April 21, 2007

An evening walk around Myron's pond I got up early Sunday morning to finish studying to teach the Youth Sunday school class.  It was on the scene around the throne from Revelation 4.   When you read the book of Revelation and all the judgments and terror that will fall n the earth, it is good to see our Savior as entirely worthy and in control....  Bro. Gary preached on "Salvation, the Biblical Way"  We went to Don Heatwole's for a delicious lunch with Ralph Dickersons.  In the afternoon we took a short nap then I got Danny Hege dropped by for me to help him get some pictures lined up for his talk tonight.  After he left I had to drive in to the shop to get the laptop & projector for him to use.  I barely made it back home in time for us to get the children ready and make it to church on time.  Danny gave a talk about their trip to Mexico with Uncle Enoses to see the Mennonite communities and their way of life there.  Very interesting!
Canadian geese with 3 goslings. Monday was quite a bit cooler and windy.  I went to work.  Ina Sue did the washing and made strawberry pie.   When I got home from work she had pork tenderloin, stuffed potatoes, zipper peas & fresh strawberry pie waiting for supper.  Afterwards we went over to Carls for a while.  I am still trying to get some Windows Vista issues worked out on his new computer.  (Vista by the way is not my favorite operating system just yet....)   Ina Sue and the children went along to visit.
Ina Sue kept Andy's three youngest on Thursday. I went in to work at 6:00 on Tuesday.  The rest of the family slept in for a while then Ina Sue worked on finishing up the washing & ironing.  Landon's teeth are just breaking through on the bottom and that seems to make him pretty grumpy.  I rushed to get my jobs done in at work and was able to get home by 1:30.  I quickly got showered and ready and we met Delmar Diems & William Millers for a drive up to Clinton, SC.  The Carolina Chaplaincy Program was putting on an informational meeting and had invited us to sit in.  It was held at the Blue Ocean Restaurant.  The Chaplaincy board gave a number of presentations then we all ordered and ate our meals. 
Friends on the Swing. I had a delicious plate of broiled flounder fillet and Ina Sue had a grilled chicken dinner.  After we finished eating all of the prison workers who could be there gave their testimonies about what God has been doing in and through their ministries lately.   Starla Diem had very kindly volunteered to keep our children while we were gone...  It ended up being around 11:00 before we got back to pick them up.  We were all pretty tired.
Our little explorer Wednesday was a beautiful day.  After I left for work, Ina Sue and the children worked for a while picking up sticks from the yard.  She also trimmed up our lariope really nice and got in a little sewing as well.  I came home for a quick supper of taco salad then we hurried off to prayer meeting.  For the discussion this evening, Nathan Goering came over from Hephzibah and gave the first of two talks on finances.  Tonight he focused on "Budgeting".  We came home and Ina Sue immediately got down to getting our finances caught up in Quicken.  (Nathan must have inspired her... no, she does a great job keeping our receipts all entered in)
Charles Brubakers had all these neat toys I fixed us pancakes for breakfast on Thursday then went straight down to Allendale on a service call.  Andy K. dropped off his three children around 8:00 for babysitting while Mary went to the Columbia prison for this year's orientation.  Ina Sue and the children ate a dinner of grilled hotdogs outside.  She fixed us "Scrumptious Beef" over rice for supper along with spinach salad & corn.  A delicious supper and a relaxing evening at home.  It rained gently throughout the evening.  I hope we get more...
Charles shows me the books.. Ina Sue got started on the cleaning Friday morning after I headed off to work.  I had a service call down to Grant Forest Products in the afternoon to terminate four fiber runs.  I thought I got their in plenty of time but was told after I got there that they really needed 12 runs terminated.  I only had ends for 10 so they had me go ahead and do all that I could.  The first eight were in fairly nice locations but the last two could not have been worse...  The original fiber run had been run to a temporary trailer.  When the movers moved the trailor last week they merely cut the fiber about a foot above the ground and took the trailor off.  Well, that fiber connection was still needed for another trailer still in place.  Unfortunately, it had rained since then and where the fiber came up out of the ground was right at the edge of a big clay mud puddle.  It made for a precarious and not too clean working environment...
Shaggy Prince (before the haircut)

On top of the conditions, my time was running out for the day.  We had a supper invitation at Charles Brubakers and I needed to be getting out of there.  I would have normally put it off until Monday, but I am planning to work in Mississippi all next week.  I finally got it all finished up around 6:15 and rushed home to get ready and hurried up to the Brubakers.  We just about made it on time.  Liz fixed us a wonderfully gourmet meal of ham rolls, baked asparagus, citrus/lettuce salad, potato salad, pudding and cake.  What a spread!  After supper Charles went over the details of the conference bookkeeping role.  It doesn't look too time consuming...  We had a good time visiting then and the ladies finished out the evening with a game of Upwords.  We are terribly sorry to see Charles & LIz moving off to Harrisonburg....
Patiently getting shorn... We slept in a while Saturday morning then I got up and made us breakfast of sausage gravy & corn bread.  (My favorite breakfast)  After breakfast I watched the children and worked a while on this webpage while Ina Sue began the laborious process of giving Prince a haircut.  Our new clippers that we bought turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment....  Perhaps we should have gone with the more expensive set?   After the haircut she also trimmed his nails and gave him a bath/shampoo in the porch tub.
Aside from one very wet jump-out his bath in the tub went smoothly. In the afternoon I had to go in to the shop for a while to catch up some work.  After I got home we all drove up to Bamberg and the children & I "cruised" for about half an hour while Ina Sue shopped at Peeples.  Then we all went to "Dukes" for a supper of BarBQ.  We were surprised to see our friends Fred & Suzanne Edora there as well.  They were down from Ohio visiting her mother.  (We found out a little later that Fred has actually gotten a job in Columbia and they will be moving down later in the year)