, you know? ;-)
Afterwards we went to Wal-Mart to have some pictures printed off. I forgot to mention that the other day when we went to Wal-Mart we bought four boxes full of spiral notebooks. I think it was 120 of them total. I know that sounds a little overboard, but you have no idea how quickly my kids burn through those things! And with the school sales going on now they were only 5 cents apiece! What were we to do?! We checked today just out of curiosty--they are, indeed, sold out. :-)
Katie has been her usual emotional self lately. I've been thinking of when she was a toddler and sooooo expressive and jolly and crazy and klutzy. She's still all of those things, but she's also a very sore loser along with all the rest. (Can't imagine WHERE she got that from... Ha!) It's amazing how self-centered humans are--especially those with a temperament such as Kate's--and the years it takes to learn the hard lessons in life and readjust their outlook on life and learn to cope with things without falling to pieces. If things don't go Katie's way, she is usually in tears in moments. If the boys ever win at anything--a game, a race, or any other contest--she CRIES. Drives me crazy! Even if she's won 4 times in a row, if she loses once it's the end of the world and who cares that she won before. Now she's a LOSER and it's TERRIBLE. ~sigh~ I've had lots of talks with her about it and done my best to deal with the poor attitude in other ways, but I can't tell that we're making any headway! Ha! I was looking at her tonight though and remembering the 2 year old she used to be and how dramatic she was, even back then. I love that kid! She does make me laugh and still brings lots of joy to our household. :-)
Joe has been great the past few days. I can't think of what all he's done, but I know I've laughed at him a lot. He's got some chintzy walkie-talkies that he's been playing with lately. I was ironing the other day and he gave one of them to me and wanted me to talk to him over it while he was in the other room. They barely work at all, though. You hear loud static all the time, then when he pushes his button and talks I just hear a bunch of jibberish. I knew he'd hear the same thing when I talked back to him so I didn't figure it would matter if I said anything sensible or not. So I just did my Swedish Chef impersonation when it was my turn to talk. "Shlorned a beened-a-borned a mark et a moo, mork, mork, mork." Or I would sing the "Bippity Boppety Boo" song. Every little bit Joe would show up in the room flailing his arms around yelling, "I can't understand a word you're saying!!!" I even made out that that's what he was saying once over the walkie-talkie. I pulled out my best Chinese accent then. "Ah, dat's because you have Kawasaki walkie-talkie!" It didn't take too long for him to give up and go play with something else. :-)
Sam. Hhmmm. I can't think of anything specific he's done the past day or two. I've probably just blocked it all out! Ha! I'm sure there will be something really funny or really bad--or both--that he'll do soon for me to blog about.
Well, I'm going to either go do some reading or work on Sunday School stuff. I've got song service, Sunday School and WMB service this Sunday. Lots to do! G'night!
~Bec~
I'm not sure this mountain God gave us could get much better. The kids have mentioned missing the Blob (our swimming pool, of sorts, from last year), but I think they've got way more than any kid could ever ask for already. They've got a great mountain to run around on, a pond, a trampoline, and now a play fort and swing set. Not to mention great weather in which to enjoy it all! And it's soooooo great to be out of town. Since living here we have experienced snakes, lizards, frogs, bunnies, caterpillars, butterflies and who knows what all else--all in our very own yard! I'm certain this is what God intended for childhood to be like and I'm sooooo thankful that He's made it possible for our kids to enjoy the great outdoors a little bit--all right here on our little plot of land. :-)We worked on the fort throughout most of the day today. We got to the end and found that we were one little nut shy of being able to finish up. Wouldn't you know it. One dumb 12 cent nut. James went to the hardware store and we were able to get the final swing up and going. :-) By far the most difficult part of this task is making sure that everything is level and square. It's not as easy as one might think. At least if that one is me! Ha! Still, it's kind of fun to take a pile of boards and hardware and turn it into something. Feels good, you know?!
We ran out to Edgewood tonight and went to DJ's Doghouse for dinner. Much nicer than the name would imply. It's a super clean diner kind of place; black and white tile floor, chrome chairs with pads and Coca-Cola stuff here and there. I read an interesting article about Brett Farve in Sports Illustrated. (They had magazines sitting around the diner.) I didn't know he was retiring (I'm so out of the loop!) and enjoyed reading about him. I've always kind of liked him, although he seems to be rather melancholy. Sort of deep and pessimistic and sad. Sometimes he seems downright gloomy. He was a great quarterback... but totally lacks the lovableness and pep that John Elway always had. But then, I'm probably biased. :-) Remember how we cried when we watched Elway give his retirement speech, Mom?! Ha! Bawled like a couple of babies. ~sigh~ He was like part of the family, you know? ;-)
Afterwards we went to Wal-Mart to have some pictures printed off. I forgot to mention that the other day when we went to Wal-Mart we bought four boxes full of spiral notebooks. I think it was 120 of them total. I know that sounds a little overboard, but you have no idea how quickly my kids burn through those things! And with the school sales going on now they were only 5 cents apiece! What were we to do?! We checked today just out of curiosty--they are, indeed, sold out. :-)
Katie has been her usual emotional self lately. I've been thinking of when she was a toddler and sooooo expressive and jolly and crazy and klutzy. She's still all of those things, but she's also a very sore loser along with all the rest. (Can't imagine WHERE she got that from... Ha!) It's amazing how self-centered humans are--especially those with a temperament such as Kate's--and the years it takes to learn the hard lessons in life and readjust their outlook on life and learn to cope with things without falling to pieces. If things don't go Katie's way, she is usually in tears in moments. If the boys ever win at anything--a game, a race, or any other contest--she CRIES. Drives me crazy! Even if she's won 4 times in a row, if she loses once it's the end of the world and who cares that she won before. Now she's a LOSER and it's TERRIBLE. ~sigh~ I've had lots of talks with her about it and done my best to deal with the poor attitude in other ways, but I can't tell that we're making any headway! Ha! I was looking at her tonight though and remembering the 2 year old she used to be and how dramatic she was, even back then. I love that kid! She does make me laugh and still brings lots of joy to our household. :-)
Joe has been great the past few days. I can't think of what all he's done, but I know I've laughed at him a lot. He's got some chintzy walkie-talkies that he's been playing with lately. I was ironing the other day and he gave one of them to me and wanted me to talk to him over it while he was in the other room. They barely work at all, though. You hear loud static all the time, then when he pushes his button and talks I just hear a bunch of jibberish. I knew he'd hear the same thing when I talked back to him so I didn't figure it would matter if I said anything sensible or not. So I just did my Swedish Chef impersonation when it was my turn to talk. "Shlorned a beened-a-borned a mark et a moo, mork, mork, mork." Or I would sing the "Bippity Boppety Boo" song. Every little bit Joe would show up in the room flailing his arms around yelling, "I can't understand a word you're saying!!!" I even made out that that's what he was saying once over the walkie-talkie. I pulled out my best Chinese accent then. "Ah, dat's because you have Kawasaki walkie-talkie!" It didn't take too long for him to give up and go play with something else. :-)
Sam. Hhmmm. I can't think of anything specific he's done the past day or two. I've probably just blocked it all out! Ha! I'm sure there will be something really funny or really bad--or both--that he'll do soon for me to blog about.
Well, I'm going to either go do some reading or work on Sunday School stuff. I've got song service, Sunday School and WMB service this Sunday. Lots to do! G'night!
~Bec~
Really--I'm BUSY. Tammy used that excuse, so I thought I'd give it a try. It's been a long and exhausting day today, but I'm going to try to throw together a decent post anyway. If I don't I'm going to be so far behind I'll forget all about everything! Let's start with how we woke up this morning...
James and I had been up until 1:00 last night working on incredibly important things. Namely, looking up fun ringtones to put on our cell phones. It sounds silly and trivial until you call and I (and you) will hear the Pink Panther by Henry Mancini. Suddenly it seems worth it all! (I've always been peculiarly drawn to that song--it's one of my all time favorites!) Of course, I have the perfect song set up for when Dad calls, one that has plenty of Texas twang and just sort of suits his "roots." And will make me smile each time I hear it. Twice a year! Ha! (Dad's not a big phone guy!) When James calls I hear "It's Me Again, Margaret" with the sadistic laugher that follows. That's what he chose--just loves it! Ha! Anyway, I was talking about this morning.
Due to our late night we had a hard time waking up this morning. Just after 8:00 Joe showed up at my bedside. "Mom, there's a centipede by my shoes!" I groggily told him to kill it. I dozed back off and a few minutes later we heard Sam saying, "Dad, look--I caught a live centipede!" James opened his eyes to see a fly swatter about 6 inches from his face with a giant centipede resting on it! I must tell you that James didn't actually scream. It was more of a long and exaggerated gasp. I was on the other side of James but--I'm telling you--in correlation with the gasp, his eyes bugged out cartoon style. You know, where they jump way out of the sockets for a few seconds. He responded as most people would've responded (and far better than I--I wouldn't have stopped at a mighty gasp, it would have been a full fledged scream and the centipede and probably Sam would have been slapped at least 6 feet away)... but it was sooooooo funny! I waited to make sure that no children were going to be seriously injured (James was not very happy!) but once I was at ease about that I laughed. And laughed and laughed and laughed!!! It was sooooo funny! Oh, I've replayed it in my head 100 times today and I just doesn't get old! HA! It's what you call scarin' the bejeebers out of somebody. Of course, I think it scared Sam just as much as James! He had just come to show Dad his latest accomplishment and never anticipated a reaction like that. :-) Anyway, I think the centipede was already dead, but James took it to the bathroom and flushed it. A few minutes later I was going to brush my hair and James told me to flush the toilet again, just in case. Ha! I reminded him that he bought the super-duper toilet that "can flush 50 golf balls"--the centipede is not coming back! Ha! Anyway, it was a very interesting way to start the day. :-) This picture was taken at Camp--it was the biggest centipede I'd ever seen. That's Keven Lewis' foot next to it. The one Sam shared with James this morning was big and fat like that, just maybe a titch shorter. Bleagh!
James and I had been up until 1:00 last night working on incredibly important things. Namely, looking up fun ringtones to put on our cell phones. It sounds silly and trivial until you call and I (and you) will hear the Pink Panther by Henry Mancini. Suddenly it seems worth it all! (I've always been peculiarly drawn to that song--it's one of my all time favorites!) Of course, I have the perfect song set up for when Dad calls, one that has plenty of Texas twang and just sort of suits his "roots." And will make me smile each time I hear it. Twice a year! Ha! (Dad's not a big phone guy!) When James calls I hear "It's Me Again, Margaret" with the sadistic laugher that follows. That's what he chose--just loves it! Ha! Anyway, I was talking about this morning.
Due to our late night we had a hard time waking up this morning. Just after 8:00 Joe showed up at my bedside. "Mom, there's a centipede by my shoes!" I groggily told him to kill it. I dozed back off and a few minutes later we heard Sam saying, "Dad, look--I caught a live centipede!" James opened his eyes to see a fly swatter about 6 inches from his face with a giant centipede resting on it! I must tell you that James didn't actually scream. It was more of a long and exaggerated gasp. I was on the other side of James but--I'm telling you--in correlation with the gasp, his eyes bugged out cartoon style. You know, where they jump way out of the sockets for a few seconds. He responded as most people would've responded (and far better than I--I wouldn't have stopped at a mighty gasp, it would have been a full fledged scream and the centipede and probably Sam would have been slapped at least 6 feet away)... but it was sooooooo funny! I waited to make sure that no children were going to be seriously injured (James was not very happy!) but once I was at ease about that I laughed. And laughed and laughed and laughed!!! It was sooooo funny! Oh, I've replayed it in my head 100 times today and I just doesn't get old! HA! It's what you call scarin' the bejeebers out of somebody. Of course, I think it scared Sam just as much as James! He had just come to show Dad his latest accomplishment and never anticipated a reaction like that. :-) Anyway, I think the centipede was already dead, but James took it to the bathroom and flushed it. A few minutes later I was going to brush my hair and James told me to flush the toilet again, just in case. Ha! I reminded him that he bought the super-duper toilet that "can flush 50 golf balls"--the centipede is not coming back! Ha! Anyway, it was a very interesting way to start the day. :-) This picture was taken at Camp--it was the biggest centipede I'd ever seen. That's Keven Lewis' foot next to it. The one Sam shared with James this morning was big and fat like that, just maybe a titch shorter. Bleagh!
But rewinding now... Let's see, we caught Mac on Monday, right? Haven't seen him since then. The kids are sorely disappointed. Me, too! Maybe he'll show up again one of these days.
Tuesday was my big get-everything-caught-up-around-the-house day. At least, I thought it was going to be! I got some things done, but then we decided to go take care of the necessary errands. We went to the library and got a whole slew of new books. We spent quite a while there. It takes longer now that Katie and Joe are learning how to look things up on the computer and I'm teaching them how to find the books on the shelves. It's fun though.
After that we drove to Edgewood to do some serious grocery shopping at Wal-Mart. Came home, unloaded everything and got ready for church. Had a good BTI service that night. James has been going over some of the teachings in our BTI services. That night was on outward adornment and it was really good! Afterwards we went to Denny's for Kids' Eat Free night. James and I split a club sandwich and got chocolate shakes. :-)
Yesterday was an interesting day. In all of my efforts to get things in shape around here, they seemed to have gotten much, much worse. The kids room, in particular. It was just really, really bad and every time we'd gone in there to work on it we'd been interrupted. The day before I had just had the kids clean everything out from under their beds and throw it into the middle of the room. Well, that's when James suggested the library and Wal-Mart outting! So the room was trashed when we woke up yesterday and I had had all I could take. I recited my new favorite scripture: "If any would not work, neither should he eat." I've pulled that one out a few times lately and it usually works wonders. I told them that none of us were eating breakfast until that room was CLEAN. I mean really clean. We cleaned out the dressers, the toy box, the closet, the bookshelf--just about everything. 2 and a half hours and 2 trash bags later, we finally had our breakfast! Crazy. It felt soooooo good to get it done though. After that I finished up on the laundry (don't you hate it when Monday's jobs don't get done until Wednesday?!) and Katie and I watched Three Little Words while I got caught up on all of the ironing. What a great day! (Great movie, too, by the way--an old musical about the song writing team of Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. If you like old musicals, it's a goodie! Immediately after watching it Katie sat down at the piano with a sheet of paper and a pencil because now SHE wants to write songs. She wrote a GREAT song! Something about loving you, too, and "I'll bring you flowers, then I'll take some showers... to smell good..." Ha! It was so great!) ANYWAY...
I managed meatloaf, baked potatoes, corn, and buttered carrots for dinner. James made oatmeal raisin cookies and I made chocolate chip for dessert. It's been ages since we've made cookies and I've really been wanting to. After all, it's COOL ENOUGH here to do it! Wa-Hoo!!! I love, love, love, love, love where we live. It's JULY and it's been overcast and cool the last few days. The high today was 72, I think, but throughout most of the day it's much, much cooler than that. ~sigh~ God is sooooooo good to me and--as happy as I was when we lived there--I'm sooooooo glad I'm not in Texas! As much as I loved living in Andrews and being with family and Sam & Tammy, I never did learn to endure the heat very well. I was cut out for mountain living. :-)
James took the kids outside and refereed several different versions of "Tag." He also played Uno with Katie and Joe while I worked on getting some sap out of Sam's hair. Olive oil--works like a charm! Oooooh... can we say that?! It works GREAT! Ha! It does necessitate a shower and good hair washing afterwards, but it pulls the sap out with no problem at all. In any case, it was a great night! And we had a beautiful sunset, as usual.
Today, as I mentioned started off with a bang. I did the last lingering load of laundry and the few items of ironing that accompanied it (oh, I also got the whole house vacuumed yesterday, too, and everything put in order--CLEAN AT LAST! Except the bathrooms...) and actually got my new ringtones up and going. Got a few more things done around the house while the kid-o's were working on school, then James came home with a new swing set/fort thing for the kids!
We found a good spot for it, just down from the trampoline in a clearing beyond some trees. We hauled the boxes out there and spent the next 30 minutes collecting tools and taking inventory of the materials to make sure we had everything. After about an hour, this is what we had accomplished...
That's right--it took us that long to build one stinkin' slide! I knew we were in trouble when the instructions said that the construction would take anywhere from 6-12 hours depending on your expertise. Ha! I happen to know our expertise and was aware immediately that we were in big trouble. But hey, if you've never built one of these dumb things, don't scoff. You have NO IDEA how difficult it is. And the assembly instructions are something that should've been in National Treasure--a complex code that only a Ben Gates type dude could decipher. I'm serious! I may not be a genius, but I'm not a dolt either--these instructions make no sense and none of the parts are marked. There are 76 pieces of wood (not to mention the hundreds of screws, nuts, bolts, washers, and what-have-you) all different widths and legths with holes drilled in different places. And none of them are marked?! You just have to measure them and count holes and hope you've got the right thing. It's ridiculous. I think I should write an assembly instruction book. Any idiot could do better than the jokers that put this thing together. "Stand on your head and lean your elbow in toward your left knee, hop to the left 3/4", then sneeze. While in this position, drill all of the holes that we were too lazy to drill for this 'easy assembly' kit you were dumb enough to purchase--suckers!" I kid you not--some of the boards are labeled in the book as being 5/4x4x30". Can somebody please tell me what that means?! Where I come from there is no such thing as 5/4". Wouldn't that be 1 and 1/4"?! There are three or four boards with that measurement though--5/4". Somebody ought to be shot. But believe it or not, we actually had a good and enjoyable time working on this thing, even though I'm fairly confident that we're going to fall into the 12 Hour Assembly category. After about 3 hours, we had done this...
Plus the slide, of course. :-) Oh well, it was fun and I'm pretty sure we'll be able to get it all finished up tomorrow. Although I wouldn't wager much on it! Ha! It's been a good family day today. There wasn't a whole lot the kids could help with, but as you can see they brought some chairs out so they could watch their new play fort take shape. At least they THOUGHT they were going to see it take shape! Ha! This is what we had to show for all of our hard work at the end of the day...
We've got a ways to go, but at least it's not ALL in little pieces all over the ground, right?! :-)
Sammy is our little worker man. He loves to be a part and he is a very, very diligent little guy if you can get him started on a project.
Katie and Hershey, overseeing the project...
And Joe. I turned around and found him like this. I'm sure you never would have guessed that he checked out some spy books from the library this time! Ha!
We gave the kids their choice of corn dogs or left-overs tonight. Played Tag outside again, read to 'em a bit, had devotions and sent 'em off to bed. Then we crashed for the rest of the night! I'm already a little sore and achy. By tomorrow I'll deserve a nice, long, hot bath. :-) The shower tonight felt good, but tomorrow will be much, much better!
In any case, that's what we've been up to around here lately. Now you know. :-)
Four posts in less than 24 hours. Do I get a prize?!
I couldn't NOT post. I caught Mac! He had disappeared for a while and the kids were greatly disturbed--just sure we'd never see him again. I finally found him hiding in the tall reed-like plants by the pond. Sam tried to grab him but he flung himself into the pond way too fast! I sent the kids inside and found him a little while later sitting by the rocks next to the pond. I tried to get the guts to grab him, but when I got about 3 inches away he hopped--big and high and long!--about four times around the pond, then back into the water. He's so cool! :-)
The kids and I sat and watched him a while longer, hoping he'd come back out. I finally sent the kids back inside and watched solo for a while. Didn't help. I finally lost patience and eased up to the pond and was able to actually reach in and nab him! Ha! It was great!!!
And before anybody else has a chance to correct me for my ingorance, I realize that frogs are amphibians, not reptiles. (I referred to them as reptiles in a comment on my last frog post.) I realize they are different... but in my mind they're all the same! They are the things I have a hard time actually making my fingers follow through and GRAB, no matter how much my mind tells me that they're harmless. In any case, I was able to grab Mac and it made for a very happy day around here!
I couldn't NOT post. I caught Mac! He had disappeared for a while and the kids were greatly disturbed--just sure we'd never see him again. I finally found him hiding in the tall reed-like plants by the pond. Sam tried to grab him but he flung himself into the pond way too fast! I sent the kids inside and found him a little while later sitting by the rocks next to the pond. I tried to get the guts to grab him, but when I got about 3 inches away he hopped--big and high and long!--about four times around the pond, then back into the water. He's so cool! :-)
The kids and I sat and watched him a while longer, hoping he'd come back out. I finally sent the kids back inside and watched solo for a while. Didn't help. I finally lost patience and eased up to the pond and was able to actually reach in and nab him! Ha! It was great!!!
And before anybody else has a chance to correct me for my ingorance, I realize that frogs are amphibians, not reptiles. (I referred to them as reptiles in a comment on my last frog post.) I realize they are different... but in my mind they're all the same! They are the things I have a hard time actually making my fingers follow through and GRAB, no matter how much my mind tells me that they're harmless. In any case, I was able to grab Mac and it made for a very happy day around here!
And yes, Mother, that is actually your granddaughter kissing a frog! HA! I love it! It took some doing to talk her into it, but she finally did it! How else was she going to know if it would really turn into a prince or not?! Tee! Hee! What a great day. :-)
I put Mac down on the sidewalk so the kids could see him hop. They loved that! It was a little tricky catching him again, but I finally managed it and released him back into the safety of his pond. Amazing, isn't it, how in just a few short hours this guy has shown up, acquired a fan club, a name, and a pond of his very own! "His" pond, we say! Ha! It will be so sad if he decides to leave us. Of course, after today who could blame him?! :-)
Okay, so I realize that I go for days and days without posting and now I'm piling a whole bunch of posts on top of each other... but this can't wait!
Joe came running inside a little while ago with those great big excited blue eyes of his, yelling, "Mom, I found a GIANT bullfrog!!!" I thought, "Oh, that's cute--they found a little frog outside." We haven't seen anything like that here, but surely they know a frog when they see one. Still, I expected a cute little froggy. I thought I'd be a good Mom and act excited for him. I walked outside and asked him to show me the frog. He took me to the pond and I just about died! He was right--it is a HUGE BULLFROG!!! I actually don't know what makes it a "bull" frog, but the name seems to fit this guy. I then showed genuine enthusiasm (rather than the "trying" kind--to humor your kid, you know) and ran and got my camera. So, here ya' go!
I took this picture in hopes that it would show how big he is. Keep in mind that I wear a size 10 shoe. :-)
I made the kids sit still and just watch him in hopes that maybe he'd come out of the pond or eat a fly or something exciting. Really... frogs aren't very exciting. Still, it's sooooo cool to have a great big frog in our itty-bitty pond! I hope he stays. :-)
Sam just can't stand it. He is DYING to catch "Mac." I think that's what Joe has named him.
This is where he seems to like to be, right in the middle of the pond hanging out with the fishies.
Isn't he cool?!
Okay, so I'm wondering... where on earth did this thing come from?! I just can't picture him hopping around the mountains, you know?! He was obviously attracted by the water... but where has he been up until he found our pond??? As far as I know there is no stream or river or anything like that for miles. Sooooo... where did he live before now and get so big--and what did he do with those giant webbed feet when they weren't in water?! He just doesn't look like he'd enjoy hanging out on all of the rocks and cactus and stuff! WEIRD. Anyway, I'm glad he's here and I hope he stays. :-) What a great day!!!
I forgot to mention that I finished up on the Camp paper and we were able to get it printed before we went to Texas. We took it with us and Sam & Tammy helped us put it together and get it ready to mail. :-)
Here's just a teaser... 
Those of you campers (and a few who weren't at Camp... but wished you could have been--we know who you are! Ha!) will be receiving your papers tomorrow, probably. Enjoy! I think I counted 119 pictures crammed in those 20 pages. Crazy, hu?! Makes me sooooo happy! :-)
...again! It seems to be what I do best lately. Of course, it would help if I could stay home for a full week or two at a time!
Things are great here. We had a really great weekend with Sam & Tammy. We got to their house Wednesday evening and enjoyed a delicious pork chop dinner. What a great cook Tammy is turning out to be! I'm going to take James up on his $5 bet next time, Tam! Ha!
We played games that night, just Sam & Tammy and I, I think. Rummy 5,000, of course. That's our game. :-) I know I didn't go to bed until at least 1:00 each night we were there. Don't wanna miss out on any fun or fellowship, you know!
Things are great here. We had a really great weekend with Sam & Tammy. We got to their house Wednesday evening and enjoyed a delicious pork chop dinner. What a great cook Tammy is turning out to be! I'm going to take James up on his $5 bet next time, Tam! Ha!
We played games that night, just Sam & Tammy and I, I think. Rummy 5,000, of course. That's our game. :-) I know I didn't go to bed until at least 1:00 each night we were there. Don't wanna miss out on any fun or fellowship, you know!
On Thursday we dropped Hershey off at the groomers, then headed to Odessa to get the boys groomed, too. :-) Thanks, Stacey! They all look soooooo much better. We were able to go to lunch with Stacey and Brianna, so that was nice, too. And I picked up a few things at Stacey's store. :-)
After that we headed over to Midland to pay a visit to Mardel. :-) James enjoyed talking with his old boss and some of the guys--and they pretty much left their work to just hang out for a while! They always act so excited to see him. We were able to pick up some school books at 90% off. That always makes me happy. :-)
We enjoyed a good church service that night and Brother Sam preached a good message, as always. He is ALWAYS a blessing to me. You already know who we saw after church that night ("May I sub-respond before you finish... Do you?!" HA! -- I looked up some of the Sonic commercials we've been missing since we don't have a TV and watched them on YouTube tonight. Love that one the best!)
We played games again that night, I Buy first and then Rummy after James called it quits.
Friday was the big day! Sam & Tam and James left early to start setting up the Sno-Cone booth at the park. The plan was for me to let the kids sleep in, then we'd all head down there whenever they woke up. They were all up and excited about the holiday before the others even left the house, so we weren't far behind them. The first festivities of the day were the turtle races. It was actually pretty fun! I think they had 270+ turtles this year. A lot of the people paint their turtles before the race.
I thought this guy was pretty fun...
There was also a parade. A kiddy parade, that is! All the kids in town decorate their bikes or wagons and dress up in red, white and blue and march in the parade and throw candy. I think the covered wagon won the "Most Patriotic" prize. (You can see Katie and Joe scooping candy off the road in the bottom left of the picture... right next to the back of Sonic Guy's head! Ha!)
Brother Sam was one of the judges. (He's a pretty important guy in Andrews, you know! Really--he's wormed his way into the hearts of just about everybody in town!!!) I had to take a picture of him. Doesn't he look official?!
And here are James and Tammy getting some ice ready... Cool tent, hu?!
And here's a picture of the sign we worked on for, like, 3 hours the night before! Ha! Pitiful that such a thing could take so long, isn't it?! I was pretty happy with it until I showed up at the sale and noticed the big, black $1's scribbled on it... but let's not talk about it! Ha! And just for all of you people who are bound to ask (!), Tigers Blood is a red syrup that is actually cherry and coconut flavors mixed together. I had no idea that's what it was but it is sooooo good--and I don't like coconut. One of the top sellers, for sure. And PICKLE. You just buy a big jar of dill pickles and pour the pickle juice over the ice. Is that nasty, or what?! But it's a big thing down there and you wouldn't believe the number of Pickle Sno-Cones that we sold! GROSS.
We sort of took shifts working the booth and entertaining the kids. Walking them around, then bringing them back and giving them a Sno-Cone. :-) Uncle Jerry really did most of the entertaining. Took 'em to the booths and bought them brownies and toys; a cap rifle with a scope for Joe (he has this thing for guns with SCOPES right now), a noisy little gun for Sam, and some disappearing ink for Katie. Still, by about noon the kids were wearing out, so Aunt Sue & Uncle Jerry took them back to their house. I went and picked up Hershey Dog and followed them there. The kids spent the afternoon watching Wanted: Dead or Alive while I napped on the couch. :-) Hershey and Joey were ready for a nap before too long, too...
The rest of the crowed showed up at about 4:00. James crashed on the couch and Uncle Jerry took the kids for rides on the motorcycle while Sam did all of the grilling.
It kind of concerns you to have such a guy cooking your food, but it appeared to be our only option since Uncle Jerry was on the bike and James was asleep! Ha!
I took this picture just because I thought it looked so great with the wind making Sam's shirt billow like that... :-)
Aunt Sue and Stacey and Bri went to a wedding, so James kept an eye on the kids while Tammy and I took on Sam and Uncle Jerry at 8 Ball. You'll never believe this, but WE WON!!! I think the guys won the first game, then Tammy and I squeezed the next game out. That meant we were tied and had to play a third... and we won! We played a fourth (Brother Sam was hoping to catch us again so we'd have to play yet another tie-breaker) but we pulled that one out, too, and ended the match. ~sigh~ What a great night!!! We're a pretty good team, hu, Tam?!
We headed back to the Kaufman house and put the kids to bed. Isn't it sad to not have any fireworks on the 4th of July?! The ban was being enforced heavily in Andrews County ($1,000 fine for even POSSESSING fireworks--I think that's what I heard!) because of the drought. Sad, sad, sad. So we turned the TV on and watched the show from Boston. Sam & Tammy even sat on the floor and pretended they were laying on the grass at the park, in person! Ha!
We played some more I Buy, lost James to the bed, then hit Rummy 5,000 again. What a great weekend! In the morning we loaded up and went to Sue's store before heading out of town. I got a couple things from there, too. :-) Most notably, a new purse. I LOVE my old purse--the one I bought two years ago and had stolen at the Assembly and went and bought the very same one afterwards for $20 again. But I've been increasingly frustrated at not having my camera and a few other things with me when I really needed them and that purse just wasn't going to work. I needed something bigger. Explain this to me: How can you have a small purse, buy a bigger purse, take what was in the small purse and put it into the bigger purse, and find that the bigger purse is FULL?! I don't get it. In any case, there is room for my camera, so even though this purse is much more my Mom than it is me (it's a girly quilted thing), I'm LOVING the functionality of it. Boy, if that's not the way to end a blog, I don't know what is. Exciting purse talk. ;-)G'night all! I'll try to post again soon and tell you all the things I ran out of steam on tonight!
~Rebekah~
+of+IMG_5261.JPG)
+of+IMG_1563.JPG)
