Fish Fry

Well, it was a lot of work, and a lot of fun... but I'm kind of glad it's over! We had the Fish Fry this past Saturday, and I think I'm still recovering! I stayed up late Friday night baking 2 pies and 4 dozen cornbread muffins. Then we headed to church around 11 on Saturday morning, and didn't leave again until almost 11 that night! But there were others there longer then us, and we still had a great time! And God really blessed us with the weather... it was sunny and beautiful and not a drop of rain all day! Josh and I were in charge of youth games, which involved a frog launcher (you'd have to see it to believe it), a football toss, bean bag toss, painting, coloring, play-doh, a bounce house, and a petting zoo! So, as you can imagine, it was, well, a zoo! We got it all set up, and then we had to run it, too. I'll be totally honest and say that Josh definitely carried most of that burden! I spent a lot of time doing random little things, like making a poster for the dog that was for sale, and perusing the Silent Auction items we were bidding on (important work, I tell you!). We did get to sit down and eat when Josh's family (Grandma, Tim, Aunt Shell, and Aunt Jane) came, so that was fun. The food was pretty darn good! I still think I liked it better when they brought seconds around to us... it was so crowded it was hard to want to get up and walk over to the seconds table (how lazy am I?!). Check out the really cute picture of Tori, Dave and Nancy's granddaughter, holding the chick. She loved the petting zoo! After the Silent Auction ended, and we got everything moved out of the Country Store, the auction started... and went on FOR-EV-ER (just picture Squints from The Sandlot). We always sell all of the leftover pies, and it takes awhile to sell 20 pies! :) But there were several entertaining bidding wars (Charlie vs. Corey, Charlie vs. Josh) that led to some expensive pies (I think we paid $11 for ours)! Josh and I bought quite a bit, but my favorite purchase of the evening wasn't for me, it was for the church. Dad asked me to bid on a leaf blower because the church wanted it. So here we sat, Josh and I, and I'm bidding on this leaf blower... he just could not believe it, he looked back and forth from Dad to me with a look of pure shock on his face... he was sure I'd lost my mind. It was definitely fun! :) Especially when the bidding hit $100! We did buy several things for ourselves, including one sure to start more rumors then we can control! We bought this really cute "Time Out" bench. I just liked it, we have no particular need for it (nor do we know of any reason we might need it in the near future). We've had lots of questions about it since then, though!

OH! The coolest part... Josh actually won the $200 in gas at Little General! SWEET! And Sam won the shotgun (which turned out to be a lot nicer then we thought). And, sorry Jess and Jane (and me), none of us won the $200 mall gift cards... sad :(. But Jamie, the other 3rd grade teacher at school, DID win it, which was really kind of neat. I got to give her the news on Monday, and bring her the cards, and she was really excited. She sounded like she had had a rough weekend (just tiring, I think) so it was fun to give her such good news! Anyway, with the $200 gas card, Josh and I basically broke even, after everything we bought! In addition to the bench, we got some Christmas decorations, some homemade jelly (yummy), a toolbox, a coffee gift basket, and a Mary Kay gift basket (thanks, Ellen!). So we spent about $200, and we made $200... and we had a great time, so I'd say it all came out even! I am still exhausted, though, and pretty glad that we only do this once a year!!!