Crocodile Dock Pictures

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Crocodile Dock = Success.

Last week was VBS! We had an awesome time and God really showed up!

Here are a few of the highlights...

Two weeks prior to the start of VBS my friend Magan and I worked tirelessly on decorating the church, transforming it into a realistic yet "friendly" swamp. (We didn't want any of the kiddos to be afraid of the eerie swampiness and what not) So in the midst of the swamp transformation both Magan and I were out of town at different times. That put a whole new spin on getting things done. Needless to say we had several, SEVERAL nights in a row with minimal sleeping. Just chalk it up to VBS. We put the finishing touches on everything at about 4:00pm on Father's Day and were even able to make it to Joe's Crab Shack and enjoy some Father's day dinner.

On Monday morning we hit the ground running and 200 kiddos descended on our swamp. (Give or take a few kiddos, after like, 50, who's counting anyway?) We had a great time and our volunteer group was large and in charge! There were 90 total volunteers and they were fantastic! Our high day was on Wednesday when we topped the 300 mark. It was AWESOME!

On Thursday we had 15 children give their lives to Jesus as their personal Savior...again can I say A.W.E.S.O.M.E.! We finished off Friday and chalked VBS 2009 up as a victory.

Needless to say...I don't really want to spend my first night off in, like, for-e.v.e.r. on the computer! I have some scrapbooking to catch up on!

Murphy's Law Strikes Again!

***UPDATE***
As of 6:00pm on Saturday...WE STILL HAVE BROWN WATER! It is a teeny tiny bit better, but still not good enough to wash dishes or clothes. This is NOT a good way to begin the week of VBS. We need CLEAN water!

*original post follows*



VBS starts on Monday. So today (Friday) is a great day for Murphy's Law to strike. Actually it struck last night just after dinner. For the entire day yesterday we washed clothes, flushed potty's and I cooked dinner...water..ahhhh...running water. Then it happened. Just as we got up from dinner, Paul went to turn on the water to wash the dishes and...nothing.

Not even a trickle. Nothing.

So he and his friend go outside and start looking in the yard for water. For those of you who don't have experience living on a well, if your water isn't coming out of your faucet in your house....you can bet it's coming out somewhere in your yard. How do I know this? It's happened 2, count them TWO other times to us. So they look all around and Nothing.

Not even a trickle. Nothing.

So Paul called a plumber and of course they can't come until tomorrow (Friday...now today...get it?) Anyway. This morning the plumber finally shows up around 9:30 (he was supposed to be there at 9:00) He takes a look at everything and lets us know that our well pump has gone out AND we have a hole in the pipe leading to the well pump. He says it can be fixed in two hours...I know better than that people!

The plumber gets a phone call and leaves in the middle of fixing our well! He said he had an emergency.

HELLO? Perhaps I need to restate...WE HAVE NO WATER! Is that not emergency enough? Apparently not. So he left and promised to return. Apparently some ladies house was flooding...that was the big emergency. Ok Ok Ok it WAS an emergency. Finally he comes back and fixed our well pump and pipe.

But wait.

We still have brown water. Again. If you don't have "well experience", this is what happens when you fix the pipes...dirt gets in your water. So we are going to have some toilet/sink cleaning ahead of us. yay.

I hope that things only get better throughout this week. And I hope our brown water goes away soon.

So I'm a great-grandmother...

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Here are the newest additions to our home! Our Caroline gave birth to 6 kittens early Thursday morning...the 11th of June. Here's how it all played out.

A few months ago when Caroline (the cat...just for clarification) was in heat, we found her in the garage. The garage door was closed so we were pretty confident that she wasn't outside with a special friend. That perspective changed in just a few short weeks as she became larger and larger, she was more lethargic and she wouldn't let Abby carry her around. So we talked to the resident vet in our church and without even looking at her said, "Yep, I'd put money on it that she's pregnant."

Great. So then Paul and I are trying to figure out when she got outside and we decided that the morning we found her in the garage must have been the "morning after." She must have been outside before we closed the garage for the night and she narrowly escaped being stuck outside of the garage for the whole night...and we found her the next morning. We completely made up this story in an effort to make sense of the whole situation. However, we have no factual basis for these claims what so ever and so we say, "We have no idea how she got into her `delicate` situation."

Skip forward to June 11, 2009, 4:18am.

Paul and I awake to an interesting sound in our room. I immediately know what it is and Paul is kind of in a daze repeating over and over, "What's that sound, what's that sound." I calmly reply in a half-sleep voice...Caroline just had her kittens under our bed...

About 3.7 seconds later we both realize what I have just said and we fly out of the bed. We have to move the end table that is at the end of the bed and...there she is.
She is licking to death 3 little kittens. So Paul and I watch for a few minutes and we kind of smile at each other and say, "oh, how cute..." etc. As we are climbing back into bed I say, "Well at least there are only 3." We got back into bed because I was certainly not taking care of this situation at freaking 4:23am.

Skip to 7:30am.

We wake the kids up to show them the `three` new kittens. The kids come into the room and got down on their bellies to look under the bed and Jacob started counting.
One. Two. Three. FOUR! What??? Ok so four. Now we have four. Whoa. We get on with our day and a few hours later we go back to check on the kittens and Caroline. Abby counts this time.

One. Two. Three. Four. FIVE! SIX! Holy smokes. Six. What are we going to do with six kittens. We'll figure that out later. We got a box and got the kittens and Caroline in a box and slid it under the bed because that is where Caroline was "comfty" (as my kids would say).

The boys have picked out which ones they are going to keep. Caleb is picking one of the "cow kitties"... (translation...white with black spots) He named it Soccer...of course he did. And Jacob picked one of the darker ones with the stripes. He named it Recon. So that rounds out our family. Mommy, Daddy, Jacob, Caleb, Abby Sue, Caroline, Recon and Soccer.

As the day goes on Abby begins to figure out that Caroline is the kitties' mommy, She is Caroline's mommmy so she is the kitties' "Nana" and I am her mommmy so I am Caroline's "Nana" and I am the kitties'....

That's right people I am a great-grandmother...to cats.