Our Weekend

Our weekend started with a Friday afternoon trip to the snowcone stand.  It's one of my favorite summertime treats and quickly becoming one of my boys too.  They don't understand the whole flavor thing they just choose by color.  I most always get strawberry.  In the past I always ordered a clear strawberry but now that I'm in the teaching colors stage of life I choose to let it be red.  My boys like to see our colored tongues too so that makes it fun.

 

a fun afternoon treat

On Friday afternoon one of our neighbors asked David to help her load something in her truck.  Then later on she returns with a sack full of crawfish and corn as a thank you.  What a wonderful surprise!  We love crawfish and have not had any yet this year.  It's been 8 years since we were last home to enjoy the crawfish season.  We were tickled to have them and they were DELICIOUS! 

We were up early on Saturday morning to begin a long day.  We took the boys to David's mama and then we drove on to Clinton, MS to speak at a retreat for the Mississippi Missionary Parents Fellowship.  This is a group of parents that have kids on the mission field serving with the IMB.  They have a retreat twice a year at Camp Garaywa and it's a wonderful time for them to get together for fellowship and to encourage each other.  Our parents have not been attending but I think they would really enjoy it if they got involved.  We got to meet some wonderful folks from all over our State and hear about the wonderful work their kids are doing all over the world.  We shared with them about our work and then David gave a short devotion.  It was a wonderful, wonderful morning!

a group photo

 

We all had lunch in the camp dining hall.  In addition to the missionary parents meeting there was also a retreat going on for the Mississippi retired missionaries.  We were able to meet and greet with them during lunch.  We saw a few familiar faces but two really stuck out for me.  The first was Mrs. Bobbye Rankin.  Oh, I just got soo excited when I saw her walk in.  Her husband, Dr. Jerry Rankin, is the former President of the International Mission Board.  It was good to see him too, but my focus was on her.  She's just beautiful and in my mind is the perfect image of a Southern lady.  She's a Mississippi gal and from the same town we are currently living in- Brookhaven.  I did get to hug her neck and talk a while but failed to get a picture with her.  I have been mad at myself ever since.  sigh.  The next person that got me all excited was Mr. Harold Watson.  As you might remember we see him a few times a year in Guatemala and Honduras when he comes down to work with his son- our agriculture partner Dan Watson.    He is a fun man and I could sit and listen to him share his missionary stories and wisdom all day long.   I left smiling big.

David and Mr. Harold Watson (retired IMB missionary to the Philippines)

 

After picking up our boys that afternoon we then headed to our friends house for a gathering/ birthday party.  It was for our friend Reagan.  I took quite a few pictures (as you can imagine) so I'll do a separate post about it tomorrow.  We had a fun time and the kids really enjoyed themselves.  Anytime these next two get together it's always a party, ha.

Cruz and Sara Madalin- trouble waiting to happen

 

Sunday morning we attended worship at First Baptist Church Summit, MS with David's dad and step-mom.  Afterwards we joined them for lunch at their home.  We had a delicious meal and then we sat out back a while and watched the kids play.  We always enjoy getting to spend some time with them.

David, Ben, Mr. Harold, and Cruz

 

On the way to their house for lunch Cruz excitedly told us all about what they had done in his class at church.  He said they had a parade (his explanation of them acting out Palm Sunday).  He waved his palm branch and talked about Jesus riding on the donkey.  I was impressed that he had listened enough to repeat the story back to us.  We'll be doing our best to finish that story with him this week as we lead up to Easter.

Cruz's Palm Sunday props he made at church- precious!  Don't you just love that rainbow donkey, HA.

After driving home and enjoying a long much needed nap we ended our weekend like we started it- with another trip to the snowcone stand. 

Ben asked for purple.

We also took them to the park to play.

 

We ended the day with supper at Ward's.  Have you tried their steak sandwiches?  Oh my, they are delicious!  Cruz likes the pink lemonade there so he was happy when we stopped.  It had been a very fun weekend.

 

It's Monday now and I'm busy cleaning and washing clothes.  I've already made my first (of many) trips to Wal-Mart this morning.  We have a festive week ahead and I've got lots to do to get ready.  We have a birthday and a holiday approaching and I've been known to go all out for those types of things (lol) but hey they only come around once a year, right.