Last night I helped with childcare at church for the marriage enrichment event.  Sometimes we don’t have any kids at all, but last night we had a record breaking eleven.  Of course my grandkids made up four of those eleven :-).  We played outside on the playground for almost two hours, and when we were inside, Katie Wise – who is on her school’s volleyball team – had the kids playing various versions of soccer.  That’s June hitting the ball, and Rachel in the middle between her and Katie.  The four I had at my house afterwards surely slept good last night 🙂

Yesterday I took off work at lunchtime, and Boo and Leesy came by and picked me up.  We picked up Clara at Bethany Elementary, and then Mallory at Clover Middle, and then hit the road for King, to be there for opening night of Zollie and Cooper’s stage debut – in the Stokes Art Council’s production of The Red Badge of Courage.  This was then they first appeared on stage.  Needless to say, we were pretty fired up.  They did an excellent job, especially Zollie, who sort of had a leading role in the production.  Very cool.

Afterwards, with our other thespian, Elise. Just a special night.

Thursday afternoon the Forever Young group at church hosted a wedding shower for our associate pastor, Brandon, and his fiancée Georgie.  The food was delicious, and the decorations so sweet.

The happy couple was pretty much glowing. Sweet.

This was a big hit yesterday when June and Mason got here after school.  We did homework, played outside, and then came in to make sweater vests and hats (and arm bands 🙂 ) out of old socks for the stuffed animals.  It took no time, and they thought it was VERY cool.  Trying to think of where they can get socks big enough to fit all the real dogs in their lives 🙂

Didn’t get many pictures made Tuesday, but did snap this one of Kimbrell as we were heading back to the car after running by BI-LO.  One of the workers there had given her the first sucker she ever had.  She is not a huge fan of sweets, so I pretty much couldn’t get a picture of her licking it – but she still definitely was not interested in giving it up when we got to the car 🙂

Yesterday was Promotion Sunday at church.  Mason moved up – after asking to do so for at least a year, it seems like – from the pre-k/kindergarten class to the younger elementary.  I’d been teaching those little kids for many years, but he asked me to move up with him, and so of course I have.  June moved up, too, to the Older Elementary, but I was trying to get a quick picture between Sunday school and church, and just couldn’t find her at the moment.  We give them these great books when they leave the preschool, of pictures from actual Godly Play stories, which is pretty cool.

What a fun night last night was.  Jeff is away at a music festival with his buddy Maxie, and Andrew & Jenny invited me over to cook out with them.  Andrew’s lifelong friend Michael Sexton was there with his sweet family, too, and it was great seeing them.  As soon as I got there Charlie showed me the medal he’d won the night before in his first BMX race ever.  They’ve been riding for a while, but this time was actually a race, and he got the silver medal.  He was very proud, and rightfully so.

After our delicious supper – hotdogs & burgers on the grill, and all kinds of salads for sides – the guys all went outside to play a game of HORSE. My nighttime pictures are always terrible, but they were having such a good time – and I had fun watching them. Just such a fun evening.

Between dance and soccer, Mallory and Clara are going to be pretty busy this fall.  We did manage to get a little while yesterday that Hope could come over after school and play, and make a few pictures.  They are such good buddies.

The kids are back in school, so we are getting back into our regular school year schedule, which includes them helping me fix supper some afternoons while they’re here.  When June and Mason were here Wednesday, we got some garlic biscuits made to go with the Brunswick stew leftovers we were going to have.  Here is June deciding how much cheese she wanted to add to the mix :-).  They are good helpers!