This month so far has been pretty busy with birthdays and get-
togethers and such.
The event that kicked off this month is an event I really enjoy. Every year our Church of Christ congregation hosts a "July Meeting" - members from all our different congregations come to hear some fantastic talks from the Preachers of the different congregations. This year the congregations that attended were all ones from the West. We had people from California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona. We also had an Evangelist fly in from North Carolina. His name is Tom and he is a fantastic speaker! His talks always include life events he has gone through and he has a fantastic positive spin on all the things he has experienced! This is quite an event. We usually start two months or more in advance to prepare. The meeting is usually about 2 days long and we do have the two main dinners catered but the rest is all contributions from the families in our congregation! We have all sorts of deserts and fruit dishes and snack foods that we get together and also have a couple of
babysittings set up for the children that are too young to understand or fit in the building! This year the age cutoff was 7, so Tyler didn't get to come but Hailey and Hayden did and I think they enjoyed it!
I didn't take any pictures during the talks but I did take some at meal time.
It's wonderful to get to talk and get to know people from all over.
Hayden enjoying his snack of Nachos! I was in charge of this evening snack.
I always stress out about stuff like that but it went alright. We ran out of cheese sauce a little early but we survived it. Hayden was a helper with this too! Takes a lot of energy to help close to 200 hundred people get a snack!
This was taken on the second day after all the talks were completed and everyone was having the opportunity to fellowship with one another for a little longer before they all started packing up their vehicles and driving back to their respective states.
Hayden is having a little "down-time" with his friend Isaac. This year the building we rented was a public charter school so there was some equipment for the kids to mess around with.
Cleaning up afterward is a shared task for the brethren!
A couple of parting words shared after a wonderful two days of talks and
fellowshipping! The time always flies at these. But we are all left with a lot of edification and skills to help us live a better, more godly life.
Ty was brought to the building by the sitter with all of his "goodies". The neat thing is that the kids who go to the
babysittings also have scheduled times to do crafts and projects, have lessons and also play and nap time so they almost get to have their own little meeting!
Tyler being Tyler and taking time to goof off - he is so funny!
Poor Hailey is exhausted! She also helped a lot with helping serve snacks and she got to listen to talks and took down the sound equipment that Kurt had let us use for the meeting. One of the men from our congregation even gave her his camera (a very nice one) for the two days so she could be an official photographer! She loved that! It was starting to rain here and she couldn't wait to get home and collapse. I understood that feeling!
As we drove home with the rain pouring down we were exhausted but happy, all talking about how the meeting went so fast, too fast! Now to put our thoughts ahead to plan for next years!
FIRST FAMILY GET TOGETHER OF THE SUMMER!
Hailey had mentioned that it had been forever since we had had a summer family barbecue. These are events that I think are fun to have but to get everyone together at the same time seems impossible at times! Plus, with Kurt's job he is usually working evenings and weekends. But . . . excitedly we got to have him this time! We were missing Ray and his family and Pat wasn't well but we got most of us together and even Erica and little Maddie could attend!
I did opt for a little different theme though. Instead of the big, messy, time-consuming BBQ - we just decided to do desserts and root beer floats. I think it worked great! And the ladies didn't have to spend the whole time in the kitchen!
Emma and Chris chatting on the back porch!
Hailey, Brodie, Dylan and Kurt!
Bryan and Ryan!
It was great to have Erica here too. I know she works a lot and is busy so I was thrilled that she could spend some time with us!
Hailey and Brodie are both music enthusiasts. Brodie is plunking away here on Kurt's guitar.
Hailey wanted me to stop taking pictures but I had to, it's my job at these functions. If I don't blog - who will?
Wow! Check out those cute dimples! Like mother like son!
After the root beer floats and desserts we decided to take it out front to watch all the neighbors and their fireworks.
Unbeknownst to me, Bryan had brought some along to entertain the kids.
Maddie wasn't happy with all the sound. It really frightened her. Emma is trying to get her to see the pretty lights but Maddie just wanted to go in the house!
Tyler didn't like all the sound too but he was
enthralled with the light show! His curiosity kept him in his seat!
I think he liked that one! Or he is pretending to be a baby bird and wants me to drop a worm in his mouth . . .
hmmmm.
Everyone just hung out and enjoyed each others company. I really had a great time visiting!
Things started out fairly simple early on with the decorations but as you will see in the following pictures that they became more elaborate.
Ingrid with Tyler in the background.
Jayden
I think the person who made this wasn't caring so much for style as to maybe getting as many M & M's that they could eat!!!
Here we go . . .
Alayna
Tyler made these. It's supposed to be me and Kurt!
Alayna made this and took the time to take M & M's and crush them into teeny, tiny pieces to make her dress . . . yes, it was messy. But it's art - it's supposed to be messy, right?
That was a lot of fun. We will have to do that again. Oh, just a word of wisdom. When you make the recipe and double it and think it doesn't look like you have enough dough, don't despair. I was so worried that we didn't have enough dough and by the time I was done rolling, cutting and baking we had cookies coming out of our ears (not really). There was A LOT. You know it's at that point where you are offering them to ANYONE who will take them! I could have put them in a box next to the box that says . . . "Free Zucchini" that you find out on the sidewalks in the summer.
After we played with that for quite awhile we went on to the next one. This stuff is called "Magic Muck" and it is really weird. When you first pick it up and squeeze it you can make a ball out of it and then you open your hand and it turns back into a liquid and drips!
