The Weekly Review XIII

Sunday~
This morning Travis was too tired to go to church since he got in at 4 something from work. He wanted me to wake him up and I tried but it just didn't happen this time. Tea came home with us from church because Beatrice wanted her to come for a tea party. She had made her an invitation on Friday. So it really had to happen :) Travis and I mowed the field after lunch. We missed the riding lawnmower, but we used less gas and got good exercise. I wanted to take a bike ride, but it was really windy and there is only so much time, we needed to have a tea party and Travis wanted to weed eat the back fence along the alley. It was bothering him. Once Travis got cleaned up we went to Urban Ministry. It is fun to go any ways but this week was also a going away party for the Wesemans. They are off to Arkansas for a couple of years for further study.

Monday~
For breakfast Margaret wanted to do something different than normal so I suggested she paint with milk on the toast before it was toasted and this is what was on our toast today.
We painted our front entryway. It is now a richer cream color and no spots that I can't wash clean. We like it. It is the same color as the piano bench so I also repainted its top. Bea had used permanent markers on it without enough layers of paper and I had a bunch of pink and blue and other colored spots on it now. But not anymore. It is clean too. The painting went nice and easy since it is a small area.

Tuesday~
We got the entryway put back together. We also got a load of wood. We have a lot of wood cut, split and stacked for the next winter or two.  Margaret and Harrison had music lessons. We made a quick trip to the library between lessons. It seems to be our favorite hobby this year is running there and back.

Wednesday~
Margaret and I moved the furniture out of the living room this morning and then I was going to start shampooing the carpet, but I was rather feeble in my attempts and spilt a bunch of shampoo in one spot as I was trying to get things going so Travis stepped in since he was now up and took over that job. I just had to run get more shampoo. I was pretty tricky, I think. He ended up doing our bedroom, the upstairs landing and the stairway. All of which were in desperate need of it. The only reason it wasn't done at the beginning of summer was I got exhausted just thinking about it each time and talked myself into thinking we had more pressing matters. It is nice now. It made a stressful few days for a bunch of neighbor kids though as I wouldn't let them in. While our floor was damp I didn't feel like any unneeded traffic on it. I do like having clean floors.

Thursday~
We had a pretty quiet day. Travis left for work about 5 so I got up and packed his  lunch and then went to bed again. In the morning just my kids played catch in the field for awhile and I joined them. In the early evening we went to Kids Connection and did the lesson and activities for them. It is a part of the Urban Ministry that we hadn't been apart of before. The story was Acts 2: 38-47 when Peter tells them what they must do, Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins and they will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. We acted it out a little as I read it, Harrison was Peter so he said his words. We did OK but there the kids definitely had stage fright, and were pretty nervous. So it was a good thing to build our character. We did have a good time interacting with every one. When we got back we put our living room back together and had supper.

Friday~
I had the kids pick me basil, mint and echinacia leaves to wash and now we are drying them for the winter.
The stairs are still damp in a few places so I didn't let anyone into our house again today. Mean me. The kids played outside a lot. Croquet was the favorite. Travis had simulator training today so he knew he had to work from 9- 3 or 4 a few days in advance. It turned out he was fast so he got home about 2pm. Then we went shopping. I had some needs and others had some wants and we got about everything on our list after a few hours. One thing was a Wii game for Margaret's birthday that Harrison wanted to get and wasn't at our normal shopping place of Target. So as we were driving we noticed several game stores that we tried and Sam's but Best Buy was who pulled through for us. A bit more than Walmart when Harrison had been there this spring, but not as out of the way so we paid the extra and skipped the drive. We got our last delivery of school books this evening. It is so exciting to look at them.

Saturday~
We had puffed pancakes for breakfast with apple/zucchini/orange topping. It was very yummy. After Travis read for awhile to everyone and I cleaned up breakfast we went and got another load of wood. I should be loosing weight, all the trips up the boulder steps I have made this month with a load of wood in my arms. I am not though. When we got back I hurried and showered and got things made for Waylon's first birthday party. We got to try new foods because they are Hmong. Pa Nhia made chicken curry soup and her sister brought a green mango salad. They are both spicy. You ate them with rice noodles and the soup also with chopped cabbage, cilantro, limes and bean sprouts. It really is yummy. I really enjoyed seeing their garden. Her parents really have green thumbs it seems to me. They garden in a big way north of here a little for the farmers market but at their house they had all sorts of their type of herbs and vegetables. They have real ginger growing among other things. It was neat to get to meet some of Pa Nhia's family.
Well I had better get ready for church in the morning. Good night.
~Anna