Before my son harrasses me about taking to long to blog I thought I'd best sit down and type an entry. Since I last made an entry a lot has happened. We've had our 28th (yes that is 28 Bobby not 30th) anniversary. We worked hard during the day having a wood bee and cookout/birthday party for some elderly neighbors. We asked their son and others from MA to come up as well as some neighbors to help cut their tree length firewood into stove length. There were only 4 show up but they got alot done. For coffee break the girls and I took treats down and the girls stayed to run the wood splitter and stack wood. They all, including the folks this was for, arrived here for lunch. We surprised the lady with cake and ice cream in celebration of her upcoming birthday.

Later Mike took me to Augusta to Home Depot where we picked out some lights for the porch. Augusta restaurants were VERY busy that night so Mike headed to Waterville for dinner at Ruby Tuesdays. Lianna and Annie are very creative! They wanted to do something for us but couldn't figure out how without asking me to take them to a specific place - then I'd know! They made a card and a 'gift certificate' to Olive Garden. The gift certificate was adorable and rather authentic looking right down to the UPC codes on the back (is that what they're called?). I think Olive Garden should have Lianna design theirs! Then they handed us cash. This didn't work out very well because there isn't an OG inWaterville. We called the girls and told them that we showed it to the manager of Ruby's and he said he'd take the gift card as long as he had their permission. There was dead silence on the other end then, "You mean you showed the gift card to him?" Lianna asked incredulously. We chuckled and told her we hadn't but explained the situation and she told us that, " You can go anywhere, we just wanted you to have a night off and be away from the worries and work at home to enjoy each other's company." Isn't that SOO thoughtful?

Sunday was Lianna and my first day at running jr. church. It was very interesting and we both learned and look forward to doing more. We were just getting the kids quiet and taking prayer requests when one pipes up and says, "Where's Tommy?" another replies, "With his Mom, he has diarrhea." !!!!! Lianna was trying not to bust a gut while explaining that we don't have to give all details.

Monday the 28th I worked. I leave at 5:15 a.m. to get there for a 6 hour shift. At 12:30 my replacement hadn't shown up and I was getting anxious to go. Come to find out there was a scheduling conflict and there wasn't a replacement. I have a few weeks off before filling 'snowbirds' shifts and I want to get my bill paid so I stayed for the second shift also. I was VERY tired that night.

Tuesday we started school and tried to get 3 good days under our belts. I said "tried" because we're using a whole new curriculum and style as well as adding Latin in. I usually don't start until after Labor Day but thought the 3 transition days would do us good. I'm very glad we did this. I think we're going to love this new process.

Friday our out of town guests arrived and we headed out for camping. One and a half hour drive, load canoes and kayak with all the gear and head for the island. It was a beautiful day and we got set up rather quickly. Mike was the first one off the rather weak looking rope swing. Someone had tied sticks into it to hold onto because the rope was so thin. One of them caught him just above the eye and there was blood everywhere. It didn't stop him though. The night air was quite chilly but we all kept warm. The weather Saturday was questionable and I resorted to---- I hate to admit this---but I used a cellphone and called Bobby to have him get the i'net forecast. He read that the hurricane that missed them would be hitting us, albeit weakly, Sunday morning. We decided to pack up Saturday evening and head home. We promised all the kids that if it were a nice day we'd take a day outing.

We woke Sunday to partly cloudy and headed to another lake and island where there is a great rope swing. Mike grabbed an older 'park canoe' (built like a kayak sized canoe but without any seat- you sit on the floor) to make sure we had enough watercraft. Bianca, the 17 year old wanted to try the park canoe. We didn't realize that it had sprung a leak and the further she got out the more water it took on. Lianna came along side in her kayak and was trying to play bilge pump with a water gun but couldn't keep up. That's when Bianca screamed! The very large spider family living in the tip of the canoe was getting wet and decided to crawl up her legs to safety! She's a lifeguard and doesn't mind the wet but the spiders were another story!
She was really taking on water and decided to hightail it out of the canoe entirely. She swam the rest of the way with us towing the canoe.

We were able to get a fire started in the firepit on the island for her. Did I mention she was dressed in capris and sweatshirt? She eventually changed into her bathing suit to be dry! Mike and Annie took turns using the rope swing and I took pictures. We hung around the fire for a while until the air changed and then headed back across the water. Lianna and Annie paddled together in a 1 man kayak and the other 4 of us went in the canoe and pulled the leaky canoe behind us. We almost made it! We were about 50 feet away when the skies opened up and let loose!

AFter that we all went for Pizza and then parted company as our friends headed back to MA. I was glad that I got to meet Bianca again. I had only met her once when she was about 2 weeks old. She's grown! She is a very sweet young lady and I hope we get to know her better in the future.

Back to school this week even though we found out Tuesday that we're housing the guest speaker and his wife for 6 days. We have teacher training sessions Saturday for a class our church is going to do. There will be 3 classes and Mike & I were asked to teach one. It's called "Set-Free" and is a program to deal with addictions. It looks to be a busy weekend!

So Bobby, how was that? Do you feel updated? The girls said yesterday that I was pulling a Bobby! Bianca left a couple things here and while I was grocery shopping I picked up some halloween decorations, a huge spider web and lots of little plastic spiders to put in her box before I send her stuff to her!!!

Enjoy your weekend everyone!