LAST weekend...finally

This weekend Mindy came to visit, as I already mentioned in an earlier post. She was such a blessing! She flew in Thursday night and of course we stayed up into the wee hours of the morning talking. The next morning we had "preschool" (a little Bible class we started with our kids ...eight of them). Friday was the first day of our third year together. Mindy got to be there with us for that, which was fun. Later in the afternoon we ran around town taking care of some business and then that night Julie came over to visit. She came bearing chocolate cake and ice cream. Both Mindy and Julie let me talk and then they encouaged me and cried with me a little. Then they helped me go through every box in my garage and get rid of all the things that I've been hanging onto that I shouldn't have. I now have about 10-12 boxes of garage sale items in my garage. I can't wait until they are gone!! At about 11:30 my parents pulled into the driveway. They brought my bed, my dresser and my new desk. YAY!

Saturday morning we went to B's first soccer game! How cute was he?? Awkward to say the least to have Chris, my parents, Mindy, Laurie, me and my kids all at the same game. Chris sat over on the side of the bleachers and took pictures. It was as good as it could have possibly been, but still oh so yucky.

Benjamin's got the ball...look out!

Yes, this is my son pushing the little boy from the other team. He got a little too into the game at times, I think! We're working on that.

Go Lighting!

Here is the boy after a long game...his FIRST soccer game. What a cutie!

Now here is the fun part... after the game we got to work. Here's the lowdown on what we accomplished:

• bed set up with beautiful new bedding
• new dreser lined and filled with neatly folded clothes
• new desk moved upstairs and set up with computer wires untangled and for the first time in my life understood by me what each ones purpose was. YAY me!
• hutch moved downstairs and filled with china and pretty things that have been in storage too long. I like pretty things, don't you?
• bookshelves upstairs in homeschool/study/exercise room now have organized books and resources. Everything now has a place.

Isn’t that all fun? It certainly felt good to have all of these things accomplished. Right around 2:00 or so Mindy and I skipped out and went to go pamper ourselves. She treated me to a manicure and pedicure. Whoo hoo! This was no regular pedicure though. We splurged for the sea salt scrub, leg mask and hot towel wraps. They also had these amazing massage chairs to enjoy while they were working on you. So nice!! Everything was perfect! Thank you Min!

Later that evening, after my parents left Mindy and I took the kids bowling. Neither of my kids had been before and we had such a blast! Here are some pics to help you get the idea…


Giving Cait a hand. She couldn't even carryt the ball by herself, much less get it down the lane.


Benjamin the man.


So funny. He would roll the ball and seeing is how it took lots of time for the ball to actually reach the pins...he had enough time to run back to the tables and lay down to watch what his ball was going to do.


Whoo hoo!


The very pregnant Mindy helping Cait get her ball down the lane. Mindy beat all of us. How can that be? I bowled like a 118 or something...but that was with gutter guards! That goofy Dr. Aetha messed up my bowling skills! You know who I'm talking about too, don't you??

Overall, it was a perfect weekend. Now I'm looking forward to my trip to Maryland to see Mindy and the new baby in January!! Thanks for coming Mindy. It did my heart good. And thanks to Jeremy for holding down the fort so that Mindy could come!!