Sat., Jun. 6

Today, Saturday, we spent the day wrapping up "move-in" projects as much as possible to create as much livable space and comfort in the house for the purpose of beginning being hospitable in our home. Now therrre's an idea...! :) It's easy to postpone little projects for a while, so our house really benefits from the whole 'deadline' thing because we do like to have things cleaned up pretty nicely for when we have company ... for their benefit, of course, but also for our own. :) Jeremy and the children worked downstairs a TON, and I worked upstairs mostly. Jeremy and Natasha actually did some outside work, too!! In fact, Natasha actually offered to do extra work outside (sweep out front, driveway, sidewalk, entryway)!!! It was so hot and muggy today ... and she knew that, from the work she had already done outside. I was so proud of her for even THINKING OF that extra work to do, much less doing it with a happy heart; she's not always so quick to take those kinds of paths.... So anyway, It was a SUPER-productive day as far as that goes.

Jeremy put the main dish together; I was stuck prepping the pearl onions (I like to cut off their little 'roots' end and peel off the outside unpleasant layer), and it was taking too long ... as always. (sigh) Jeremy, actually, was a totally awesome host tonight, to the point that I was barely doing anything!! He served the dessert, as always. (Since I eat slowly and he positively INHALES food, he likes to get up and serve the dessert. It's a unique tradition in our family.) Then, after he finished his dessert he quickly stood up and started collecting dishes, and he RINSED them all before I even knew what was going on! WHAT A GUY!!!!! "What's the rush?" Well, we were anxious for the possibility that the Baileys might enjoy doing some worship singing with us. They, as far as we can tell, enjoy it as much as we do, and ... sure enough!!! Whoo! Wow, did we SING!! And then (gasp!) Amy played the piano for a little while, and she is an AWESOME pianist! Amazingly, it's possible she's even more talented/skillful at the clarinet! It's possible that she will give our children piano lessons!! I was thrilled to see the sparkles in N's eyes when she was talking about how beautiful Amy's music is. :) :) We enjoyed the evening ssssso much!!

Now, more pictures. There are two more pictures from the move; they are of the children in the pool at one of our motels. The one of Justus by himself was taken specifically to show Jeremy how brave Justus was being - letting go of the edge in the deep end. Justus hasn't had many opporunities to practice overcoming his fear of drowning ... following that scary event last summer in a different motel's pool....







These pictures are of the lovely evening we had at the annual church campout last month, a couple weeks after arriving here in town. The campout is held at an awesome property that includes a shelter for cooking and eating, a few cabins (one has some basic plumbing!), lovely *flat* areas for pitching tents, and a POND -- with paddle boat!! The paddle boat situation is ideal for children, who (when wearing life jackets and being supervised), if they're old/big enough, can actually DO the paddle boat-ing without help from adults!! WOW!










These are some kind-of 'everyday life' pictures. Justus in his new Hulk underoos, and then a couple of some of the pretty flora in our yard. (N & J took the pictures in front of the pink bush with Chewie.)