Happy Valentines & Busy Weekend

Went out to Macaroni Grill for my B-day on Thursday night. Even tho' my B-day is Sunday, I wanted to beat all the Valentine crowds and we are too busy on Sunday. After we ate dinner, we picked up a Reece Cup Ice Cream Cake at Dairy Queen! Ice Creams cakes were my traditional B-day cake when I was growing up, but they were homemade and heart shaped. I got B-day calls from my parents, Alaena, and Dustin. I picked out a Shark Vac/Steamer Mop that I wanted. (I know, I know...I picked out a vacume/mop for my B-day!!..but I wanted it to make my life easier!!!)

On Friday, my job gave me a b-day lunch and a chocolate pie. We went to Winter Jam on Saturday night for Valentines Date. We ate at I-Hop aftewards, so we didn't get home until almost midnight, but am happy to report that we were at church on time and in our place. I had to get up early on Sunday morning to start the spagetti sauce for the Spagetti dinner, and get it in the crock pot to take to church for the Valentine's Banquet after church.

Sunday morning, Katie, Michael and Zach gave me a B-Day gift. So sweet!!! Sis. Hawkins, me, and Katie and Joe Horne all have the same B-Day. The Stewarts and the Riddlespurges have Anniversaries on the 13th too. Fun! I gave all the children a treat bag of Valentines candy, and they exchanged Valentines and got other candy from their SS teachers.

However, I should know better than to attempt Children's Church when there is a dinner being prepared for. Children's Church is in the fellowship hall separated by an "office cubicle wall" and it is just too noisy, and the food smell too distracting for the kids. Either I have to move it into a smaller room for the day or plan not to have it all. But we're having a revival with Bro. Smith this month and I didn't want to call off CC for two Sundays this month. Fortunately, we probably won't be having another dinner for a while.

Speaking of Children's Church, the "chair situation" was driving me crazy! I would like to have connecting padded chairs like at the last Assembly, but for now we have folding metal chairs. It didn't matter if I had the chairs all lined up in perfect rows, within 2 seconds, they were moved, upside down, twirled, etc!!! I tried subtracting chairs so that there were only 1 chair per student, but we still seemed to have the "traveling chair" problem. So after the banquet, I got a roll of duct tape from our pastor and taped 4 chairs together in a row. I taped the back legs, the front legs and the back support together. :-P Someone JOKINGLY suggested using the tape on the kids, but I said "no, that would be illegal." Ha! So now I have 3 rows of 4 chairs taped together. I am also going to put the names of the younger children on their own chair so they'll know where to stay seated. We'll see how that goes next Sunday! lol! I have a few more tricks up my sleeve. :-P

The adults played the Truly Wed game at the banquet and fortunately Mike and I were able to bow out. He had to take his Mom home half way through the game, so we wouldn't have been able to finish anyway. Bro. & Sis. Hopkins won. The highlights of that game is one of those "you just got to be there" things watching everyone's expressions. The men mostly knew how to stay out of hot water, but the ladies were the ones in trouble this time. Ha! That games is equal to "Diry Santa" in my opinion...but funny to watch someone else playing it. Hahahahahha!

Mike paid for eating spagetti with acid reflux about two o'clock this morning. (I have mostly quit cooking tomato based recipes since it bothers him. He will occasionally eat it when I cook it for me, but I try to have something else for him. However, that's all we had at church yesterday.) It was so bad, he couldn't breath. I had that happen once and it hurts and is scary. But he got through it. Nothing like waking up at 2:00am and you not being able to breath to help your wife know how much she loves you. Nothing says "I Love You" like the Heimlich. So we had an exciting night and are a bit tired this morning.

Happy Valentines Day!