Good day w/ the family

On Friday, Larry began a week of vacation days, so since he works for the church, we couldn't very well attend our church today.  The guys on staff are all told to go into hiding & run away when they're on vacation, so no Rose Heights for us this week!  Anyway, with that in mind, we visited our old church today.  www.bethelbible.com

Bethel Bible Church was our 'home' for 7 years ('97 to '04).  When we joined the church, Savannah was about 15 months old and when we left she was 8 years old.  They congregation at Bethel saw us through years of financial & physical turmoil, supported us in so many ways, offered their homes & prayers & friendships and were some of our biggest 'cheerleaders' through Larry's years in seminary.  It's been 3 years since we left and while a lot is the same, so much has changed!  We have fond memories of our years there, so it was nice to visit & see old friends today.  Samuel wanted to go to the childrens' program during the worship service, but the girls stayed with us.  He had a blast!  The teachers of the childrens' program are both friends from our years there so they had a ball getting to see our little man today.  Samuel was almost 5 when we left Bethel, so he still remembers things about the church.  Sarah, on the other hand was almost 4, so I guess she was too young to have many memories of her years at Bethel.  Several ladies there today commented on how they enjoyed seeing her because they remembered holding her in the nursery when she was an infant.  It's fun to see your children through the eyes of others & today was one of those days where they all shared sweet memories of my kids' early years of life.

After church,  the kids asked if we could go out to eat.  While going somewhere to eat wasn't really in the budget for this week, we'll stretch things elsewhere to make it work.  It's a special day when we're able to sleep a little later, drive to & from church together, sit together throughout the service, etc.  At our regular church, Larry has to go in before we're all awake and he stays later than the rest of us, so today was a treat!  Anyway, all that said, we decided to make it a special day by going somewhere to eat together.  While our "special meal" was only Dairy Queen in Gresham, it was a nice treat for us all!

We came home & took a nap for a while and then went to visit my dad.  Larry & Samuel went a little early to do some squirrel hunting (they didn't get anything).  Daddy is progressing slowly.  Recovery from this surgery is very hard & painful, so I know he is feeling terrible, but he's making progress.  Larry has been there every day since he had the surgery (at the hospital or their house) so he's seeing his daily progression.  I feel bad for both he & mom because I know they're getting little sleep, but they seem to be handling it well.  Keep praying for his recovery if you think about it while you're on your knees.

Tonight Samuel put together his first book report on a book we read together over the course of the past couple of weeks at bedtime.  He reads alright, but I knew he'd never make it through a chapter book in time to turn in this project so we read together.  He read one of the Adam Joshua Capers books.  He liked it a lot so I think we may be getting a couple more Adam Joshua books for Christmas!

All in all, we had a great day full of family togetherness & fun.

Two humorous things from this weekend:

On Friday, Sarah brought home a picture she made at school about her class's recent field trip to a farm.  It's called "Books Alive" because they visit this farm & move from station to station.  Each station includes an animal they can touch, pet, play with, etc.  The person at that station reads them a book about the animal and so the book comes "alive".  On her picture, she wrote a little summary about going to Books Alive.  Larry & I have read & re-read it this weekend, each time getting such a giggle out of what she wrote.  While we know what she MEANT, what she actually wrote is so funny!  This is definately one to put in the baby book so she can get a laugh out of it as an adult.  It says "....my favorite part of books alive was the hores."

Tonight, I was helping Samuel clean up (his mess in) the bathroom & he stopped cleaning to tell me "Mama...you know, we're not supposed to work on the Baptist."  Huh?  He repeated it & then I realized what he was meaning......the SABBATH.  LOL!  Um, right dear...we shouldn't be working since it's the Baptist today.

Have a good week!