Whew!!

That's what we said when we came home Friday night.  We were completely beat/.  But it was a good thing.  VBS ended great!  Friday we didn't hit 50 (we had 47!), but in part that was okay - Matt didn't become a human rice crispy treat.  Although, the teen who did become one gave Matt a HUGE bear hug afterwards, so I still had to come home and shake, scrape, and pick off a ton of rice crispies from his pants and shirt.  Oh, but Luther helped me!  Ha!

On Friday night, we had over 100 people to our BBQ!  Many of the kids came back with their parents, some grandparents, and siblings.  It was great.  We had good food and great fellowship and the gospel was clearly presented.  Now we just pray that they will remember what they heard and act upon it!  In all, we had a total of 52 kids come throughout the week, with 47 at one time being our highest.  We had 4 children accept the Lord, and many parents seemed very interested in our church and the kids program.  Our church stands out among many others in our area in the fact that we didn't charge the kids to come to VBS.  Personally, I have never heard of that, but apparently the churches around here were charging!  What?  Isn't this supposed to be an outreach?  Yes, it costs money to put this on.  But I believe that God will honor our efforts.  Our church is FAR from wealthy, yet with volunteers, and God's provision, we were able to put on a great VBS for FREE!  Anyways, I'm sure those churches have their reasons, I just don't understand it.  If you charge, then that cuts out a lot of the families who could not afford to send their children to VBS for $45 a kid!  Especially if they have more than one child!

Anyways, VBS was great, and this week we are recovering.  Then, next week, its school time!  Gulp!  I can't believe my little Liam is starting school!  I am getting our "classroom" all ready and his book and pencils and all that set up.  He is excited about it.  We shall see if that lasts!  Ha!

Last night Matt and I had the chance to get away for a few minutes and go across the border into Houlton, ME.  We go over there to get some stuff that is cheaper, like milk, eggs, butter, and cheese.  I think I have mentioned the store, Marden's before.  It is sorta a surplus type store.  They get all the overstock and stuff and sell it for really discounted prices.  We always stop in when we go over just to see what they have, because their stock is always changing.  Their little catch phrase for the store is, "Shoulda bought it, when I saw it, at Mardens."  And that is so true.  I don't know how many times we have seen something we needed or whatever, and decided to wait and get it later, only to come back and find they are all sold out.  This has happened to us even when there are like 20 or more of that particular item!  Stuff moves FAST there.

So anyway, we stopped in to look around and, as usual, I saw all kinds of stuff I would love to have.  There was the prettiest twin bed that with the neatest headboard that would match perfectly with the girls' room.  But, that is not really on the top of our list right now, so I will just continue to dream about it.  But, what has been on the top of our list is a new toilet for our bathroom.  It has been leaking for a while, and it seems to be getting worse.  We had just replaced the sub-floor and the linoleum in January, and we didn't want all the leaking water to ruin the floor again.  (it was so bad when we replaced it that it is a miracle no one went through the floor when they went to sit down!!!! Ha!)

We have been looking for a toilet, but there was one major thing going against us - the color of the sink and tub and current toilet in there now are all the bone color.  We could have gotten a basic white one for  just under $100, but white would look SO bad.  We had priced out a bone colored one, but it would have been closer to $200.  Hmmm... not too excited about that price.  But, Home Depot was sold out of them at the time.  So we were just waiting.

Well... we went in there last night, and lo and behold, they had a whole shipment of them - in BONE (the exact one we were looking at in Home Depot) and they were selling the whole thing for $59.99!!!! (you usually have to by the bowl and tank separately with two separate prices.)  We were so excited!  I know, getting excited about a toilet is a little odd, but it is the perfect color, at a price that we could much more easily digest.  And, we didn't have to pay duty at the border, because of the low price!  What a blessing!  So, that, along with Matt and I getting to go on a little "date" was the excitement of our day yesterday.  We have been so busy we haven't been able to do much with just ourselves lately!

And that is about it for us.  I am getting ready to make supper and make and freeze some baby food for Libby.  She is loving this whole eating real food thing.  And I always love this part - seeing them try new foods for the first time!  OHHH!!! and another exciting thing is that we finally got some chicken!  It is so expensive here, we rarely buy chicken, especially chicken breasts.  Well, it was on "sale" this week, so we were able to get some.  (by sale, I mean $4.00 a pound!)  We had some last night and it was oh so good!  We haven't had chicken in a long, long while!  Aren't you excited for us! :-)

Until next time...