Catching Up

I thought last week would be a "breather week" for us!  That didn't happen, and this past weekend was certainly not restful either, so I didn't get any blogging done, despite my best intentions. 

So . . . catching up.  When I last wrote, we were down a van and a toilet.  Sunday afternoon Bob had the brilliant idea to call Brian, our awesome church administrator who knows everyone, to see if he could recommend a towing service.  Brain said he could but then asked if Bob didn't just want to call Noah, another guy in our church, to see if he would just want to fix it?  So Bob called Noah, he drove out Monday afternoon and fixed the van there off the road where Bob and Ed had pushed it, and it was good to go!  Noah's wife and son were over in Africa visiting friends, so he came over afterward and had dinner with us.  So fun!  And now the van was working again!

Bob had been working each evening on the recalcitrant toilet, snaking it and so on, to no avail.  But Tuesday morning before he went to work, he tried one more time, and *voila* the toilet flushed!!  That was a direct answer to prayer because Tuesday afternoons while Rivendell is meeting we have 24 kids here, and it is a total pain to have everyone have to troop up or down stairs to pee!  Although, as I had to remind myself several times, it's not like we were roughing it like the pioneers, LOL.  We have 4 other toilets in our house, all of which were working, so we weren't exactly digging an outhouse or anything!  Bob's parents raised 6 kids in a house with one bathroom, which was upstairs!  But I was still glad to have the main floor bathroom open for business again.  Thank you, Lord!

The reason last week was going to be such a breather for me is that we were studying stuff in biology that is not on the AP test (phyla), and the lab was just dissecting a frog.  I did not have to spend hardly any time at all preparing, which was so nice.  We had a fun time with the frogs.  Leo had a female frog who was just stuffed with eggs in every space in her intestinal cavity!  I've never seen so many eggs before!  That was really interesting, although it did make it hard to see the other organs, since they were so squished and covered in eggs.   

Since we did the lab on Tuesday, and we didn't need to cover the chapters, we didn't need to meet on Thursday, which worked out perfectly, since I had made 3 doctor's appointments for Thursday afternoon.  I spent 30 minutes on the phone with the appointment center, trying to get 3 appointments together on one day, and when Thursday afternoon was all they could come up with, I wasn't going to turn them down and start all over again!  Faith and Drew had well-child appointments, and Caleb went in to get new prescriptions for his asthma medicines.  I'll do a separate post on the appointments (that's my well-intentioned plan, anyway!).

Saturday was an absolutely crazy day.  Luke and Jonathan had basketball games in the morning, and Caleb had a birthday party at a friend's house.  Nathan toured an FAA facility with CAP, and then he reffed 2 games in the afternoon at Upward.  Bob and I were driving all over the place!  We can't wait until Nathan can drive!  He got his learner's permit on Friday, so after I picked him up from his refereeing, I took him across the street to a parking lot so he could have his first driving experience.  He did great!  He picked up on how hard to press the pedals really quickly.  Now, to fit in time for more practice . . .

The last thing on Saturday was a father/daughter dance at a local church!  Bob took Anna, since the girls had to be in 1st grade to go.  She was so excited!  They had a great time.  There were a lot of activities--some drawing, they made a necklace and a picture frame, there were snacks, as well as the dancing.  It was really special!  Grace is looking forward to her turn to go next year!