The first big news is the weather! It went from the lower 90's to the mid-50's in just a blink of an eye! We, of course, were not prepared for this massive change in the temperatures so we were out the door in shorts and T-shirts for one our regular busy days of 4H! Oh!...we were glad that we were able to spend that day inside. And, thankfully, we have not had a lot of rain to go with the cooler weather so it has been a drier cold than usual. In fact, today was in the 50's but sunny, so we actually were able to enjoy the outdoors.
Who can complain when the East Coast is now being bombarded with hurricane Sandy?! I did get to speak to Amanda this afternoon and she was shopping for food in an EMPTY grocery store! She managed to get enough food that would not need to be cooked should they lose power in the next couple of days. She told me that Manhattan was under a mandatory evacuation, so we will see what the storm brings to the area. She is not in that part of New York and says that the strong winds have already started and it is getting cold. We just pray that the storm will not be as bad as they are predicting.
As far as our activities for the week, we had our regular Tuesday of 4H project meetings. This was an adventure this week that I do not care to repeat! However, we move forward and will be the better for the experience.
I did have a surprise visit from our next door neighbor. He was concerned because the neighbor behind us has decided to remove the fence line along our property line. He also cut down several trees and piled the debris on our side of the line! That was a shocker...I will need to figure out what to do about this situation but not sure what steps to take to have it cleaned up!
Wednesday we prepared a meal for the college students again. It is such a joy to serve this group of young adults...they truly appreciate the meal. We were not able to stay and enjoy the meal with them this week. I was asked to present a talk to the youth group in the next town over. The idea was that I would talk to the group and then show the group the movie "October Baby." (If you have not seen this movie, it is a must see!!!) However, the group meeting started late so I was only given time to show the movie. I think the movie spoke for itself. It made a big impact on the youth. One young man was particularly touched and prayed at the end of the meeting with such passion. I hope the group will have time to discuss the movie when they meet again.
Thursday was the big day this week. We left the house at 8am to help decorate for our local pregnancy help center banquet. This is the one time a year when the center asks for funds to get them through the year. The boys and I (and Amanda at one time) have been helping with this set up for the past 8 years! It is always so much fun to get into a bare room and then leave with it looking so beautiful. I cannot help but be a proud mom as I watched the boys race to be the one who helped most! In fact, I left Sean and Edward in order to run an errand...I was not able to return for two hours...when I got back the banquet hall was almost completely decorated! IT was not just our boys...there were several decorators...but it was still nice to know that they were able to help make it happen. We stayed until the early afternoon with silverware and napkin placement. Then we raced home to have lunch and get cleaned up to go back for the evening!The boys had the opportunity to go to a friend's house for the evening. Zaira and I made our way to the banquet.
INTERESTING SIDE NOTE: We had read in the paper Thursday morning that there would be a special historic train passing through town. In our rush, we did not get to read the details. As we were driving around town to run our errands early in the day, Henry and I saw what we thought was the special engine. Henry took several pictures of it and we were on our way. Then as Zaira and I were almost back to the banquet hall we noticed that there was a large crowd around the railroad tracks so we drove past. We saw the most amazing steam locomotive! We would later find out that it was the largest steam locomotive in the United States (in the world?)! So, I got a few snapshots as we drove past. I wish the boys could have seen it! It really was an amazing sight!Zaira was fine but the woman told me she just could not sit and listen to the comedian's jokes about women. I saw nothing wrong with the comedian but decided to stay out and talk to the woman...maybe that was where I needed to be that night. She did seem to need someone to listen to her and she did enjoy holding Zaira. Before we knew it, the crowd in the banquet hall were clapping and we had missed the entire talk (So glad that I was able to a friend who told me the speaker was able to turn his funny stories around to the more serious issue of helping the women and their children. Come to find out he gave a very powerful message about being patient for the Lord's work to come to fruition (I believe his message came from Jeremiah 31).
One of the big announcements of the evening was the matching grant through the Knights of Columbus and In His Image Ultrasound Program that would allow our center to have a state of the art ultrasound machine. The ultrasound equipment would allow the center to show the woman her baby as early as 5 weeks! The center only needs to be able to provide $11,000 for the machine. I know that seems like a lot of money, but the equipment actually cost over $60,000. The best part came when one of the local pastors spontaneously got up and placed $1000 in front of the director...he pledged the first of the funds needed for the ultrasound and asked others to join him! Were there 10 others in the room willing to give $1000 to make this dream a reality? Well, not quite, but we did manage a large portion of the funds needed! It was a great end to a wonderful evening.
Friday brought us Math Counts. We learned about converting fractions to decimals and percents by following a modified recipe for cookies. This is a fun exercise of their knowledge as they not only had to convert decimals back into the original fraction for measuring purposes, but also make the recipe a larger percentage as I saw the need for cookies increased! This is done each year with the groups...this year I decided to make it easier by asking them to increase the recipe by 50%. They did manage to make delicious batch of cookies and learned along the way!
Saturday was our house cleaning day! Not that a visitor would know we cleaned house if they were to come in now! How does that happen!?!
Today, we began with our mad rush to get into church clothes in time to go to Sunday school! I taught our small group about Mary dogmas and apparitions. It was really great to see the boys (Yes! All boys in our little group this year!) eager to learn about Mary. Then our boys ran to prepare for altar serving. Zaira, Brendan and I arrived later than usual as we stayed to pick up the classroom. We found the church pew where we sit full!!! So, we were asked to sit with a friend who sits toward the front (nail biting experience!) of the church. Brendan and Zaira were very good so we might do it again sometime (like the next time someone takes our pew...LOL...I will always worry about sitting to close to the front with small children.)
It was nice to have a relaxing Sunday afternoon. We did get to walk our back property line. I took pictures to show the piles of debris our neighbor left us to clean up. It was not as bad as I thought but it still needs to be cleaned up! I am hoping Michael can talk to our neighbor about the situation. So, that was our week for the most part. It was a good week. Looking forward to the next one as we will be finishing up our first quarter of school! It should be an easy week...Lord willing!
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