Welp, That's All Folks

It's been a good run.

Tickling My Funny Bone

I don't know how many of you have read the lastest Reader's Digest, but last night I just really got a kick out of one of the jokes. 


On his way to perform at a graveside service, the bagpiper gets lost.  After many wrong turns, he finally arrives, but the minister and mourners have already gone.  Only the grave diggers remain, and they're eating lunch.  Not knowing what else to do, the bagpiper begins to play.  The workers put down their lunches and weep as the man plays "Amazing Grace".  When he finishes, he packs up his bagpipes and heads for his car.  As he opens the door, he hears one of the workers say, "I've never seen anything like that before, and I've been putting in septic tanks for 20 years!"


I laughed out loud!

A Pull Tractor, Kentucky, A New Baby and A Roommate

The last week has been pretty busy.  While the Rockville group was still here we had a couple volunteers come down for the next week.  The day they left we had another friend come visit the preschool and stay for the weekend.  While she was here we went to a tractor pull.  Or a pull tractor as one of my kids called it.  Whatever you call it, it was pretty boring.  And really loud.  Like plug your ears unless you want to go deaf loud.  We were there for about four hours and only about 10 minutes of those four hours were close to exciting.  But, it was an experience I guess.

I left Sunday right after church to go up to Kentucky Lake for a couple days.  For several years, all the Hodel's went but as families grew it died out all too quickly.  My aunt and uncle still go faithfully though and I was able to crash in their cabin.  I got to see Kristi for the first time since I visited Magdalena last September.  I didn't realize how much I missed her until I had a little time with her.  Two gold stars to the first member of the Hodel family to tell me where this picture was taken:)

Tuesday night I drove home, stopping for gas in Athens before I went the last mile to my apartment.  Tuesday unfortunately ended in a late night rescue by Cassie.  Good thing she was around!!

Wednesday was the first day since the middle of July that was normal in a sense that we didn't have anyone around to entertain and keep company.  It was bliss.  Thursday we got the long awaited phone call that Mark and Bekah had their baby.  We had been planning to swing by their house after work and take a present to Bekah cause it was her birthday.  Instead we took two birthday presents to the hospital- one for her and one for sweet little Natalie Rebekah:)

After seeing them, me and Cassie had one last roomie party.  She'll be gone all this week and won't get back until late next Saturday.  Sunday is my going away party so last night was really our last night of living together and hanging out in the evening.  Our roommate party was complete with pizza, a movie, chinese checkers and mancala.  One this is certain, I will miss living with Miss Cassie Bertsch.

Two Completely Different Topics....

For starters, here's the "after" preschool pictures.  You can see in the last post how everything was all off white except for the office which was pale blue and pastel yellow.  Now, we have

The Purple Room

The Orange Room

The Yellow Room

And the Beautiful Green Office!

Every time I walk in I just have to stand there and take it all in for awhile.  We love it!!

And now for a completely different topic.  I had my class reunion this weekend.  Ten years.  It doesn't seem possible.  I know that anyone reading this who is older than me is laughing because they probably think I have no clue how fast time really flies.  But for real- sometimes I really do feel like I was JUST graduating high school yesterday.  Here we are though.  A lot are married, some have kids, some are working on PhD's, some are trying to make it big and yet some are no different than they were ten years ago. 

I'll be moving three weeks from today.  There's another thing that hardly seems possible.  I guess right now I'm feeling pretty reflective.  A little down, a little frustrated over the fact that I still don't know for sure what I'll be doing once I move back.  I still am peaceful that moving back is the right decision but every time I think I know what I'm going to do I either second guess or another option seems to come up.  I think I'm trying to figure out how much I need to wait until I feel God speak and say "this is the direction I'm taking you" versus how much do I just need to pick one of the options and step out in faith, trusting that God will lead along the way.

I'm to the point now where yes, I'm still very sad to be leaving Athens but I'm ready to just have it done and over with.  I'm dreading packing.  I got my fill of that getting ready for the preschool to get done.  We just got everything over there unpacked and I hardly have a chance to organize my thoughts before I dive into packing my own stuff. 

Well I'm just rambling now.  Sometimes it helps to sort things out on here so sometimes you get all the jumbled up thoughts I have in my brain.  I'm impressed if you've made it all the way to the end:)

Preschool Before

Well like I said earlier, there's a group here from Rockville, CT that has come to completely redo the preschool.  Oh my word, these people are so great!  Not only are they about the nicest people you'll ever meet, but they have gone above and beyond the extra mile.  They have no idea how much their work is appreciated!

So, there's not much to show for the before pictures.  It's all one color.  All three classrooms and both the bathrooms are all off white.  So I won't bore you with five pictures that look nearly the same.  Just one.

Now, the office does have some color.  But whooo wheee!  Is it ever time for an update on those colors!

You can see the lovely pale blue and pastel yellow combination here!  Ain't it purdy!  Also, you can't tell in the pictures but the ceiling is falling down and being held up by many a makeshift solution.  Every time the ceiling would start to fall in a new place, someone would come in and nail it back up "just good enough for now".  The carpet is really gross too.  It doesn't help that over the years we've gotten lots of flooding in there.  We have new gutters now, though and haven't had flooding problems since.  Yay!  I watched them tear up the carpet and the pad underneath.  The bottom of the carpet pad was stuck to the cement and they had to scrape it all off.  Gross!  And, as you can see in the office picture, the floorboards are falling apart and many of them are being held on by duct tape. 

Well, that's that for the before pictures.  The after pictures will be a little more drastic.  It's looking good in there and we are so excited!!

Birthday Celebrations

Devin's birthday was last Saturday.  I was invited to go to Chuck E. Cheese but I was gone for VBS.  We decided to celebrate Monday night instead.  He said he wanted to go do putt-putt.  I took him there a couple months ago and he loved it and has wanted to go back ever since.  So after we ate we headed to the putt-putt place but it was closed:(  Monday night ended with a trip to Wal*Mart to pick out a birthday present.  We made plans to try again tonight and for awhile it looked like we were going to get rained out but it passed over just in time and we were able to go.  Last time he actually beat me by a few points, fair and square.  This time I whooped his tail.  I'm gonna miss him so much.  I love that kid!

We both looked washed out in this picture and his hair is getting pretty shaggy but it has to be good enough.

This weekend a group from Rockville, CT is coming down and all next week they're going to work on the preschool.  They're redoing everything from floor to ceiling.  I'll have to show some before and after pictures next week.  It's going to be a really busy and kind of inconvenient week but we're so excited to get it done!

A Most Blessed Weekend:)

Before I start sharing my most blessed weekend, the answer to the trivia question in the last post is marijuana.  I know, awesome, right? 


Okay, now for the weekend.  Which, if you haven't gathered by now was most blessed:)  Fourty something of us from Athens and Atlanta met up again for our second VBS weekend together.  We headed down to Talladega, AL to a place called Shocco Springs where they can house over 1000 people who come there at any given time for their church camps, retreats and such.  Friday after work we had pouring down rain right when we were ready to leave.  In their haste to get into the car and out of the driving rain, Cassie and LeaAnn both ended up in my backseat and rather than getting back out of the car they decided to both stay back there.  I had made some mini cupcakes for the weekend and they looked so pretty.  But between running through the rain, the humidity and whatever else, the frosting fell off and a lot of them fell over.  I wasn't going to share with anyone until we got down there but since they were already dilapitated, we decided to break them out right away since we were already hungry.  I was concentrating on driving and so they took it upon themselves to reach into the front seat for the cupcakes.  It started our weekend out on a good and fun note:)

Once we got there, we spent Friday evening getting settled and rekindling some of the friendships we made from last years VBS.  Saturday morning after a way too early breakfast, we successfully took a group picture.  Fun fact:  the man in the back row in the middle with his head kind of cocked backwards grew up with and was good friends with Alan Jackson.  Somehow through association that pretty much makes me famous, doesn't it?

Saturday morning we had our seperate VBS classes.  The adults on one side of the room and us with the kiddos on the other side.  Most of the kids we had were from Atlanta and they were a great group of kids.  Super cute, sweet and smart.  After lunch we were able to go to the lake.  The very fun lake with two trampolines, a ginormous slide two moonwalk/plank things, a blob and two floating iceberg things.  We had to reserve a time and they only give each group an hour so the fun was shortlived but it was great.

Then we played some fierce games of volleyball before cleaning up, having our afternoon talk and eating supper.

After supper we had our evening program.  We had the kids act out our story during class (the theme was the Good Samaratin) then taught them a song.  We did those two things for everyone and there was another skit put on by some of the older kids before we all split up into groups to do a quick skit.  All having something to do with the theme.  Here's us and our kiddos that we had. 

We finished off our evening with games and fellowship.  I spent my time at the euchre table.  Including one of the funnest games of euchre I've ever played.  Me and Cassie vs. two high school guys from Atlanta.  I won't even try to explain the funniness of it all.  When it was getting late and everyone was tired but not wanting the night to end yet, Cassie decided we should have a bubble blowing contest.  I nearly barfed before I got my gum chewed up but it was worth it in the end becuase I didn't do too bad in the contest:)

Sunday after church we had some time to kill so we played some mini golf,

played on this fun contraption at the playground,

and played a couple rounds of knockout.

After lunch we all just hung around, not really wanting to say our goodbye's, not really wanting to leave the friends we rarely see.  Now I'm exhausted but it was well worth it.  The whole weekend was- you guessed it- most blessed:)  A great reminder of what it means to be a good neighbor in our daily lives, awesome fellowship and lots of just plain fun!