hangin' with the girls

Oh, what fun Dennis had today! We went to church this morning, and as Dennis was being greeted by a number of church members, he told each one "my friend Chloe is coming to play with me today!". Indeed she did. Dave and Ellen came down to give us a hand with some things, namely help installing a new part on the Tracker. We had lunch and the guys went to work on the cars while we took the kids to the playground and let them run wild for an hour. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the lake. We had every intention of putting the kids down for naps as soon as we got there, but Mary Beth and Laura from next door came over to play with Dennis and Chloe. They had toy My Little Pony stuff and Disney princesses and costumes strewn from one end of the place to another (Dennis found it fun and different to play with all the girl toys, but he learned to dress the dolls and ponies after a while), and they ran laps through the house screaming and chasing and "playing tackle" (as Dennis and Chloe called it). When Gigi arrived, I'm embarrassed to say that all 4 children were piled onto the king-size bed in the master bedroom, wrestling, bouncing, and screaming. We were just letting them go wild! Gigi was happy to see them, seemed happy to be entering the melee, thank goodness. We toured her house and the kids all went next door to play at the Halls' while I started our dinner cooking. We shared a nice meal together, the Gallmans, us, and Gran and Gigi, and then had some nice chat time while the kids played some more. It was a wonderful day spent with loved ones. Those are just the best days!

This morning, our teaching experience at the preschool Sunday School class went very well. We talked about praying, about talking to God, and we went over the Lord's Prayer (which Dennis helped us say). Then, when we picked up Dennis from his children's church service, he was wearing a construction paper headband with giant ears stapled to it. It said "speak Lord, I am listening" and I thought it was very cool that our lesson was about talking to God and the lesson they got immediately afterward was about listening to God.

Car update: the Tracker is home. It isn't cured, but it isn't in the church parking lot anymore. So we've made progress, and the next part that we need for it comes in tomorrow. We'll see what happens after that. And the Blazer got a visit today and a strategy for radiator repair (which we hope can happen soon). We have yet to take a look at Dennis' jeep, but maybe that'll come soon. I hope it's a cheap, easy fix. We apparently need a vehicle healing ceremony at our place.