Another Horse Lesson

Patience

Our Fruit of the Spirit for Wednesday night at Kid's Club was Patience. In order to demonstrate patience, the kids made home made ice cream in a bag. They had to shake it for 15 minutes before it would be ready to eat.

They had way too much fun mixing it up!!

It was all worth it when they poured their ice cream into a bowl and enjoyed the fruits of their labor!!

I had to take a few pictures in youth group, too, just to be fair. . .

My girls:

Fair And Square. . .

Anyone who knows me knows I like to play games. Anyone who knows me well knows I like to win when I play games. . . Last Friday we went to Kurt and Laura's for a game night. We started out nice and easy with Disney's Scene It.

It didn't bother me at all when the three boys won the game!!

The next game we played, however, is very near and dear to my heart: Lord Of The Rings Trivial Pursuit. . . . Rob tells everyone I'm unbeatable at this game. He even thinks I know where the director's son's nephew was born . . .

We split into teams: Rob and Gloria, Kurt and Laura, Hayden and Zach, and me and Hailey. Hailey and I made a great team. . .

The game was neck and neck all evening. Everyone knew strange and amazing facts about Frodo, Gandalf and the layout of Middle Earth. . .

When all was said and done, Kurt and Laura won the game. . . . they won fair and square. . . mostly. . . :)

Pumpkins. . . (Warning: Scary image at the end!)

Carving pumpkins is messy and sticky and takes a great deal of patience. I usually put it off as long as possible even though the kids start begging for it as soon as fall rolls around. Friday was as good a day as any to start digging in:

I even let Gloria use a knife!! Yikes!!

Zach wanted to carve something intricate so we went to www.jackolantern.com and he found a scary skeleton pattern. It took a really long time to carve. He had to put the template over the pumpkin and poke tiny holes around the outline before using a paring knife to gently cut away the tiny chunks that would make the pattern:

Meanwhile, Gloria chopped away at her pumpkin and even had time to paint it all black:

The darkest room in our house is the bathroom so anytime we need to see something glow in the dark, that's where we gather. (It's usually pretty funny because the bathroom's not very big!) So, here is Zach's finished pumpkin, unlit and somewhat indiscernible:

Here it is, glowing with candle light and it creeped me out!!!:

I even considered not posting it on my "family friendly" blog but I just couldn't help myself- Zach did an amazing job of carving this thing even though it's very, very creepy. . .

More Horses. . .

I find myself looking forward to Gloria's horse lessons each week. I'm more comfortable around the horses and I love being out in the fresh air in the country.


This is Cookie. She's the horse I led around the arena for an hour and a half on Thursday. She's a very good, patient horse. Her only drawback is her tendency to bite. Believe it or not, she doesn't scare me one bit!


Somehow I managed to get out of the poop-scooping lesson. I do think it's great that the parent's are expected to be so involved in these lessons, even though sometimes it will involve a little poop.

I could easily adjust to living here. . .

Gloria is feeling very comfortable on her horse and is more than ready to go solo:

Even though I would love to live out in the country like this, I guess for now I'll just have to settle for 2 hours every Thursday. . .

Kathy Mattea

On Wednesday we set up for and attended one of the easiest and most enjoyable concerts of the year. After the Natalie MacMaster concert last week, we left our line array in The Civic Center knowing that we would need it again for the Kathy Mattea concert. This left us very little stuff to set up since Kathy's tour travels with most of their other gear. I didn't have to do much of anything, so I went out for about an hour before church and took a couple of pictures during sound check. Most of them turned out blurry, of course, but this one is OK:

After church, Gloria and I went back to enjoy the concert with Rob and his mom and dad. We made it just in time for intermission and the second half of the concert. Kathy was very funny and "real" as she spoke to the crowd between songs. It was a little bit like being in someone's living room. And the sound was phenomenal. . . of course. . .

When the concert was over, we had to take it all down. Well, Kurt and Rob had to take it down while I watch and worried about the Genie lifts!!

Kathy visited with us for a few minutes after she signed autographs for the crowd. She even signed a couple of pictures for Kurt and Rob which is always cool to have for our "wall of fame". This picture didn't turn out, but I have to post it anyway!!!:

I couldn't take pictures during the concert so here are a few YouTube videos. The first one is from 1992. It's a sad song about lost friendships:


The last two videos are pretty close to what we enjoyed at The Civic Center:





Rob turned to me during the concert and said that it's shows like this that make him thankful for this business. I couldn't agree more. . .

Wednesday Programs

Wednesday night at quizzing I put my new plan into effect. All of my quizzers are very artsy so I decided to have them illustrate the next chapter we'll be studying:

I don't know how much we learned, but it was fun. . .

I think this will actually help the information stick in their brains a little bit better than just reading a passage through. . .

Time will tell if this pays off. . .

Vic cooked tacos for dinner complete with a candy-filled pinata for the kids:

I snuck into youth group and took a few pictures and this lovely video of Morgan. I didn't even realize I was recording which makes this even funnier!!:


After I stopped laughing, I took a few pictures:

They played some kind of a twister relay that proved to be quite difficult!!:

Oh yeah, Steph made the varsity BB team and she's only a freshman!!! Whoo hoo, Steph!!

At Kid's Club we continued making shrinky-dinks of the fruit's of the Spirit:

It was all good and I left a few minutes early to head to Nampa for the Kathy Mattea concert!!! Some days are sure better than others!