Congratulations

I realized that I never did put this on our blog, and it is such exciting news that it deserves to be here! Josh found out this week that he has been accepted to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY! He will start with internet classes only, we're not moving there! Yet, anyway... we're not making any plans, because God will lead where He wants us to go. And for now I'm content knowing that... Josh is very excited to feel like he is pursuing his ultimate goal of full time ministry. Wherever we end up, it will be an exciting ride, and this is the first step. Way to go, Josh! :)

YUM!

So we had a lazy day today, we cleaned house all morning, fried our fish from last night for lunch, took a nap, and hit Wal-Mart. Then I decided to get creative, and I tried out a new recipe. Turns out it's my new favorite for easy-but-fancy desserts (not that I ever really need those, but I can dream, someday I might throw a party). I saw it on Everyday Italian last week. It's Fried Nutella Ravioli! And it's awesome! Just take wonton wrappers, brush egg around the outside, put a bit of Nutella in the middle, seal them up, fry for 45 seconds per side, and you're done. If you want to be really fancy, dust them with powdered sugar. The wrapper gets all crispy, and the Nutella is semi-melted and creamy inside. YUM! Just thought I'd share, in case there are any other bored culinary experimenters out there! :)

Gone Fishin'

We finally got to go fishing tonight! It was blasted hot all day, so we finally left at like six. It was still blasted hot, but we headed to the Thomas' anyway. We had a really great time, especially after we walked all the way around the lake to get to the dam. It was worth it, though, because that was definitely where the best fishing was! The lake was so low that there were huge amounts of scum all around the edge, and while there was still scum by the dam, it only went a foot or two into the water, and then it dropped off and was deep.

I started out using an all white rooster tail with a silver spinner. Apparently, when it is bright and sunny outside, you want the brightest lure you can find. And it definitely worked! However, I did realize that I was a little out of practice casting. So several times I attempted to knock the fish out instead of actually catching them. Though rarely used (and rarely successful) this technique involves hurling your lure at breakneck speeds directly at the lake about 2 feet from the shore, hoping to whack some unsuspecting fish on the head, thereby knocking it unconcious so that it will float to the top. I also caught the dam behind me (I know, I'm talented) several times. But, I still managed to catch 11 fish! Some of them were really more bait than fish, but, hey, they count! I caught 3 perch/bluegill, and the rest were largemouth bass. One of the bass was about 3 inches long, and he didn't go after my lure, I snagged him by the belly on my way through the scum. Soooo, not the most talented fishing, but I did alright! When the sun went down we switched to darker lures (a black and red rooster tail with a brass spinner this time) and that's when I caught my two biggest bass. All in all we kept 8 or 9 fish, so we did alright. Josh didn't have as great of luck as I did, but we kept a greater percentage of his fish! And he caught the only two catfish, which will definitely make good eating. And, since he is a WONDERFUL HUSBAND, he is downstairs right now cleaning all of the fish in the garage! It's kind of fun to know that this is something we can do together to relax, and we will both really enjoy it! :) 

Goin' for a Ride!

Josh and I never do this, but this afternoon we had to go across town to an auction of Dad's to pick out a desk for Josh's office at church. When Dad called we had the dog in the house, so we decided to take her with us. I didn't realize that we'd be at the auction for half an hour, or quite how ridiculously hot it was outside! So poor Isabella was dying of heat by the time we left. However, she was exceptionally good at the auction, except when she figured out who Dad was, then she jumped all over him. But mostly she was good. So we decided to treat her with some ice cream from McD's, since her cousin, Sarge, seems to like the stuff so much. Clearly, she approves! :) She just slurped it down in the car, and finished it off at home! She was so cute! Odd thing is, she seems to have extraordinary amounts of energy tonight... hmmm...

The Classics Never Die

Well... they say the classics never die, and as another week of VBS comes to a close at the MHBC, I have to agree! Though there have definitely been changes, like no more trail mix on Thursdays (BUMMER!) and we had orange sherbert tonight instead of watermelon (the first time we haven't had watermelon on Parent Night since I can remember), it's still basically the same. The kids are still great... we still have fun... 3rd & 4th grade still gets candy (only now I'm giving it out instead of getting it!)... Susie still does music... Dan still does rec with whatever random assortment of youth boys are there... and kickball is still THE game to play! And, of course, Charlie the Church Checker shows up with his random and assorted group of Bobs. Tonight they serenaded us with "We Are Family," in honor of our theme, The Jesus Family Reunion. Trouble is, it sounded like no one could remember anything except the line "We are family," so mostly they sang that over and over. And, I tell you what, nobody can sing like Charlie the Church Checker... he doesn't hit the notes, he KNOCKS THEM OUT!

Another classic that never dies (much as we want it to sometimes) is Father Abraham. That song just won't go away! :) Of course, it's great for embarrassing people... see rec boys Charlie, Kyle, and Nate, who were tricked into doing it with the 3rd and 4th grade class because they made the mistake of walking upstairs during our music time! And, of course, Susie thought that Dave REALLY needed to do it for us tonight at Parent Night, so he did. I have it taped, complete with sound, but I just haven't figured out how to blog a video... so I'll keep working on that! :) You'll notice I'm not onstage with my kids... 3rd and 4th graders are big enough to handle it themselves! Plus, somebody's got to take the pictures! ;)

Well, with one day left, we are almost done with another year. And I have to stop and remember why we're really here. As funny as Charlie the Frog is... and as much as we all love Father Abraham, we're there for the kids, and I have a lot of fun teaching them, and helping them learn to be better Christians. As we head into tomorrow morning's evangelism talk, I find that several kids are really on my heart, just hoping that they put aside the junk that is in their life, the not so good home life they've had, or the need to be cool and impress, and listen to what Dave has to say tomorrow morning. We've got one last shot with this group of kids... here I go to give it my best! :) And maybe have a little fun along the way! If you've never taught or helped at a VBS... it's like no other experience you will ever have! You will be more exhausted every night when you go home... but you will never miss another Bible school, if you can help it!

An Evening Off

Today was the first day of Vacation Bible School, which is always fun. I'm teaching 3rd & 4th grade this year, and Mom is my helper. Not sure how she managed to get the helper role while I got the teacher role, but apparently her bribe to Nancy was bigger than mine! Oh well... it's not too hard because I have had most of the kids, or at least they went to Midway for 3rd and 4th grade... sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes not! :) But it was a pretty good first day, and, of course Charlie the Church Checker showed up, and he's everyone's favorite part. Makes me wonder what kind of crazy, schizo person can duplicate his personality like that...

Anyway, after I enjoyed a pretty lazy afternoon (though I did get the yard watered and the tent set up and dried out from this weekend) Josh and I realized that we had the whole evening off together! This like NEVER happens. So we played soccer with the dog (that would be the black blur in the picture!) and did laundry and unpacked from this weekend (Truman helped). Then we made homemade pizza, watched bad TV (Project Runway... sooo bad), bought stuff to make ice cream sundaes, and watched a good movie (Zorro). It's just too bad that we're so old that we couldn't even make it through 1/3rd of the movie before we had to go to bed! Oh well... it was a good time anyway. I love being "one of those couples that just sits around and watches movies." Maybe not all of the time, but it sure is a good way to spend a lazy evening off!

 

The Float Trip from...

... well, from nowhere I want to go again! Actually, when it was all said and done, it wasn't so bad. There were many blessings for this weekend's trip, it just didn't start out that way!

We were headed on the float trip Friday evening, and as Friday went on we kept getting more and more youth, until we were expecting 21 kids, which is A LOT! But we got there Friday, and the 21 kids all showed up, ready to go. Unfortunately, we were counting on taking the bus, but when Dad took it to fill it with gas, it started leaking large amounts of water. So, since there is NOTHING between Jeff City and Bourbon, MO, we decided not to risk it. The blessing was that, when we substituted the van and my car for the bus, we had 30 seats for our 29 people. If that's not God's planning, I don't know what is! So off we headed in our convoy, an hour later then we meant to be. And, of course, it always takes longer when driving in a convoy with 29 people (bathroom breaks at one-holer gas stations are infinitely longer when shoving that many people through one restroom), so we didn't hit St. James (dinner) until about 8:30 or 9:00. But, still, we were in great shape to make it to the campsite before they closed at 11:00. So there we are, driving along I-44, and I am feeling like there is a stiff breeze. My car was just pulling really funny and I couldn't keep it going straight... suddenly a lovely flapping sound fills the air, and I feel like I'm driving over the little warning dents on the side of the road... Yep, sure enough, I've got a flat tire. And I'm the last car in the convoy, so no one notices when I pull over. We jumped for the cell phones and the rest of the cars pulled over at the next exit. It's not a huge deal, Price kids don't get licenses without knowing how to change a tire, and I've changed several in my day. Not on the side of a highway in the dark, but at least it was the passenger side tire, so I wasn't actually in the traffic. So here we are, 5 women/girls standing on the side of the road... we unloaded my (very) full trunk into the grass, pulled out the spare (a donut, of course) and all of the tools. Yeah, turns out that the tire iron that came in my trunk DOESN'T FIT THE LUGNUTS ON MY TIRE. Kinda defeats the purpose if you ask me, but I'm no expert... so then we had the least helpful highway patrolman EVER stop by... he was on his way to work, so he didn't have his car, but he gave the tire iron a couple of tries, said "It doesn't really fit the lugnuts" and left. Thankfully, the Meyer suburban was stocked (Kevin was a boy scout) with an entire set of socket wrenches. And an air compressor to air up my (flat) spare tire. So in no time at all (yeah, ok) we were back on the road. We did manage to get to the campgrounds before 11:00 (10:45 counts) and we had tents all set up by 11:30 or so. After some brief discussions over sleeping quarters ("Do we have to have an adult in our tent?" "YES" "Do we have to sleep in a tent?" "YES") we headed to bed, hoping the next morning would bring better (or at least less eventful) experiences!

And, of course, God blessed us! I got up early, drove my car to the Walmart in Sullivan. I arrived at 6:50 to find that the tire place opened at 7:00... perfect! I had time to grab Hardee's for breakfast! :) They had my tire fixed in less then an hour (during which time I bought myself a t-bar for my car) and I even made it back to the campsite in time to go on our float. Meanwhile, the kids ate breakfast, broke down camp, and swam in a swimming hole right by our campsite. Despite predictions of rain all day, we had beautiful weather for floating- the sun was out most of the day, and it wasn't too cold. Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves, and we actually hung out as a group quite a bit. We would stop and swim or play catch or shoot each other with water guns pretty often. Adults stayed with their youth, youth got along, and no one drowned (though Charlie almost did: he got run over by a raft)! After showers and changes of clothes, we loaded back up in the vehicles and had an uneventful (thank God) trip back home. And Josh and I didn't even end up with one bag of unidentified, soaking wet clothes! So, despite a rocky start, the trip was a success and I think everyone had a good time. The best part was looking out at the congregation from the choir loft this morning and seeing the red glow coming from the youth pews (hey, we passed the sunscreen around twice).

New Favorite

So I went to see a movie with Ruth the other day, and Mom came over to pick her up afterwards. We were all (of course) standing around talking and Mom said my new favorite saying... "snap a z." Yes, as in, "If she did that to me, I'd have to snap a z on her." Just picture Mom standing in my living room "snapping a z" and I'm sure you'll appreciate the saying as much as I do... I cannot WAIT to find an excuse to use that in a conversation! :)

Good trip, not so good game!

Well, we wish the Cards could have had a slightly (or MUCH) better game for us, but Josh and I still had a great time on our trip to St. Louis. We got into town at about 10:30, and took the MetroLink to the Arch for our first stop. It's been a long time since I've been to the arch, and I'd forgotten how really huge it is up close. We waited in this gigantic line until they told us that they weren't selling tickets for the trams because they were having some problems with the North tram, and were trying to get the people who had already bought tickets through on the South tram. We went ahead and went inside, just to wander around the museum and the stores. When we'd been through those, they still weren't running, so we decided to head to lunch rather then wait around all day. So we headed out to a place called Dooley's, which Josh had found on the internet as "The Best Place to Eat Before the Game." So we had to try it out. It was pretty darn good. They serve their burgers cafeteria style, you just tell the guy "medium well with lettuce, tomato, and sharp cheddar" and they make it up for you right there. Josh got their famous burger; I got toasted ravioli, which was also awesome.

After Dooley's, we hopped back on the metrolink and headed to Union Station. We wandered around there for awhile; it's a really neat place. They have more Cardinal stores then should be able to coexist in one mall! I can't even count the number of jerseys and hats we looked at! But we weren't really there to buy, so once we'd seen all of the stores, we decided to head back to the arch and see if they were running the trams again... and they were! :)

So we bought tickets, waited our hour (and ate some really good fudge from the museum shop, it was like eating chocolate frosting), and headed down to the tram. Now, I've been up in the arch before, but Josh hadn't. Though he had been warned by Uncle Steve, who said we should prepare for the tram ride by climbing into the dryer. Looking at the picture above, that's not too far from the truth! So we crammed into our tram car with 3 complete strangers, and headed up the arch. It was PACKED at the top. I remember the windows being much bigger, but it was still cool to look out and see the city. On the river side we could see the shadow of the arch, which was also neat. Anyway, after much ooh-ing and ahh-ing we crammed into the tram with another 3 strangers, and headed back down. As we were leaving we watched some morons get arrested for scratching on the Arch. There are like 5 park rangers at every entrance, and these two ladies were just scratching away like it was no big deal. HELLO?! It's a national monument, you don't scratch them!!! They had kids with them, too, what a great example! Then it was off to the game!

The new stadium is very neat looking. I love the color of the brick they used, a really dark red. There are lots of details that make it neat, too, like a cardinal at the end of each row of seats. And our seats were really good... we had 3rd baseline seats, and we were facing east (a good thing at a six o'clock game!) and the people around us weren't idiots. Actually, the 3 strangers we rode down the arch with were sitting in the row in front of us. Turns out they were part of a big family visiting from somewhere out east, one of the Carolinas, I think. We ate all of the typical ballpark food... hot dogs and peanuts and soda! The game was not a good one; the Braves just kept hitting the ball. It actually got pretty sad near the end... the Braves' relief pitcher hit a home run; never a good sign! His batting average was .105. We were going to stay for the whole game (never say die) but in the top of the 9th inning the Cards stopped caring, and they put players in random positions. So Molina, the catcher, went to first base and everybody else got moved around. So we decided if they didn't care, then we would just go ahead and leave. We rode the VERY CROWDED (the word sardine comes to mind) MetroLink back to our car, and headed home. Not before a stop at White Castle (YUCK) and Krispy Kreme (YUM) at Rte. K, of course. It's a tradition after the game! :)

Anyway, as bad as the game was, we both had a great time in St. Louis. It was nice to just get away for a day. And we forget that there are really neat places pretty close to us! Now I'm just enjoying my days off before VBS! :) 

Super Husband, Relaxing Weekend

This weekend has been a wonderfully relaxing one... mostly because my husband is great! :) Friday night, to celebrate summer school being over (YAY) we had a Dinner and a Movie Double Feature. Josh brought home chinese food for dinner, candy for snacks, and we made popcorn... All while watching the double feature of my choice. He gave me lots of choices, from "Josh slit his wrists night" (Centerstage and Picture Perfect) to "I loved growing up in the 80s night" (Goonies & Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). I went with Batman night, so we watched Batman (with Michael Keaton) and Batman Begins. We didn't worry about anything. We just sat and watched the movies and enjoyed each other's company. It was great!

Saturday morning we slept in, and Josh did a little yard work while I unloaded the boxes I brought home from Summer School. Then we reverted back to doing nothing: we went to see a matinee of Superman Returns (MUCH better the second time) and ran to Wal-Mart (a weekend necessity). Then we came home, grilled, played with the dog, and just hung out some more. It was awesome to get some quiet, relaxing, alone time with just me and my husband. We don't get it very often, and certainly not for a whole weekend! And the awesome part is we still have Monday, because I don't have to go back to school, and Josh took off work so we could go to the Cards game! We are going to make a day of it, we'll leave in the morning and hit the arch (Josh has NEVER been there!), and maybe Union Station, and then some place called Dooley's for lunch before the game, which starts at 6:00. I'm so excited, and ready to begin my summer!! And this weekend was the perfect way to kick it off!