Busy Tuesday Night

Last Tuesday night was busy. It was parent watch night for Lauren's dance classes. She is in ballet and tap, and parents only get to observe once a semester. Evan and I made it to ballet, then Roger made it for tap. She has enjoyed it very much. Their recitals will be in May and we got to see their pretty costumes they will be wearing. The theme this year is movies, and for ballet they will be dancing to a theme from Harry Potter in a velvety nutmeg colored ballet dress. For tap it's a song called Cuban Pete from The Mask in a red almost flapper-like style dress. That's not exactly the right description for it, but it's close. Lauren is in love with her tap dress. I didn't think the dresses were bad at all. The teacher did make a point of pointing out that the dresses do cover up the girls nicely because at their age they still like to be covered up. What?! Does this mean as she matures into a teenager they may have some costumes that may be kind of questionable? I sure hope not! I don't have any pics to show, so you'll have to wait until May.

About 15 minutes into tap class, Evan and I had to leave so I could take him to the ice skating rink where he met up with some of the youth group from church. Since the rink is downtown and there was really no where for me to go, I stayed and chatted with some other moms from church and watched the kids skate. The rink has an observation floor upstairs so we can get a really good view of everything sitting in some chairs and don't have to be in the cold rink itself freezing in the bleachers.

Leaves, Leaves, and More Leaves!

Yes, our autumn has been a very warm one--up until yesterday. We were making records with our warm temps, and then yesterday the high was around 40. But, it seems to me that we have been able to enjoy the turning of the leaves longer than past years. Our backyard has so many trees that our lawn has turned into a carpet of leaves. It has been so fun creating huge piles that the kids and neighbor kids are enjoying playing in.

You might notice in the first few pics that the kids are in shorts. The temp was in the 80s!

Evan creating a Lauren mountain.

Lauren burying Evan--can you find his face?

For the next pics, Roger had gotten out the lawn mower and bagged up a bunch of leaves to create a humongous pile. Do you see the pink and black? Those were the kids' jackets. Hopefully it gives you a perspective of just how huge this pile was. 

An Unexpected Soccer Spectator

Evan's last soccer game was Saturday. We were sitting on the sidelines, and at one point Roger is telling me to look at the ground right in front of us. This little groundhog is popping up out of the hole. He kept doing this for a while, not afraid of anyone or anything. His hole was right on the field! At halftime, Roger went and told the referee about it, who didn't do anything, not even come look. So, Roger covered up the hole with dirt, and it was a good thing too. As soon as the second half started, two boys were chasing the ball and ran right over that hole. One of the boys' foot would've definitely fallen into that hole and he could have been injured. Thankful that didn't happen.

Harvest Party 2012

Another great year of Harvest Party at our church! I believe I heard that around 1700 people came through our doors. That is lower than the past couple of years, but to me that is okay. There are probably a lot of other churches and businesses doing this kind of thing on the same night as our church, so that probably keeps the numbers lower. At the same time, those lower numbers make for less crowded hallways, and no long waiting times for Treat Street, or the hay ride.

Roger did not have to work the parking lot this time like he has had to for several years--yay! Instead, he and I worked in the kitchen handing out concessions to customers during second shift. Our job was to stand at the window and call out orders to the food prep workers and then we would hand out the orders to customers. For one of the first times in my life I was told I was not loud enough for the prep team to hear me! What? Seriously? I've usually been told I am the opposite--too loud and need to tone it down a bit. Oh well, I raised my voice, but felt I was yelling, though.

For first shift, we took Lauren around to all of the activities at the church. Evan has grown out of wanting to participate in all of the activities, and instead chose to work all night. For first shift he was a worker with one of the inflatables and second shift he helped clean up tables. The kitchen and inflatables are all in the sanctuary, so while Roger, Evan, and I were working second shift, Lauren was able to keep herself busy playing on all of the inflatables. It worked out great. One of our friends came up to us and told us he was proud of Evan for working the tables. Then, at the end of the night the same friend approached Evan and told him how proud of him he was. Then, the next morning, I heard that our friend approached our youth pastor and told him how proud of Evan he was. Wow! All of that was so good to hear about our son.