So, time for another "Recent Happenings" post. One of those posts full of random little things and events that are too small to each get their own, but which I'd like to remember.
Last Wednesday, after months of talking about wanting to do it, we (Mom, Trissy, and I) finally made muffins and took them by the UPS store where Archer works in the 'big town' about 45 minutes north of us. He always loved our muffins whenever we'd take them to the Thursday night college Bible study, and it would be an excuse to get to see him again (Trissy and I had only seen him once since he left in January, and Mom had not seen him at all). He was on the job, so we only got about 5 minutes to stand and talk, but we'd told him we were coming, and he had been looking forward to it and was expecting us.
Friday, Abigail, Piper, and Joy came over to the house for the afternoon. We'd invited Lela too, but she had somewhere else she already had to be and couldn't come this time. That was disappointing, but we had fun with the other three! We made headbands using t-shirt scraps and these instructions I found on Pinterest, then we made bread and, while it was in the oven, went for a walk in the woods and played with our two kittens, "Murphy" and "Fin".
When the bread came out, we had hot PB and J sandwiches with home-made jam and played a partial game of Skip-Bo until it was time for me to take them back to meet their folks in town. It was a very nice afternoon, and hopefully we can do it again before four months have passed! The last time we had Joy and Lela over (we'd invited Abigail and Piper, but they couldn't come that time) was in February.
While the girls were at the house and we were working on our headbands, of course we talked alot about hand-made crafts in general. Somehow the wooden pig cutting boards that Bro. S. makes came into the conversation. I'd heard about them before - he uses one of his grandfather's cutting boards as a pattern (his mother has the original from 48 years ago), and makes them for the 'hope chests' of girls in his family. When Piper first was telling me the story, I told her to be sure and tell him that if he ever started making them to sell, that I wanted one. Friday when it came back up, I mentioned again that I wanted one if he ever sold them.
Well, Sunday morning as Trissy and I walked down the street beside the church building, headed to the gym building for Sunday School, the S. family's van pulled up beside us on their way to Sunday School. Bro. S. leaned out the window and called good morning to us, then said, 'Oh, I think we have something for y'all.' and held out a pig cutting board! I felt like one very special young person!
That evening when I tried to pay him for it, he wouldn't let me.
We had a Fifth Sunday/Fourth of July church picnic Sunday evening at the local reservoir/lake. It was such a nice time! We reserved one of the pavillions near the swimming area, and everybody took lawn chairs and food to share, and someone hooked up a couple of ice cream freezers to their truck battery and made home-made ice cream! "Doc" (one of the men of the church who's a doctor) had his boat, and took little bunches of the young people tubing on the lake. Someone thought to take the church's portable volleyball net, and there were volleyball and softball games going on sporadically throughout the evening. They'd also taken several folding tables and chairs and these were set up under the trees near the pavillion. It was just a great time of fellowship and being together.
I had a wonderful time, and even got a bonus - getting to cross two things off of my Bucket List: 1) Jump into a pool or lake with every-day clothes on, and 2) Ride a motorcycle.
After we'd all eaten, Ava, Trissy, Piper, Joy, Abigail and I walked down to the lake because Doc was going to take them out tubing again. Neither Trissy nor I had thought to take swim outfits, so we weren't going to get in the water, but we could ride in the boat. Neither one of us had ever been tubing or even seen it done, and it was alot of fun racing across the water with the wind whipping our faces and the four girls bumping along behind us. Only Joy seemed confident (her grandparents have a house by a lake in a near-by state, and they go there alot, so she has been tubing many times); the other three were just hanging on and trying not to fly off when Doc would swing into a curve. But they all fell off at least once, except Abigail, who somehow managed to keep her grip. A couple of times when Doc slowed down and went back to pick up someone who'd fallen off, he asked if we wanted to try it. The girls had been trying to talk us into it since we first went down to the water. But since we only had our regular clothes, we'd declined each time. I just didn't want to have to spend the rest of the evening up at the pavillion looking like a 'drowned rat', as Mom would say. But I really really was hating to miss it! Eventually, Doc said we'd be going in in about ten minutes. Joy had fallen off fairly close to shore and when we went back to pick her up, Law was swimming out. Ava, Piper, and Abigail were tired and decided to get in the boat, but Law and Joy were going to ride the last few minutes. Doc could tell I really wanted to try it and offered again, and the girls were encouraging me to just do it. My spirit of adventure was up, and I was beginning to be afraid that if I didn't take the opportunity, I'd always kindof regret it. When Trissy, with her sensibility and strong sense of propriety and decorum, seemed to think it was alright and urged me to go ahead, that made up my mind. I handed Trissy my glasses, kicked off my flip-flops into the bottom of the boat, Ava gave me the life jacket she'd had on, and I jumped in! The water was warm and comfortable. Half-way to the 'float', I realized I still had my watch on, so I hastily pulled it off and struggled back to hand it up to Trissy. My only discomfort was embarassment at my slowness and lack of elegant swimming skills (I can stay afloat, and painstakingly make my way from one point to another, but I'm no pro, and certainly not very graceful).
Law and Joy showed me how to hoist myself up and where to hang on, and after checking to make sure we were ready, Doc started off. It was deliciously fun, and I managed to not fall off! On my first time too! And when the time was up and we went back to shore, it actually didn't take a very long time for my clothes to dry, at least somewhat.
And then later, one of the men of the church (the same man who drove the bus and cooked for us on our mission trip to Chicago last month) was giving rides on his motorcycle, and I got to do that too!
So that's two items crossed off my Bucket List in one day :) , just a fun 'bonus' added to the blessing of the already-greatly-enjoyable evening with my church family and friends.
Mom's really beginning to get anxious about getting Trissy's and my dresses made for Toby and Lindy's wedding. It's only about a month and a week away, and we needed to get them started, but Mom still had some questions about the pattern. So, she asked Lindy to come over Tuesday evening to talk about details. And after all that was settled, Lindy just stayed for a while to visit. She hadn't been to the house in quite a while, and even though we see her at church all the time, she's just one of those friends that is easy to want to share life with. We went outside in the back yard so she could see our two kittens (Lindy loves kittens), and we just sat in the grass, getting to do alot of catching up and just talking about life. It was so nice.
{Zig-zags courtesy of Jones Design Company}
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