It all starts with a barren piece of carpet. First, all of the tables get placed.
Once the vendor hall opens there are many hours of standing and talking. I do enjoy when customers have genuine questions that I can answer from my own experience.
When it is time to tear down, the books get put away first. We had SO much help this time and everyone had worked a convention before. Everything was torn down in 1 hour 5 minutes. It could be a convention record!
10,151. The bluest sky after a super rainy weekend
10,152. Catching up
10,153. When Maria and I can sneak in a phone call
10, 154. All the mothering feelings
10, 155. Aliza and I snuggled in for The Chosen
10,156. Josiah, Anna and Isaiah playing together
10,157. Anna had the best time with Laura
10,158. Prayer support
10,159. Aliza felt encouraged after youth group
10,160. Isaiah's prayer
10,161. A night of worship that filled my soul
10,162. Afternoon at the park
10,163. Watching Aladdin with Elizabeth
10,164. Aliza's "people" made her so happy
10,165. Working outside with Anna
10,166. One of my ESL students stopped by to give me Mother's Day flowers (He's young enough to be my son.)
10,167. Enjoying the evening outsdie
10,168. Talking care of Isaiah
10,169. Aliza's last show
10,170. Hanging out with Anna
10,171. A couple days of a normal schedule
10,172. Josiah enjoyed having a friend over
10,173. Hammock swinging
10,174. Doing some errands with Anna and Isaiah
10,175. Everyone at home this evening
10,176. Traveling alone
10,177. Working steady to get the booth set up
10,178. Podcast listening
10,179. A laptop charger to share when I forgot mine
10,180. Talking homeschooling
10,181. Energy for the day
10,182. A really interesting conversation with a couple
10,183. Getting to know some BJU consultants better
10,184. A safe trip home
10,185. Mother's Day with my kiddos
10,186. Jeremy took care of supper
10,187. Planning school with Aliza
10,188. Sending Aliza off for her first day of job training
10,189. Big kids doing truly helpful jobs in the yard
10,190. Anna is incredibly excited
10,191. Birds at the feeders
10,192. Helping Aliza adjust
10,193. Everyone home for supper
10,194. Teaching some sweet children
This is a highly unusual situation where I am writing stories with no pictures! Let's see if I remember how to do this!
Adulting Kid
On Wednesday I watched my oldest walk out the door for her first summer job. For all of her 17+ years, Aliza has been at our table for lunch and, now, for the summer she will be at work every day over lunch. Not that she has never eaten a meal elsewhere, it's just the consistency of her not being here that I'm noticing She's doing great though and I'm proud of her for doing something new and a little scary. After her first week, Aliza has already decided that office work is not something she wants to do for the rest of her life. I consider that a successful summer job experience.
Yesterday was another day of firsts for Aliza. She took her SAT--in an actual school complete with #2 pencils and scantron answer sheets. lol. She came out completely wiped (who doesn't!), but feeling pretty good with how the test went.
Exploding Light
This was a weird start to my day on Friday. An LED recess light in the kitchen had burned out on Thursday and when I turned the kitchen light on Friday morning another light was out. After a few minutes the second light came on and shortly after I heard a loud pop, the plastic cover went flying, there was smoke and a burning smell. Jeremy was in a meeting so I called Brian. (Thank goodness God saw fit to give us one brother!) Well, I also called Brian because he has direct access to the electrician and knows just about everything about our house. Brian could tell that I thought my house was about to burst into flames so he came directly. He thought the exploding light was very strange and took out the lights and capped off the wires. Of course, my house had not burst into flames. lol. The electrician came that afternoon and replaced the lights. It appeared that maybe some bit of moisture had gotten into the lights causing them to short, but we have no theory as to how that could have possibly happened. The attic space is completely dry. Maybe it was just a bad couple of light fixtures.
Steakhouse Ordering
This is a moment that just made me laugh and I want to remember it. Jeremy, the boys and I invited ourselves to join the girls and the Morgan family at Texas Roadhouse for supper. Anna had watched the live action Little Mermaid with them and Aliza was meeting them for supper. I thought it sounded like a good excuse not to cook and so we showed up. The four adults sat in one booth and the 7 kids were in a booth directly across from us. It was a typical steakhouse restaurant menu with appetizers, salads, steaks, chicken, burgers, sides etc. We started looking and pretty soon Isaiah was at our table asking what he should get. He sat down and the next kid came over...after that the kids lined up and when we thought we were settled the last kid came over to figure out their order. The hilarious part was that the Morgan kids did the exact same thing! All 7 of the kids came to the adult table not sure what to order and how to order. Life lessons were learned! They all ordered on their own. Anna figured out that she got free refills on her lemonade and basically filled up on lemonade before her actual food came. It was quite the memorable meal.
We could hardly wait to see Ronan again! When he was at Grandma and Grandpa's alllll eyes were on him!
We made a bit of a spontaneous, crazy decision to go with a group of people from church to a commissioning service for a young woman going to South Asia. If you know my family, you know that we are not morning people at all so for us to be at the church at 7:15am to carpool was a bit of a test for our commitment to go! It was a long drive to Richmond, but we were split up with friends and that made the trip go faster.
It was fun to see the training center and be able to support our friend. Our church, by far, had the greatest number of people attend. Our friend was Anna and Isaiah's Sunday School teacher, knew Aliza and Josiah well from helping with youth group and taught ESL with me.
After the service, we went our own way and stayed in a hotel for the night. Isaiah was especially happy to get to swim in the pool.
Sky Meadows State Park was our adventure the next day. I had packed a lunch and then we did a 1.2 mile hike. A walking stick helped Isaiah make it up the mountain.
The trail was literally cut through a cow pasture. We passed several cows on the way up.
We took the forest trail back we went the forest route.
The streak of fun started Saturday evening with Renee's birthday party on the beach. We all enjoyed being with cousins and family. Isaiah was in the water the whole time. He was thrilled that Ezra was willing to be in the water too. Since we were in Chincoteague, we, of course, had to get Island Creamery on the way home.
Sunday afternoon was Aliza's choir concert.
It was sunny and clear on the beach. It was also a little breezy and cool! The kids played games. I got to take a walk.
And when the hole was half filled, Isaiah was (finally) allowed in it and he want to be buried in the sand.
...than to know that your children have chosen to walk in truth.
When I tuck Isaiah in at night, he usually asks what we are doing the next day. On a Wednesday night he asked what the next day held and I told him that we were planning to go to a Franklin Graham crusade. He asked what a crusade is. I told him that it was a special event that gave people the opportunity to accept Jesus as their Savior. Isaiah said, "I don't think I've done that. Am I old enough?" I told him he was definitely old enough and we talked about what it means to know that you are a sinner and believe that Jesus came to earth to be the sacrifice for sin and that when we believe Jesus we want to make choices that honor God. Isaiah prayed and made the choice to follow Jesus!
The next evening to did go to the Franklin Graham crusade. Honestly, we were more excited to hear the Newsboys though. The event was well attended and there were no protests in town.
