Thursday's at Daddy Charles' House

Thursday is my off day too, but I did have to go into the church this morning. This is Summer Adventure Week and I had to speak to the kids; that, of course, is why Brad is with us anyway. I thought you might like this picture of that very nice family that visited us this past week when they brought Brad to stay with us. Brad has been back to the pool every day this week. He has had a ball!

I was given the theme of salvation for my morning talk with the children. Their theme for the day was, "Jesus is my savior," so I tried to help them understand what a savior is. The movie, Cars, that we saw last night came in very handy. I talked about heros who save the day for people. Then I asked how many of them had seen Cars already; would you believe most of them had seen it? Anyway, I described all that Lightening sacrificed in order to help the people of the little town. He came there to live among them and began to love them. And in the end, he gave up something very sigificant in order to make their lives much better. Then I talked about how Jesus does the same thing for us. I thought it worked out well and I would not have had the reference if Jason had not loaned us that special little guy this week.

By the way, Judy was just telling me that there was a grandfather with his grandson at the pool this afternoon. Brad spent a lot of time playing with the man's grandson, and when the man left, he said to Judy, "You have a really sweet young man there." She said, "We sure do." He got the good citizenship award today at Bible school and has fit in well with the whole class. We have had over three hundred children each day; I felt bad that we had to turn down forty-five kids who wanted to register because we didn't have enough teachers and supplies. Jane told me later, however, that all these mom's registered way to late and that we had already taken several kids after the registration date had passed.

I did my time cutting the grass today too. I had cut it on Monday, but it was so high from my neglect over the previous ten days that I left piles of dead grass all over the lawn. I used the bagger to pick up that grass and cut it again today. It looks much better but I still have to get it edged. That takes almost as long as it does to cut it. Courtney will be happy to know that I took the edger into the shop this week to have a new blade put on.

I'm getting excited about the trip. We could do August, depending on when mom and I have our trip to Alaska. The travel agent is working to book it, but hasn't been able to get the new schedule yet. Hopefully we'll know something about that in a few weeks. The RL is great on trips; shows you all the restaurants and the places to stay along the way and even has phone numbers so you can call ahead and make reservations. It also does a pretty good job keeping up with road construction on the Interstates Highways. I'll get the latest update this fall so that we can be ready for next summer. Mine is already two years old, but still very servicable. We had a great time with with it when we went to Borea. Actually, that might be a good first stop for us to stay at the College in Borea and look at the craft shops there. It's an interesting place. Then we can follow the historic Cumberland Gap from Kentucky to Pennsylvania, then head over to the Atlantic Seaboard through Pennsylvania to Annapolis and down again to Williamsburg before turning east to Charlottesville and the Shanandoah Valley. We might spend another night in Covington. We would have a great time, tough we would need to pack light so we don't have so much to take inside. Mac's will be a must so we can keep in touch with home, maybe with a blog we do for the girls and kids. I like to have breakfast at the motel (for free), then picnic for lunch along the way. We then eat a big supper at a nice restaurant or pub. All that saves a lot of money.

Court will be pleased to know that I have found another couple for his class. I was asked to do a wedding for a couple his age; 29 and 30. I asked if she was interested in a Sunday school class and she wrote back that she was very interested. They want to attend the 11 o'clock service and had been looking for a good class in that age group. I think we are building a pretty good group and we need to have a get-together soon; I might even cook pizzas again. What do you think?

I hope Jason can keep his .mac acount and might be willing to help with some finances; perhaps go halfs. It could be a good meeting place and I am beginnig to really enjoy it. The training places are very helpful and we can do so much more sharing pictures, films, etc. of the family and the kids. I think it might be worth the price.

We really enjoyed the movie last night and hope we can meet Courtney and Tammi again for movies; maybe even set aside one night every month or every two weeks as Gattis night at the movies. The new Rave Theatre is pretty close to both of us and it's nice to meet there. It was great fun. I wish those Tennessee Gattises were a little closer.

We'll be thinking about Jason; by himself tomorrow with two kids. I'm not sure his father could handle it.