We had a great weekend starting last Friday. We had a goodbye party for friends in our small group who are moving to Norway with the state department, the lucky ducks. It was such a fun party, even though the reason was sad. One newly married couple stayed late and washed everything up, which was such an amazing gift. We had cleaned up the house pretty well (okay, the main floor at least), and because of their help, it was still clean at the end of the evening, which was so nice because we left the next morning to drive to WSS to drop off Caleb and Jonathan and spend the night there so we could see Nathan. The whole time we were gone I kept thinking, "I'm going to come home to a clean house!" It was lovely. And it made the weekend away so much more relaxing!
The weekend was really wonderful too. I took a nap Saturday afternoon and also read a murder mystery, something I definitely don't have time for during the school year. The kids ran around and got themselves completely tired out, which did lead to melt-downs later on over completely random things. Drew pitched several fits over the fact that we made him eat "SO MANY TIMES" (three times a day, in fact, because we are completely unreasonable). Also, he "HATES GRAVY".
The speaker could not have talked on a more appropriate theme. He was talking about David's life, and he was especially focusing on his time in caves during the sessions we were there. "God does his best work in caves" was kind of his mantra. He said waiting wasn't passive, but that we wait ON the Lord and spend time with him. He talked through Psalm 13 as a way to go through "caves"--first lamenting, but then trusting in God's faithfulness, and praising him. He also went through Psalm 63, which was written after David fled Jerusalem after Absalom's rebellion (2 Sam. 16, paying close attention to the end of verse 14 "And there [in the desert] he refreshed himself." In Psalm 63, David was satisfied, and it was because the Lord was enough for him. It was a refreshing time for Bob and me too.
It was so great to see Nathan and hear everyone say how much they like him and enjoy working with him. He has Saturday night and Sunday off, so that worked out really well with our visit. He and I stayed up late talking Saturday night, and then Sunday afternoon I drove him, Luke, and 2 other staffers who had the day off into town where he and Luke bought some very snazzy patriotic socks at Walmart. Drew was so impressed by them that he wanted Luke to wear them every day.
We drove back Sunday night because we couldn't face a drive back into DC on Monday after a 3 day weekend. Talk about a depressing cave, lol. Plus, the kids were so tired. They all fell asleep, Luke drove the whole way home, and it was very nice to be back home in our own beds! Monday we unpacked and did laundry. We were going to go watch fireworks, but it was a rainy, gloomy day, and who wants to go sit on wet grass to watch fireworks? Not me! So we wimped out and watched them over at the L's house. As the show started, we could tell it was going to be awful--the cloud ceiling was so low you couldn't really see the tops of the fireworks at all, and none of the smoke was dissipating. Eventually it looked like DC was burning after having been attacked by a heavy artillery barrage. But then--like magic on our screens!--all of a sudden the skies were clear and the fireworks were amazing! We had been laughing at how they couldn't find the right angle--but suddenly they did! It was called the "time travel" angle, because PBS started showing fireworks from some previous year, where the sky was clear, and the Capitol building did not have scaffolding all around it. Ha! They never said a word about it, either! Occasionally they would show a shot of the actual live fireworks, where the sky looked like a red lava lamp of weirdness, and then we'd be right back into clear skies and beautiful spangled fireworks. An alternate reality, for sure. We had fun watching and commenting though!
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