Catch Up!

Ok, so I’m way behind, and I know everyone’s probably annoyed… but it’s been really, really busy around our house lately! Besides the strep debacle, we’ve been working really hard with practices and prep for the Whose Verse is it, Anyway? Improv night from last week, and I have been working a second job (online, evaluating portfolios for eMINTS). It’s only 10 hours a week, but I’m finding that squeezing 10 hours in on top of everything else is a lot harder than I thought it would be.

SO… all that to say I’ve had lots of fun events, but not a lot of time for blogging! Since I figured I’d get virtual grenades lobbed at me if I didn’t update before CO (and since I know I’m going to have LOTS of blogging to do after CO), I decided I better get caught up now!!

Anyway, Fun Event #1… Service & Ski in Kansas City!
This is one of our favorite events because it is a great combination of a really fun event (skiing) with a really purposeful event (service). This year we worked at Center Baptist, a church in a not-so-nice part of Kansas City. They have a very small church, so they had to cut off the back part of their sanctuary and turn it into Sunday School rooms by using partial walls. To spruce up their rooms, we painted several of the walls a bright blue/turquoise, and painted some of the furniture white. We also just did some odd jobs- cleaned out a closet, ironed and hung curtains, washed windows, and picked up their grounds. We really had a great time, and we were so proud of our kids for how hard they worked. It really was a blessing to get to serve this church that has such a tough job bringing Christ into that neighborhood.

Lots of bodies... small space... bright blue! Shockingly enough, no one got painted, though!

The whole group in front of the church. Seriously small church!

For the second part of the day, we headed to Westin, MO for skiing! I thought this shot was so funny, because all around there was no snow, then there was just this mountain of snow with skiers and snowboarders all over it! Seemed kind of random!

I was going to tube, but we got there and had an extra skiing pass, so I decided to try skiing. I had only skiied once before, when I was a freshman in college, and it wasn't the greatest experience, so I wasn't very confident about it! But I really had a great time! The funny thing was, the Wii Ski game we got was actually helpful. Not that I was great, I still spent a lot of time "snowplowing," but I didn't fall, and I even steered some! :) It made me want to go skiing on this trip to Colorado!

The tubing looked like fun, too, though! Wish we could have done both! Here's the tubing group... they definitely had fun!

Overall, the skiing went really well. We only had 2 injuries, and neither of those were too long-lasting. And we got to really do some service for that church, which was an even better feeling.

Since we were staying out so late, Laney spent the day (and night) at Grandma & Grandpa's house. Sunday morning she helped get Aunt Roof ready to go. Clearly, Laney is NOT a morning person! But she does love Roof's boots!

Fun Event #2: Visiting Grandma & Grandpa Price!

The week after the Service & Ski trip, we packed up again (this time we took Laney with us) and headed to Great-Grandma & Grandpa Price's house! We were supposed to take this trip over President's Day weekend (since Josh and I both had a 3 day weekend) but the strep thing started then, so we cancelled that trip. We came close to cancelling the second trip, too, but we got everybody (Josh, Elena, me, and Charlie) on antibiotics fast enough, so we headed off!

Visiting Grandma & Grandpa is always a great time to relax, run around on the farm, and just spend time visiting, and enjoying Grandma's YUMMY cooking! This weekend was no exception!

Saturday we slept in, then headed out in the mule to show Laney all of the animals. With pigs, cows, dogs, horses, cats, rabbits, ducks, etc. all to look at, Laney was ECSTATIC! We drove around to the different houses, and picked up a dog or two at each house so that we eventually had quite the pack following us around. Actually, we kind of collected uncles and cousins, too, so it ended up being quite the party! We even got to see a day-old calf, Uno. Definitely a good time!

We also visited Aunt Jane in her new house, hung out with the cousins, and had a huge family meal on Saturday night. It's funny, because a "family meal" doesn't sound like such a big deal. Until you start counting up how many people are ACTUALLY at a family meal. Since we were missing Mom & Dad & Ellen & Sam, and a few others, there were only about 30 of us. Poor Grandma was worn out by the time she cooked for all of us, but it was a great meal, and we had a good time visiting with all of the cousins. I'm amazed at how grown up all of my cousins are. I don't see them very often, so I still think of them as kids. But now they are practically grown (and some of them actually are grown)!!

Anyway, some fun pics from our trip to IL...

Laney being, well, Laney... never met a camera she didn't like!

Like mother, like daughter!

Laney and Grandpa Price, definitely buds! Laney loved that Grandpa could make a cow noise that actually sounded like a cow (as opposed to her's). Every time he did it she would turn and grin at him.

Hanging out with the cousins at Aunt Jane's house!