News & Photos

We've had an exciting weekend here--filled with tornadoes that fortunately never came too close to us. But the weather men sure were excited--so excited they thought they needed to pre-empt the pre-race interviews and discussion before the Belmont, which really ticked me off, since it's been years since I've looked forward to a televised horse race!

Fortunately we had nice weather for most of the day on Saturday--which I give thanks for, because that was the day we rented a U-Haul truck, rounded up a few of the 14-and 15-year-old boys that Bantam13 and Blondechick15 have become friends with here in our neighborhood, and drove to our storage space to complete the Final Phase of our move-in. Yep, we still had a couple hundred boxes, as well as beds, end tables, bookcases and smaller shelves, all in storage.

We had an old friend from college visiting for the weekend, whose muscles added considerably to the general effort, and we served bagels, grapes, and banana splits at the end. All in all, though everyone got pretty sweaty and I'm sure there were sore muscles on Sunday, the Final Phase wasn't too brutal.

Although for me, it's disconcerting that just when things were starting to feel comfortable, boxes have mushroomed once again in every room of our house! At least everything's here now, so I can organize accordingly. I am so happy to have all of our children's books back in the house, as well as bookshelves to put them on, since Bantam9 desperately needs more reading material. (That's my opinion, not his.) The other kids still have plenty of Sonlight books to finish up for the school year, but the books he's ready for now are ones I packed up last April. That's how long it's been since the contents of these boxes have seen daylight!

And on Friday Papa Rooster came home with a new camera for me. "I noticed it's been awhile since you posted any pictures on your blog," he said.

You may remember that our handy-dandy digital camera went missing a couple months ago. Both Blondechick and I were sure it was in our house somewhere--we thought it had probably been shoved somewhere just before a showing, and I've been praying that I'd find it in some forgotten nook. But it hasn't shown up, and we've become suspicious that it actually was stolen during a showing, as the last places that we saw it were all right out in the open.

So Papa Rooster bought me a camera. (Didn't he just buy you a really good one last Christmas/anniversary/birthday, some of you may be wondering? But it's quite complicated--not a point'n'shoot--and I haven't had time to learn to use it.)

I wish I had used my new camera to take pictures of our house on Friday night! But since the influx of a couple hundred boxes on Saturday...it'll be a bit longer for those. I have my work cut out for me on that front, because besides books, these are the boxes containing all the most easily recognized stuff one can live without for long periods of time, but presumably can't part with. Therefore, the most difficult items to know what to do with! Eh...yeh.

But I do have pictures! (Photo credits all to Blondechick)

Yesterday, at Light of Christ we were blessed by a visit from William and Anne Beasley! Here's a candid of them before the service.


And here are some of us with them at lunch. (Our wonderful hosts were getting dessert ready and didn't make it into these pictures.)




And here is the view from behind the Kemper Center, where our church meets, on Sunday morning. We didn't touch the color settings--the sky was such a vivid blue! (This was the beautiful weather in between tornado sightings on Saturday and Sunday nights.)


Here's one of the first shots Papa Rooster took, trying out the new camera.


And here's a shot of the bike trail behind our house. Isn't it beautiful? We went for a two-mile walk on Sunday afternoon.



So now maybe I'll inspire myself by promising a picture of each room in our house as I get them unpacked and organized. Now that I have a camera again...!