Fun Weekend

It's about time for one of these posts! Friday was all day fishing with the boy's cousins at a natural spring fed pond. Shawners caught three fish right away and Justinbustin caught four soon after. We stayed for four hours and enjoyed the surroundings while the boys climbed and fished and fell in the water. Don't worry, it was shallow! Just cold.



Saturday Brando had a showing with some friends of ours so the boys and I spent the day at the local Fire Department's 45th Annual Anniversary celebration, sponsored by my neighbor's company. She was there handing out free footballs and frisbees. We had free bbq, desserts, strawberry lemonade, and iced tea with her, played on the antique fire truck out front, enjoyed the warm sunshine, watched the firefighter's use the jaws of life on an old Volvo, watched them spray the newest and more efficient than water foam from the fire engine hose, fished for magnetic fish and came home with fire chief hats and lots of candy.



Sunday we woke up bright and early and went to Border's to attend a book signing by Jan Brett. My favorite children's book author ever! If anyone thought the kids were excited you should've seen me. She did a fifteen minute presentation before the book signing of the history of her latest book, Hedgie the Hedgehog, and talked about her childhood a bit, where she got her ideas for this latest book, and did an quick art lesson which Justinb promptly followed along with. We bought five books for her to sign - we just couldn't pass up that once in a lifetime chance - and she signed them along with Justinb's artwork. She put a cute little sketch related to each book on each one. She was soooo nice. She asked Shawners what his favorite animal was. His answer was bats. She signed Shis favorite book, On Noah's Ark, and we told her how excited he was that she had drawn a leopard gecko on one of the pages like his. She asked what the gecko's name is which is currently Jurgen, but usually Gecko. She then told him about how there are two extinct animals in that book, a marsupal and a dodo. She told him the marsupal went extinct in 1937 which wasn't that long ago so some think there still may be some around. She noticed Justinb's drawing when Brando was handing it to her to ask her to sign it for him and said, "Who drew this?" He got a big smile on his face and said he did. She asked how old he is and he said seven and she says, "Wow, when you grow up you're going to be a famous artist." His face beamed and he stood next to her for our picture instead of against the backdrop.



We got out of there just in time to make it to the end of church. We were able to be part of circling the entire church property along with the rest of the church goers and praying for the church. First we faced inward and prayed for the church, then we faced outward and prayed for the world and individuals we know by name who we want to know Christ, then inward again to pray the Lord's prayer.



This afternoon we went to a photo shoot at a local garden here that Brando's company put on. They had pumpkins set up and a photographer to take pictures of families. Brando had a few of his clients there that we chatted with. They had the cutest little baby girl dressed as a goldfish. The boys didn't dress up but we did get a family picture together and a few of them in the pumpkins and on the tractor. We were there long enough to sunburn a little and then drove out to see a condo that Brando's boss has that we were thinking about renting. It doesn't quite work for us, but dang it would be a good price just for us.