August Roundup

I love going back and looking at the past month and remembering the highs (and sometimes the lows) of each month. I usually do this every month, but we've had a rough, full, different 3 months, so I'm playing a little catch up....no big deal :o)

BIG EVENTS

My Main Squeeze helped in Middle School camp. Yes, I know he's a High School pastor, but he's also a team player :o) He took a group of HS students to serve at camp. They led the games and craziness. He also got to fill in to speak when the Middle school pastor hurt his knee. We missed having him around the house as we were all adjusting to life in a new place. 

Starting kindergarten is a big deal at our church. They have a special kids church just for kindergarteners, and the church presents Bibles to each kindergartener. #2 was so excited to get her Bible, and she's been reading it nearly every night. This is the group of all the kindergarteners who attend on Saturday night church. The big guy in the middle is our pastor....not a kindergartener.



CELEBRATIONS/HOLIDAYS/GIFTS
Well there really aren't any official holidays for us in August, but every year in Youth Group we have Fear Factor Night where we play favorite games like Goldfish Spit where you transport goldfish via mouth from one end of the room to another, Happy Shake where you blend up a happy meal and have a race to see who can drink it first,

I love the terrified look on this girl's face :o)

MEMORIES MADE - AKA FUNNY KID STUFF
My mom and dad came to visit for the first time in our new place. We drove around the new town "to see what we could see. We ended up at a great park by the beach. What was cool about it is that most of it felt like a "park" - picnic tables, playgrounds, grass, gazebos, etc. Then you walk down the sidewalk through the dunes and BAM! you're at the beach - surf, sand, beach umbrellas - the whole 9 yards! There are tons of ducks at the park too. They followed us around - aka Duck Stalking.

Our good buddy CK came for a visit. She told us all about her mission trip this summer to Jordan, and she's praying about going into missions full time - whoa!!! She got to share about her burden and testimony with the High Schoolers....so proud of this girl!

 Main Squeeze took the kids to the playground, and they saw a rabbit, and they kept telling him how much they wanted a pet rabbit. He told the kids, "If you can catch it, you can have it." So they came home, took 2 laundry baskets and 2 baseball bats and all the carrots in the fridge and made traps in the backyard - like Wile E. Coyote and RoadRunner. The funny thing is we saw rabbits in the backyard after dinner! The traps stayed in the backyard until I needed them for laundry :o)

August 29th was the day I earned a supermom award because it finally happened - I lost a kid at church. We were trying to leave, and #3 darted out the door. When I got into the foyer, he was nowhere to be found! I enlisted the help of several coworkers to try to find him. The little punk had snuck (sneaked?) to the back of the office, through the copy room and was sitting in the hallway hiding next to a couch when on of the men at church found him. When I went one way, and they went the other, the man who found #3 said, "Your mom went the other way." #3 looked up at him and said, "I know, let's slow down and hide from her".....little punk....

DISAPPOINTMENTS

We had some major moving/adjusting/growing pains this month. It has been a busy month, and hard to get used to doing all the busy stuff while living in a new place. My Main Squeeze's Jeep ignition decided that it was going to retire - aka stop working. He spent several days working on intricate parts, and for a few days he was starting his jeep with a screw driver until he could get the right part in. Once he finally got it all put together (YEA!!), he started looking for a new ride. He was able to get a great deal on a Jeep he's been wanting for a while. I love it when a disappointment turns into something great!!

We were able to close the sale of our old home. It was disappointing that we were not able to get the true value of our home because of the crummy economy and the real estate market. I'm praising God that we were not upside down in it, and this was a real reminder to us that all we have is just stuff. It's not ours; it's God's, and He is all we need for security anyway.
 
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
The kids can all go to their classes at church, and I no longer have to have a pager!!

They can all buckle their seatbelts themselves!!!

Everyone likes their classes at the new church.

They each carry their own papers/Bibles/stuff at church. (Ok, we're still working on that one...but that's the goal anyway)

#1 started playing tackle football. The new church has a ministry called Sports Outreach, and in the fall they play tackle football. It's a little - ok a lot more intense than other teams he's been on before. He has practice 2 days a week and one game a week. He's excited about all the equipment. So are #2 and #3.

The kids started their first day of school in their new school. They love their teachers and I'm excited about their classes. Here are a few of our first day of school pictures...

#2's lunch

#1's lunch

#3 doesn't like being left out of the first day of school pictures...so here he is in his Buzz Lightyear PJs!

 

 

Don't feel too bad for #3. After #1 and #2 left for school, he asked if we could go swimming in the pool without them **mischievous grin**

I'm not sure you'd call this an accomplishment, but we added a new member to our family....Meet Yoshi.
After fear factor night we brought home the leftover goldfish, and, well....all 4 of them died. It's ok...they had been traumatized by teenagers. So the next day my Main Squeeze took the kiddos to petco to pick out this guy. #3 got to name him, and of course, he picked Yoshi because of his love for all things Super Mario.



Another big accomplishment was that my Main Squeeze got to baptize his first group of students from this new

church. Once a month, the church holds baptisms at the beach. It's a really special event. This day, there were 32 people from our church who were baptized!