We kicked off our VBS program last night with a carnival like last year. The day was hot and miserable and we had a thunderstorm just as we were getting started but it was short lived and didn't affect us much. We are competing with 5 other VBS programs (3 of which are right here in town) this year which really stinks but it didn't hurt us great deal. We still had 88 kids and about 65 adults so that's not too shabby. Plus, it was amazing how smoothly everything went. Hopefully, we'll have another good crowd tonight. Pray that the rain doesn't affect us much this week since, like last year, we have to utilize our grounds for classroom space. With any luck this won't be a problem next year since we will soon begin construction on an addition with approximately 7 or 8 much needed classrooms and two bathrooms!
Our program this year is based on the adventures of our two not-so-super hereoes, Gospel Man and Bible Boy, as they search for the lost treasure. The kids are all really excited about it and we can't wait to share God's word with them. Pray that seeds will be sown and hearts touched this week!
Monday, July 21, 2008
Delmarva Family Camp
We returned from our week in Laurel, Delaware on Friday. We had a really good time and it was a nice break for both of us. We heard A LOT of uplifting messages and enjoyed awesome fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ. Darren gave his message on Tuesday afternoon and he did a great job. I was so proud of him. Out of all the messages we heard his was in the top 2 in my honest opinion. Ray asked him to come back in two years and an elder from a church in Indiana asked him to come preach a revival, so I guess there were others who thought he did as well as I did. All in all it was a great experience. The drive was a little long but other than that we had fun. Next time we plan on taking the kids (Noah will be 5-1/2 and hopefully a little easier to handle) and making a family vacation out of it. We're hoping to plan a little more time off and just hang out at the beach at Ocean City which was only about 30 miles away.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Confession
They say that confession is good for the soul, so here goes.....
Darren and I are leaving for Laurel, Delaware bright and early Monday morning and we'll be back sometime on Friday. He was asked by Ray Bennett to come up and preach at Delmarva Family Camp a couple of years ago so the trip has been planned for a while. He initially planned on going alone because there was no way we could afford to take the whole family with gas prices the way they are. But he really didn't want to go all that way by himself so we finally decided that I would go with him. Mom is going to watch Jacob and Noah and Jarrod is working a week at camp so we are going to get to go for five days ALL ALONE!
Now comes the confession part.....I am so excited to be going somewhere alone with my husband and specifically going somewhere without my children, that I can hardly stand it. Does that make me a bad mother? I think this is the first time we will have been anywhere without the kids since before Noah was born. We went to Mexico in 2007 without the kids but we weren't alone. There were like 16 other people with us. I just can't even begin to express how happy I am about it. Of course, you would have to understand how trying the last few days/weeks have been with Noah. He's been up to his old tricks again...keeping me up at night (he wet the bed not once, but twice, in the same night last week)....messing in stuff he shouldn't (he got into my makeup, wasted a bunch and put mascara all over his face)....destroying things (he wrote all over the leather recliner with a black ink pen AGAIN)....and just being bad in general (talking back, being mean, etc.). I have just about had it with him. He's driving me absolutely crazy. So this trip comes at just the right time....The right time to keep me from being reported to child protective services. Just joking, but seriously no way am I going to tell my mom how rotten he's been lately. I wouldn't want her to change her mind or anything!
Darren and I are leaving for Laurel, Delaware bright and early Monday morning and we'll be back sometime on Friday. He was asked by Ray Bennett to come up and preach at Delmarva Family Camp a couple of years ago so the trip has been planned for a while. He initially planned on going alone because there was no way we could afford to take the whole family with gas prices the way they are. But he really didn't want to go all that way by himself so we finally decided that I would go with him. Mom is going to watch Jacob and Noah and Jarrod is working a week at camp so we are going to get to go for five days ALL ALONE!
Now comes the confession part.....I am so excited to be going somewhere alone with my husband and specifically going somewhere without my children, that I can hardly stand it. Does that make me a bad mother? I think this is the first time we will have been anywhere without the kids since before Noah was born. We went to Mexico in 2007 without the kids but we weren't alone. There were like 16 other people with us. I just can't even begin to express how happy I am about it. Of course, you would have to understand how trying the last few days/weeks have been with Noah. He's been up to his old tricks again...keeping me up at night (he wet the bed not once, but twice, in the same night last week)....messing in stuff he shouldn't (he got into my makeup, wasted a bunch and put mascara all over his face)....destroying things (he wrote all over the leather recliner with a black ink pen AGAIN)....and just being bad in general (talking back, being mean, etc.). I have just about had it with him. He's driving me absolutely crazy. So this trip comes at just the right time....The right time to keep me from being reported to child protective services. Just joking, but seriously no way am I going to tell my mom how rotten he's been lately. I wouldn't want her to change her mind or anything!
Monday, June 16, 2008
Near Disaster
Saturday started out as a normal enough day but soon things went very, very wrong. I went to my laptop to check my email and noted that it was acting a little strange so I decided to restart it. No big deal, right? Well, that's what I thought, too, but boy was I wrong. It restarted and then proceeded to log off. So I tried again. Same thing. And again, and again, and again.....Nothing worked. I was just about to cry and became literally sick to my stomach. You see, I had 5 years of tax returns for about 250 clients stored on my laptop and payroll records for two companies. Now, I know it's not smart, but I had no backup of these things. The tax stuff was bad but I at least had paper copies and could have rebuilt them if necessary (although I certainly wouldn't want to if I didn't have to), but the payroll was nowhere else and I had no way to even rebuild it. All I could think was what was I going to do when it came time to file quarterly payroll reports in July.
Fortunately my somewhat tech savvy husband remembered that he had some type of apparatus that I could use to hook my laptop hard drive to another computer so I could copy things off of it. So the plan was that I would take my hard drive out of my laptop, hook it to Jarrod's computer and transfer the things I needed off of mine onto his and then reformat my laptop hard drive and start fresh. Sounds fairly simple but it was far from it. We fiddled and fooled and finally (after a couple of hours) got Jarrod's computer to recognize my hard drive and then I began the transfer process. About an hour later Jarrod came in and asked if I shut his computer off. Of course, I hadn't. As unbelievable as it may sound, his computer had died. It wouldn't do anything. Fortunately it was only the power supply and we had an extra so Darren was able to get it back up and running yesterday. I reformatted today and am now back up and running.
I'm starting the tedious process of getting things reinstalled but so far I've got my payroll files back so I can deal with the rest if I have to. I'd like to say that I've learned my lesson and will do regular backups in the future, and I am going to try, but I know from past experience that it'll probably be short lived. Oh well, at least all is well for now.
Fortunately my somewhat tech savvy husband remembered that he had some type of apparatus that I could use to hook my laptop hard drive to another computer so I could copy things off of it. So the plan was that I would take my hard drive out of my laptop, hook it to Jarrod's computer and transfer the things I needed off of mine onto his and then reformat my laptop hard drive and start fresh. Sounds fairly simple but it was far from it. We fiddled and fooled and finally (after a couple of hours) got Jarrod's computer to recognize my hard drive and then I began the transfer process. About an hour later Jarrod came in and asked if I shut his computer off. Of course, I hadn't. As unbelievable as it may sound, his computer had died. It wouldn't do anything. Fortunately it was only the power supply and we had an extra so Darren was able to get it back up and running yesterday. I reformatted today and am now back up and running.
I'm starting the tedious process of getting things reinstalled but so far I've got my payroll files back so I can deal with the rest if I have to. I'd like to say that I've learned my lesson and will do regular backups in the future, and I am going to try, but I know from past experience that it'll probably be short lived. Oh well, at least all is well for now.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Gospel Man & Bible Boy Ride Again!
Our five minute nightly spots with Gospel Man and Bible Boy were so popular last year that we've expanded this year. This year our entire VBS program will revolve around our two heroes. Our theme for the week will be "Gospel Man & Bible Boy and the Lost Treasure." There will be a 10-15 minute video each night this year. We're really excited about it and looking forward to breaking the records we set last year.
We began filming our video productions today. Wow! What a job. Everything has to be filmed in small segments from several different angles and it is very time consuming....and that's before the editing process even starts. We expect it will take all week to film five episodes and from now until VBS in July to edit the final cuts.
I laughed so hard tonight that I almost wet my pants. These guys are just hilarious together. Davy Hamilton is an absolute natural and James, well I can't imagine anyone else as Bible Boy. I can't wait to see the finished project!
Sunday, June 1, 2008
The Pox
Poor Jarrod has been laid low. A couple of weeks ago he complained about a bump behind his ear hurting. I felt it and dismissed it as a zit, after all he is fourteen. Then,this past Thursday night he had me feel and there were four bumps behind one ear and one behind the other ear. I then realized that they must be swollen lymph glands which is something we get really excited about around here because Darren's dad and grandfather both died of Hodgkins disease. I told Darren I would get him an appointment with the doctor on Friday. Friday morning, which was the last day of school, he woke up with what looked like a fine rash on his arms. He had mowed the day before so I just assumed he had gotten into something. I took him to the doctor and they did some blood work and said they thought he had a virus but wanted to see him back in a week to recheck his counts. The doc said the rash was "contact dermatitis" and told us to use cortisone cream on it. So all was well, or so we thought. He went out to his grandmother's house and mowed after school and then came home. I noticed that he had broken out a little more but didn't think anything more of it. I went to church for a jewelry show and when I came home he was burning with fever and the rash was getting much worse and blistering. Then it hit me....I've seen this before. This is chicken pox.
I feel like such a bad mother. The other two boys were vaccinated for chicken pox but that was not one of the vaccinations they were giving when Jarrod was little. I could have taken him to the doctor to get it later but never did. Now he is paying the price for my procrastination. He looks absolutely awful and doesn't feel much better. He stayed home from church today and laid around all day. He got up and came to the recliner and sometime along about 7:30 p.m. he moved to the couch and that was pretty much all he did all day. Hopefully he'll feel better in a few days. What a way to start summer vacation!
I feel like such a bad mother. The other two boys were vaccinated for chicken pox but that was not one of the vaccinations they were giving when Jarrod was little. I could have taken him to the doctor to get it later but never did. Now he is paying the price for my procrastination. He looks absolutely awful and doesn't feel much better. He stayed home from church today and laid around all day. He got up and came to the recliner and sometime along about 7:30 p.m. he moved to the couch and that was pretty much all he did all day. Hopefully he'll feel better in a few days. What a way to start summer vacation!
Thursday, May 22, 2008
A Formal Affair
Last Friday night was 8th Grade Party at Simons Middle School. I had never heard of this event until coming to Fleming County but it is a very big deal around here. It's basically a middle school prom type thing. They don't crown a king and queen but the whole 8th grade votes on about 8 boys and 8 girls to be on the "court." Sunday dress is acceptable but most of the kids wear formal attire. Jarrod, being an eighth grader this year, went to the party. Hannah Pollitt from church was his date for the evening.
In the interest of saving money, or at least getting something for my money, I tried to talk Jarrod into letting me buy him a nice Sunday dress outfit to wear so he would have something he could wear again but nothin' doin'! He HAD to have a tux. Darren agreed that he should have one if he wanted one so we told him we would pay $70 toward renting the tux and the rest would be his responsibility.
He had been mowing and babysitting so he had managed to save up some money and decided that he was responsible enough to open his own checking account so I took him to the bank and he became a depositor. Our next stop after the bank was the bridal shop. By the time we left there he was looking for a bankruptcy attorney! Are you aware of what it costs to rent a tux these days? About the cheapest thing he could get was $149.00! In the end he managed to drum up some work and had enought to pay the balance of his tux rental with some left over.
When Friday night arrived he got all dressed up and ready to go. He was so handsome! I couldn't believe how grown up he looked. We met Hannah and her family to take photos. Hannah looked gorgeous and they made a very cute couple. They rode to the party with a couple of their friends (with a parent driver, of course) after going to Pizza Hut to eat out. Many of the parents and family members hang around the school to watch the kids walk in and watch the announcement of the court. Darren and I needed to go to Maysville so we skipped the spectator opportunity. But now I wish I'd stayed. Jarrod was chosen to be on the court. He was so excited when I picked him up at 11:00 p.m. that night and he had a great time. It was a perfect ending to his eighth grade year and of course we are very proud of him.
Wow! I can't believe my baby will be a freshman in high school next year. Parents, hug your babies because before you know it they'll be all grown up!
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