Exciting Happenings!

Well, as usual, it's been a VERY busy week around the Looten household! We didn't rest much after the big first birthday party last week (yes, I know, I need to post pictures... I will... eventually) because we went straight into the FISH FRY this past weekend!

As most of you know, our church has this major fundraiser every year. It's an all-you-can eat fish & chicken fry, with all the fixins, a silent auction, a raffle, a petting zoo, kids games, etc. etc. The proceeds all go towards our building fund. Our church is trying to build debt-free, meaning we will raise the money first, then build the building. Anyway, this is our single biggest fundraiser (though we do other things throughout the year). It is a ton of work, but SO MUCH fun! Last year I missed the fish fry because I came home from the hospital that day, so I was excited to get to go again this year. As usual, it was a blast... the youth are in charge of the kids' games, so I worked there for awhile. I also spent a lot of time at the Silent Auction, which went from 60 or so baskets last year to 150 baskets this year! So that was a much bigger undertaking. By the end of the day, we were all exhausted, but we had a great time...

The Silent Auction baskets... it was AMAZING to see all of these donations!

The whole church crew doing a devotion under the tent just before we started serving people.

Laney in the bounce house with her cousin... she LOVED it!

Ruthie helped provide the entertainment for the evening. Elena LOVED listening to Aunt Ruthie sing. She kept shrieking and laughing. It was pretty funny... and the singers did a GREAT job!

Because of the Fish Fry, Grandma & Grandpa Price were in town this past weekend, too. So, Sunday we went out to Mom & Dad's for lunch. Laney had a great time hanging out with her Grandpa Price, chasing poor Joy around the car- she was fascinated with Joy, and Joy wanted nothing to do with Elena! Just thought these pictures were pretty cute...

And, last in the line of exciting news... Josh and I bought a new car! Well, not new new, obviously, but new to us! We actually put the money down on it last week, but we got to go pick it up today!

It is a 2001 Subaru Forester, and it has 92,000 miles on it. It will be Josh's car, primarily, and it will be our car to drive around town. It gets better gas mileage than the van, so it'll be cheaper to drive around town. Josh is absolutely thrilled, because this is one of the cars he really wanted, and we got it at a price that we could afford- without car payments. We've made the committment to buy cars we can afford to pay cash for, which has ended up with us driving some not-so-nice cars (i.e. the '91 Tempo Josh has been driving for the last 4 years). It's such a blessing to have found this car that meets our needs so well, and was within our price range.

Anyway, I promise my next post will be on the baby blog, and will be first birthday pics, but I just had to catch you up on the other things going on in our lives! Never a dull moment...