And after that...

Let's see... nothing monumental to report from the next several days, just regular house stuff. Until the day I finally agreed to let Joe go down to the creek to fish. He had just left a few minutes before when he called back on the walkie-talkie. I was on the phone with James, but I heard his excited voice on the walkie-talking, then Katie came rushing to me, white as a sheet, holding the walkie-talkie, saying that Joe had been bitten by a water moccasin. I told James to hold on, slammed the phone on the table, snatched the walkie-talkie, and called for Joe. He asked who he was talking to, I told him it was his mother, and he started laughing and said, "Oh, I'm just kiddin', Mom." I was quite... unhappy, let's say. I told him to get himself to the house NOW. In the meantime, Katie had run out the door and was on her way racing down the mountain, crying and calling for Joe. When he heard her, he got scared (crazy how that works--ha!), and they both walked in the door a few minutes later, Katie mad and Joe confused. I had had time to collect my wits, but I also wanted Joe to know how much he had scared us all and I wanted him to feel how not okay it is to kid around about things like that. I know he's just a kid and he didn't think things through far enough to realize that it's not funny to joke about stuff like that; it's scary. The whole "never cry wolf" thing. I explained all of that to him rather passionately, and he was about to make it out with his life until he said, "I thought you could take a joke. I guess I was wrong." Not the right thing to say at that moment, I assure you. He was ashamed and embarrassed about having done something so stupid, but opted to shift the blame rather than admit his mistake. THAT'S what cost him. But in the end, I'm pretty sure we all learned from the experience and I doubt we'll encounter any more jokes of that nature around here. :-)

On Friday night we had a Children's Church/Youth Night at the Church. It was GREAT. :-) I had made popcorn balls and lots of leaf and pumpkin shaped sugar cookies with fall sprinkles (makes me happy) and we grilled hot dogs and just ate and had a great time. We played some group games (I tried to teach them how to play Electricity, Tammy, but I'm not sure it ever actually worked right! Ha!) and then Sister Washburn had a devotion with them on why we need to have the Holy Ghost. It was great and we're hoping to do something like this once a month or so.

That night we brought Zack home with us to stay the night. We'd been meaning to do that since back in June when the other kids stayed. We still need to get Dalton here one of these days--he never has made it down. Maybe soon.

The kids were up EARLY on Saturday. (Like, walking through our bedroom--they have to in order to get downstairs--at 6:30!) Katie was deemed head chef and made bacon and eggs for all the boys, then they all headed down to the creek to play in the chilly water. A while later they showed up on the front porch, but Sam had no shoes. He said he couldn't find them and nobody would wait for him--and he wasn't about to be left down there all alone! So I made the whole troop of them go back down and stay until they could ALL come back with shoes. They had taken Charlie with them and Katie put him on a rock in the middle of the pond, then left him there and crossed to the other side. He couldn't stand it and jumped off the rock and swam to them--which they thought was the cutest thing ever, but meant that we had a filthy, wet, smelly dog that needed bathed along with all the kids who needed showers. Ha! Oh well, he probably needed a bath anyway.

The kids went out to ride bikes that afternoon and it wasn't too long before Zack came in with his elbow all scraped and bloody, just like his brother did when he stayed the night! Their mother came and asked me about it the next day--was I just pushing her kids down the hill, or what?! Ha!

That afternoon the kids and I loaded up and drove Zack home, then turned around and came home so I could get busy transcribing my session of the Assembly for the Assembly Minutes. I got about 3/4 of it done that night before I needed to stop and finish getting ready for Sunday School and for Sam's little devotional for Children's Church. He had constructed a tank with a motor and battery pack, so the devotional was based on Psalm 60:12, "Through God we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our enemies." The two batteries that powered the tank represented the Word of God and prayer and once they were both in place the tank moved forward and knocked down several little Lego men, representing the things we need to conquer in our lives--bad attitudes, laziness, disobedience, selfishness, etc. The entire devotion and demonstration took all of about two minutes, but that's probably just right for kids. Especially Sam. :-)

After service that morning all of the restaurants were PACKED, so some of us just went back to the church and the guys brought pizza and soda back to the fellowship hall and we just ate there. It was really so much better than going to a restaurant anyway, simply because it was nice and quiet and relaxing, the kids could run and play without disturbing anybody, we didn't have to wait for them to find seating for 15 or 20 people, and it was cheaper. Why haven't we done this before??? We ended up just spending the entire afternoon there visiting, the kids playing outside, the some of the guys (and later kids) playing the instruments and singing. It was so nice.

We had a good service that night with a good, sweet spirit moving throughout the worship. Probably preparing us for the business conference that was to follow. HA! I do declare, Bessemer has the longest conferences I've ever been in in my life--even under a Clarkson. ;-) I made the kids stay as long as I could. Once we hit the one hour mark I finally felt like I had to give them a break. There's simply more business to discuss here than what I'm used to and I'm amazed at how much time it takes. I do truly appreciate our men in the Church and their desire to do good business and make wise decisions, right down to the purchase of lawn mowers. I’m thankful for the way God set things up in the Church and I’m SO thankful that women have no part in the business of the Church other than asking questions of their husbands in private, and praying for the men as they work through conference. We give them a hard time about how long they take, but talk about a TRUE disaster—hand it over to the ladies!

This week has been full of school, housework, and Ladies' Retreat prep. James bought a microscope for the kids so they could do the science projects they'd been held up on. They've been enjoying that--and suddenly studying cells makes a little more sense than it did before.

I took Charlie to the groomers out in Calera the other day and we ended up taking the scenic route. :-) I had mapped the best way to go, but managed to miss a turn or two. On the way home, however, I found the right road and it did feel like it cut several minutes off of the usual trip. You learn something new every day.

James was gone most of the day yesterday, at the hospital with Sister Hoffman who was to have a heart catheterization. He made it home in time for dinner (grilled cheese and tomato soup--I outdid myself) and we got a call that all had gone well during the proceedure.

I've spent the last two nights working on my class for Ladies' Retreat. It starts NEXT FRIDAY (I can't believe how quickly it's sneaking up on me!) and I have so many things to get done, I wanted to at least have a good head start on my class before getting into all the other prep stuff. I'm feeling pretty good about it. I hope I still feel good about it a week from now! I hate it when I prepare something and think it's just right, then look at it later and think, "What??? This doesn't even make sense!" Ha! We're providing brunch on Saturday this year--and doing it ourselves instead of having the campground do it--so I've got to figure out what we're doing for that. Google has been my best friend for this decision. :-) I've got some ideas, just need to settle on which ones. And it's difficult not knowing how many ladies to expect. Which leads into the other dilemma. Our numbers are way lower than what we are obligated to pay the campground for. Not good. I need to call and talk to Campground Bob about it, but was hoping to get a few more applications in before I did. ~sigh~ I need about 12-15 additional ladies to show up JUST to be able to cover our costs. Any takers??? ;-)

I also never settled on anybody to do Fun Time at Retreat, so I guess that leaves me. :-) And staff gifts. I'd love to come up with something nice (but CHEAP--for obvious reasons! Ha!) for our staffers. And Hide-Away time. I'd like to prepare some sort of hand-out for the ladies to use during that time. I really ought to look over my program and make sure I'm happy with all of the time allotments and such. Then I'll format name tags for the 20 Retreaters I have registered. And take 15 blank name tags for the ladies I'm hoping will show up there unannounced! Ha!

For today, it feels good to have the house in decent order and a little bit of a head-start on my Sunday School class for tomorrow. We'll be leaving shortly to go to the Fall Fest at the church in Goodwater.

Ah, yes. Pictures. I have just a few random shots from here and there. Here's the boy and his very first catfish...



Sam and Granddad. I love pictures like this. :-)
And another frog. I've taken more pictures of frogs since we've lived here... :-) This was a bright green tree frog that Sam nabbed off of a back window one night. He was pretty cool.
And this is what has been occupying the kids for several days now. James came home with little toys for everybody from the dollar store. Joe's was a sling shot that came with these stretchy, sticky little aliens. He's been shooting them EVERYWHERE. And of course they stick to whatever they hit, which is occasionally the ceiling. Then he has to either exercise a great deal of patience and self-control and wait for them to drop on their own (they have been known to hang on for several hours--one I'd forgotten about almost dropped in my soup last night! Ha!) or take matters into his own hands...
But he usually doesn't actually knock the aliens down, he just looses more and more rubber bands. :-)