An Update...

Wow, June is flying by. I have been taking more pictures, just not getting them on the blog. We have been pretty busy here the last couple of weeks.

We did my birthday which was pretty cool. Vivian helped me eat my birthday cake - actually, I did not get any of the first piece and had to get my own later.

Ashby came in to visit last weekend and we had a real good time. Miss that boy. He was a real trooper on my last minute Father's Day shopping trip.

Speaking of Father's Day, it wore me out. This year our church youth committee decided to do a mother's day breakfast and a father's day cookout for the entire church on the respective Sundays. The breakfast in May was really good, so the bar was set pretty high for the moms to put on a good cookout for the fathers. Rick coordinated the mother's day meal, so I coordinated the father's day meal and it was some work. We did hamburgers/hotdogs w/chili, beans, potato salad, cole slaw, veggies and dip, fresh fruit, and a cake (okay, I bought the cake but I am pretty sure the Lord did not mind). I have never before made 12-15 pounds of potato salad/a whole crockpot of baked beans/and chili to feed 60 plus, but it turned out really well and I had some great help from several of the other moms in the church. The youth did a good job serving the meal and helping out that day but the prep work was pretty crazy. Good thing I got a whole year to get myself psyched up for next year.

Vivian and Rick got to spend a lot of quality time together father's day weekend because I was busy in the kitchen. Sunday morning Rick took Vivian to meet his dad for breakfast and then they came back for church. It was too bad that Rick had to work the rest of father's day, but I think he enjoyed it. I had to add this picture even though it is not from father's day it is still a good one.

• On Wednesday I was 23 weeks into this pregnancy and this baby kicks HARD!!! Not much else to report other than my feet are swelling a bit more than last time. Vivian still has not held still long enough to feel the baby kick.

• I was a Vacation Bible School helper again this year. Last year it was tator tot preparation - this year it was teaching a lesson. I do not know what accounted for the promotion but it went fine. When I was asked to teach, I really did not think much of it, but then last week I asked who was teaching the other three nights - turns out this year's teachers were me, a Presbyterian minister, a Methodist minister, and a Catholic priest (hmm... sort of sounds like the start of a joke to me). I did inquire how I wound up in this crowd because a) hello, not a preacher; b) sort of intimidating teaching with those folks - particularly when they rotate around and listen to you teach; c) yeah, right, umm ... this is not funny and the tator tots were not that good. Anywho, I taught my lesson on Esther - basically the same topic three times with three different age groups - pre-K;K-1st; and 2nd-6th - it was a little difficult but I think it went okay.

• We are finally making some progress on our patio. My cousin Markus came out this week to lay the block wall and it is looking really good. I cannot wait to have it finished. I have been the gopher on the project and had to go to get more materials from the block store. Yesterday I came up the road with a very heavy load of top caps for the wall and some straw for our garden. Since the truck was really weighted down, my top speed was 40-45 the whole way up from Petersburg. Funny thing was though, the cars behind me could not see the load of block and probably wondered why I was driving so slow to haul five bales of straw.