Guys and Dolls photo shoot

 One of the little stores in our town sponsored our upcoming show, "Guys and Dolls, Jr." and so to advertise their store, some of the kids in the show did a photo shoot in the store on Saturday morning.  Then they walked around town in their costumes advertising the show.

Trip to Virginia

 These pictures are all out of order...and I'm not going to try to fix that...bear with me.  So, as I mentioned in my last post...we took a very impromptu trip to Virginia to see our old friends.  We all had such a good time.  We arrived at 1:30 in the morning to surprise Hannah (the other Hannah...not my Hannah) for her birthday.  There are some pictures a few down of her and us right when we got there.  She was definitely surprised!  Abi (the 7 year old) woke up due to all of the commotion so she got to see her Granny and sleep the rest of the night on the couch with her.  The next morning she woke up her big brother and told him that Joe was there.  Joe, Grace, and I were asleep in the family room downstairs and woke up to 3 cute faces checking us out.  (Levi--Joe's buddy, Abi, and Elijah--the 3 year old).  Elijah had no idea who we were but was excited to find out that his Granny was there.  He got used to us pretty quickly and he and I bonded each morning when I let him eat chocolate muffins (healthy ones) and Monster cookies for breakfast.

 This little guy is the baby--Hosea, he just turned 1 and has just learned to walk.  He is a super sweet, friendly baby so we all got lots of love from him.

 The girls were all about doing their makeup and Granny's make up every day.  They even talked Granny into buying herself some makeup and then taught her how to put it on.

 I barely saw these two the whole 5 days we were there.  They haven't talked or seen each other in about 2 years but they picked up right where they left off and got along great the whole time.  They played board games, video games, and wrestled a lot!

 The three oldest kids all play basketball in a homeschool league and over the course of 2 days we watched 5 basketball games.  It was fun watching them on the court.

 Grace and I slept in a futon right in front of this wood stove every night and it kept us toasty warm.  Ben got up a couple of times each night in the middle of the night to add a couple of logs to keep it going.  That was much appreciated because us Floridians were freezing.

 We didn't really do anything special, just hung out a lot and lived the S's life with them for a few days.  This included 5 basketball games, a movie for the ladies (Silver Linings Playbook), a big grocery shopping trip for me and Ben, and a Rue 21 shopping trip for the teen and tween girls, going to 2 churches (Ben and Hannah lead worship for a fledgling church each Sunday before attending their own church), one ladies Life Group that Marissa leads, youth group for the teens and Grace, a trip to the park for Granny and a bunch of the kids, and lots and lots of staying up too late chatting.

 This picture above is of Marcia and Hannah at Krystal on our way up to Virginia.  That's where we stopped for dinner.  And below...Hannah and Hannah got to have breakfast in bed...their birthday tradition.

 Joe and Levi talked me into playing a game of Settlers of Catan.  I really like that game and I had fun playing with them and Ben.

 The last night we were there, the girls watched a movie while Ben and I played Settlers with the boys and the girls also painted their nails.  It was fun...we were all sort of in the same room and it was a great way to spend our last night there.

Seven Quick Takes...Catch Up Style

1.  I think most of my blog readers know that I went on an impromptu trip to Virginia last week.  I haven't blogged because in the few days leading up to the trip I was crazy busy getting ready but also didn't want to leak a word about my plans because our trip was a BIG surprise for our Virginia friends' daughter as well as the rest of their kids.  We decided to go on Sunday and left on Thursday and stayed 5 days, returning this past Tuesday.  I'm sooo glad that we went, I came very close to not going because in many ways I really didn't have time to go.  It was so fun though and honestly so worth the lost school days and craziness of coming back and trying to unpack (haven't yet) and catch up on everything at home.  I have lots of pictures to share and will do so in my next post.

2.  I have spent all afternoon getting caught up on paperwork/email kind of stuff.  I'm in charge of stuff at church and stuff at theatre and paying the bills at home and of course planning for school.  After about 4 hours straight up plugging away task by task, I'm done...for today.  I sent dozens of e-mails and will need to respond to those responses but the bulk of my work got done today and I'm ready to start another busy week.

3.  I'm in the mood for Thai food so I think I'm going to make Pad Thai tomorrow.  I hope I get more motivated to cook before tomorrow.  I have so completely lost my cooking mojo and almost never cook anything interesting anymore.

4.  I cancelled my gym membership...again, just too busy.  I used to think I was so busy when I had three little kids but now I'm busier than ever but the thing is...I'm busy out of the house.  I used to be home more and even though it was hectic taking care of everyone and their needs, at least I was home more.  Schooling also takes a lot more time.  If we're having a productive school day, I'm schooling the kids for 4 to 5 hours.  Then our afternoon activities start....so, I wasn't getting to the gym and frustrated by paying for a service I wasn't using.  Honestly, I'm afraid I'm going to get big and fat now that I'm not going but actually, in the past 2 years of having a gym membership I've never lost more than 10 pounds and I haven't kept it off.  I exercise more for health than weight loss though.  It's also good for inflammation which I have lots of.  I plan to do something at home though...I do, really.

5.  We're going to see "Wicked" on Thursday.  I CAN'T wait!

That's all I've got....I think my brain is fried...