this past week, the boys spent their mornings at the little local church doing vacation bible school (VBS). it was the first year that adam was old enough to join them and the first time EVER that i had a whole week of three hours of kid-free time.

i spent the entire three hours wondering if i would get a call from the teacher asking me to come pick someone up…or worrying that they weren’t having enough fun (although i KNEW they were having a blast as they always do at this particular church’s bible school!). such is the fate of a mother who doesn’t send her children to school, i guess. i have never gotten used to having them at a different location for that long.

the church is a smallish country church of the missionary alliance denomination but they use a poplular non-denomination bible school curriculum that all of you involved in a big church VBS are probably using: Group’s age-appropriate High Seas Adventure.

they do a great job with the fun activities and invites all families to participate in a closing friday afternoon picnic. last week, i heard “but sawyer, we learned about SHARING today in bible school, so you need to share that toy with me!”  yup.  AND…”mommy!  God’s word is TRUE!” at which point all three boys yelled as loudly as they could, “LET’S GO!!!!”  yes, bible school lingo was mighty strong around these parts last week.

one would think that having three hours to yourself in the morning would make for an easy peasy week. but actually i found the opposite to be true. by the time i picked up and brought the boys home, they were hungry, tired, and needed me to tell them how to have fun all afternoon. they’re usually very good about playing games and making up stories to play, but after being entertained all morning, they wanted me to continue their entertainment. fortunately this new behavior will be changed soon as they will wake up with no plans beginning tomorrow (monday!) and enjoy playing together once again.

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sushi…

kenny and i exchange babysitting with another family – friends of ours that we met through another church and our homeschooling circle. they have three kids as well, and so we sit their kids (for free!) once a month and they do the same for us (for free!). our first exchange was last weekend and kenny and i met friends of ours from church for sushi. this was my first sushi experience as i’m (A) not a fan of seafood at all and (B) afraid of raw meat of any form. but i’ve been willing for the longest time to give it a try as long as our first experience was with someone who knew what they were ordering.

we went to ichiban which is by far more popular for its hibachi steakhouse side than it is for its sushi bar (as was confirmed by it’s empty sushi bar tables and packed-out hibachi tables). we were encouraged to try the special sushi rolls of the day, and we were not disappointed. the rolls weren’t in the least bit fishy tasting (my biggest fear), not slimy at all (my second biggest fear) and quite flavorful if you used soy and wasabi. i am eager to go back to eat an entire meal of sushi rolls soon. the only downside to sushi is the price: i’m glad we had it on a night we weren’t also dropping $30-40 on babysitting! sushi was the only cuisine i have never given a try, so i’m now happy to say that i’ve pretty much tried each cuisine available to us in america (and enjoy pretty much all of them!).

next time we go back to ichiban, i do want to take the boy as i know they’ll find the hibachi chefs a hoot to watch (and they love noodles, edameme, and veggies!)

my friend Jill is an artist-momma who lives very close by. we were college roommates (in cold, cold MI), did some acting together, but more importantly, we both drove Hondas. we have great college memories.

she and her husband and two kids live just about 45 minutes from us. he spends the day speaking spanish on a college level while her two cute kids do things like meet us at the zoo for lunch. jill was an elementary art teacher in her former life, and now she mothers, creates, plans to teach again soon, and blogs (yay!).

i have commissioned work from her in the past (she created a pictoral version of the “give us this day our daily bread”, from the paraphrased version of the Lords Prayer found in the Message) and just recently asked her to do three pieces for each of our boys. She just posted about it on her blog and I can’t wait to give them to the boys…look at those cute, crazy, and finely-balanced sheep!

please look around her blog and see her work – it’s SO fun, whimsical, and she might even do a “giveaway” at her blog for an art piece every now and then. i won this one over christmas! hopefully she’ll be opening an online shop here soon.

tell her i sent ya. she might just share our secret handshake if you do…

kenny has been very busy over the past few months preparing for something that began last night, and that we hope continues and grows on into the future.

with the help of friends and other church members, we started a saturday evening service for church members and anyone outside the church who wants to check it out to worship. the service is based on “an order of worship for the evening” so communion is not included. however, the service concludes with a free meal for everyone, so communion happens, just not Holy Communion.

we honestly had no idea if anyone would come, but we were pleasantly surprised to see the faithful worshipers from a typical sunday morning service come, and a few others.

i can’t describe the service any better than kenny already has at the service’s web site. please check it out. and if you’re local, come visit! and if you think of it, keep this service in your prayers.

i leave you with an image of my favorite poster we’ve hung up in stores in the area.

the end of summer seems so…heavy. take a look around you. the green leaves are weighing branches down. the gardens have candy-apple red (or ripe-tomato red) fruit hanging on plants shared with dead, yellowed (once green) tomato leaves. the weeds have overpowered every effort of weeding. shrubs, grasses, and plants look tired of their summer life…as kenny likes to say, they look “rode hard and put away wet.” they’ve had a good life in the hot sun. it’s time to rest for the colder months and re-awaken with vigor come spring.

this is the first summer in a long time that i’ve enjoyed every last bit of heat and sunshine, and would love a few more weeks of MORE. fortunately, it can be in the 70s well into october in these here parts (i.e., october 21, 2001 was in the mid 70s…i remember this because i was wearing a heavy, silk wedding dress that day), so i don’t really have to let go of it just yet. however, everywhere you look, fall is here: pumpkins and scarecrows and halloween and thanksgiving decorations line the shelves in every store.

we’ve been enjoying the cooler (or less humid) evenings after dinner playing aerobie while the three boys run around us in the yard. rowan and sawyer usually spend the time riding their bikes into the pine trees or swinging on their jungle gym while adam walks circles around us.

the other evening, kenny and i stayed on the deck with adam after eating dinner outside while the older two went to swing. they eventually ended up watching clouds (something i haven’t done since i was a kid myself!). adam had fun with the cat:

we had friends over on monday for labor day…friends from out of town, friends from out of state, old friends, new friends, friends with instruments. the last “official” weekend of summer was spent with friends. and family.

and in pajamas a lot of the time:

i hope you’re enjoying the last of the season as best you can!

happy mother’s day to my mom, grammy, and all my fellow mommy readers and bloggers.

i was blessed to share homemade crepes (ala kenny) with my boys this morning. and i was gifted with THE NEW MARTIN SEXTON CD!  ahhh…black coffee, lovely crepes, and martin playing all day long!! the perfect day!

and here are my reasons for truly celebrating today…
 

i don’t know what you’d call my friend audrey and i.  we’re two peas in a pod? anomalies? coincidences? twilight zone characters? separated at birth?

we have these odd similarities that just kept popping up over the years as we got to know each other. and we’re not talking about “i liked ralph macchio in high school…OMG so did I!” or “my prom dress was yellow…OMG so was mine!” here are just some of our odd similarities:

1. my full name is elizabeth anne. she was meant to be named beth ann (but for some reason her parents decided on audrey).
2. my mom’s name is diane. her sister’s name is diane. (okay not so weird…a lot of us have similarities like this.)
3. we both have a niece who is the same age AND named sadie rae. same spelling.
4. we both remember watching “Hatchey Malatchey” – a children’s program that i used to watch when visiting my grandparents in their home in Scranton, Pennsylvania. when i found out that audrey was a graduate of this show as well, i was floored. NOBODY (and i was beginning to think it was a figment of my imagination) had ever heard of that show before, until it was mentioned in passing one day in one of our conversations.
5. we’re both BIG Twin Peaks fans.
6. We’re both BIG Gypsy Kings fans.
7. She has a Nana and Pop-pop, and so do I. and now my parents are Nana and Pop-pop.
8. We’re both fans of burnt hot dogs. And we mean blackened. MMMMMMmmmmmm!
9. Her husband, Tom, and I share a birthday: March 7th.
10. The biggie: We’ve both been blessed with pilonoidal cysts (i was going to post a link, but if you really want to know, you can research that on your own!)

perhaps these don’t seem odd to you, but when we come up with yet another odd “thing” that we share, we just shake our head and laugh.

a mutual friend of ours, amy, and i also have fun similarities. my favorite is that amy is one of the only adults that i know who also likes Peeps and candy corn. we agree that it is better, hands down, over chocolate any day of the week. if i had to, i could live on Peeps and candy corn and nothing else.

but i don’t. because if i did, i’d have much bigger dental problems.

ps. if you’d like to donate a year’s supply of Peeps or candy corn for my friends and i, please email me for my address. thank you.