Thu., Aug. 7 - Sun., Aug. 10

Thursday was a grocery shopping day for me and a major errand day for Jeremy. It was N, however, who traveled the most miles!! She received a special invitation from the librarian who heads up the crafts, to go on a library field trip to Ames, to Iowa State's Insect Zoo in the Entymology Department. [She wishes to do a separate post of the pictures she took ... with the camera, which (yes) we did let her take. (gulp!)] N was the youngest kid to go (The others were ages 11-16.), and I agreed to let her go only after a pretty serious conversation with Sara regarding N being the youngest, and needing to be held pretty firmly under a thumb ... especially relating to her difficulty keeping her mouth shut!!!!! lol (Hm, now from whom could she have possibly inherited THAT gene?????!?) When N was back in our possession (It felt like our child's first day of kindergarten ... something I'd been blessed to have not yet experienced!!!!) I asked, "If Sara were to give me a report on your behavior, what would she say?" N said, "I behaved well, but I did have to get spoken to a couple times." I said, "About what?" She said, "When I needed to stop talking so much." (big sigh) >><< I shopped two locations for a 3.5 qt. slow-cooker, but found none to even *price* and ended up ordering one off the Internet on sale for $14!!!!! (Of course, shipping was $10. -argh-) Jeremy and Justus helped move Jason's stuff from his storage shed to his house.

On Friday we did yard work on a remarkably cooler (though still not comfortable for *me*, of course) and less-humid late-morning. The children were good help. :) They played outside quite a lot more that day, including working under a bush in the back yard, making a 'play house'.... They built flags, a front door, back door, porch, etc. "Built"...? More like "assigned", I think. As the weather continues to cool it will be interesting to see how this develops. MUCH beautiful, un-written music is coming from the children's fingertips through the piano; it's blowing the minds of the adults in this house. Very exciting. I cooked during allllllll available hours on Friday. Bananas had been on sale, so I bought enough to make five loaves of banana bread. I wish to accompany the thank-you notes (for the engine $$ help) with banana bread.... It's rather a big project, but completely within reach.

Instead of a FFFFFDay this week we had a FFFSFDay and hit the Science Center on Saturday mid-day. It was enjoyable because we felt no need to see it all this time, and just spent the majority of our time in the "Toying with Science" room. Did I remember the camera?? nope. sorry. The Ball Wall. Built the arch. Raced Lego cars. Tested our skills at the Egg Drop. Competed with ourselves at the water power station. Oh, but at the Domino Fall Natasha did something interesting. They have some wood 'block'-type pieces which can be used to make the dominos fall up and down the steps. When N was making her Domino Fall, she kept trying to get that thing to stand on its side so it would stand really high ... to use somehow. It was fun to feel amazed that she was thinking so far out of the box; I'm not good at that. I'm glad she is. In the afternoon Jeremy napped, preparing for our late night on Saturday. N, J, and I relaxed a bit, and then made our Sunday lunch. Elaine stayed with the children Saturday night so Jeremy and I could join three other young church couples at one of their homes for "Fight Night" ("UFC" - Ultimate Fighting Championship). Verrrrrry interesting. It's a combination of boxing and wrestling and mixed martial arts, with strict rules and a professional aire. It's more violent than I'm 'into', per-se (I'm one who could never even understand basic boxing ... wrestling, barely. lol), but it's extremely popular right now with people in my generation, so it definitely opens up great relational opportunities.... We had a really, really nice evening sharing supper and getting to know some of these friends better. Yay

Today, Sunday, was another blessed worship day, although your prayers are coveted for Alan (one of the elders), who barely made it through leading singing in our service this morning and was taken to the ER as the lesson began. He was having chest pains; we know now it was not a heart attack, so Lord willing tests this week will see what kind of cardiac episode it was. The afternoon was extremely restful, and after the evening service we went to Indianola to share a wonderful meal (smoked chicken, fruit salad, grilled corn-on-the-cob, garlic bread, et. al.) with the Morts, Dorrells, and Ferrells (the Dorrells' daughter's family). Good times.