racehome

We go all out here.

Collecting the bamboo, our pastor brought his trailer, and felt extremely strong about cutting down a million stalks of bamboo. The plan was to completely line the entire sanctuary with bamboo. We almost did it.

Cas and Debbie used their share of the bamboo to build a tiki hut on the stage, it turned out so well that all the kids wanted to live in it.

Marc needed to adjust the load before we drove a mile down the street with 20 feet of bamboo dragging off the back of the trailer. Since the cops in our town are notoriously stringent about trailer regulations, this was a real worry. We made it. Phew.

I don’t know *why* they would mind about this load of bamboo driving down the road. It’s not like it’s HUGE or anything!

Back at church, we built a volcano. Then we spray painted it. Lots, lots and more lots of spray paint. That’s me, poking out of the cone of the volcano. It really erupts smoke and tinsel-y streamers. It’s quite cool! Thanks, Galen and Jess for thinking it up!

Who needs a surfboard?

Leaders in action:

No, seriously, I was continuously amazed at how Pastor Josh and Stacey dealt with everything that came up at church, kept all their regular commitments, and stayed cheerful and hardworking all week. Josh was especially dedicated when it came time to clean up Friday. Really! No joke!

The kids really love that the hallway going to the nursery looks all jungle-fied too. Those vines were my favorite project all week. I loved making them.

Info booth tiki hut. This might have been my favorite project all week, too. I really enjoyed making stuff out of bamboo. It felt all distaster-preparedness-y.

The traditional acquarium of the staircase. I think this is the second time this has been done in 3 years we’ve been doing VBS at New Life.

The Volcano. All done and stuff. Finally!

The Stage. Tiki hut on the right, drums hidden behind the VBS logo, ocean mural drawn in pastels by Erin Luther. Wow, what a great mural! On the left of the stage is the giant rocks and the waterfall.

The waterfall, with actual running water, again designed by Galen and Jessica.

Bamboo wall. Did I mention that the ceilings are more than 30 feet tall? Crazy.

Just crazy.

For a good time, register at www.newlifeinlouisa.org

VBS is June 23-27.

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Bethany.

Turning 4!

Cake. Not made by me.

Birthday girl.

Everybody sing!

Everybody eat the blue food coloring!

Everybody turn blue inside.

Can’t believe my sweet girl is 4 already. What a vivacious four year old she is! She is just so stinkin’ sweet.

First, my sweet little herb garden. It’s really starting to take off!

For some reason, everything is flourishing except my basil. I have no idea what the reason for that is. So, yes, that’s evil nasty Sevin dust on the basil. I promise I’ll wash it really well, and probably not do that anymore. I just really, really want it to grow and nothing else was working.

This is our first tomato.

It’s just so cute. The angle of this photo makes it look huge, but it’s about 1.5 inches across, on a tomato plant that’s about 8 inches tall. Ah, the magic of photography.

This is our first pepper.

It’s cute, too, but it’ll be cuter when it’s a red pepper. I’m told that if I just leave it alone long enough, it’ll turn. I hope so. This is what happens when idiots garden. All we have to go on is what "they" say on the internet, and you know how risky that can be.

Here’s my sweet pea, fixing to flower. We have 3 rows of these, and they are going to be *so* good. I just. can’t. wait. to taste them.

I’ve had just the best time watching the pea vines take hold of the fence and climb up. Reminds me that there’s an infinitely clever Creator of the universe that designed the whole place, and we should just sit back and watch sometimes.

This is our "upper garden." There are two similarly sized patches, maybe 12 yards by 25 yards each. One is up the hill a little, and one isn’t. One has about 8,000 potential zuchinis, and one has about 3,000 potential peppers. We’ll see come August which one we like the best. I’m holding out for peppers, myself.

This is the view from my garden. It’s the neighborhood I grew up in, and the one I’m so thankful I get to raise my kids in.

This is the little neighborhood church. There’s the little league field across the street from the church.

Here, I rotated the camera about 15 degrees. Maybe more. I’m not too sure about degrees. How’s this? It’s a little to the left of the shot before.

The brick building you can barely see behind those big trees is the apartment building I lived in from when I was 2yo until I was 8.

This is rotated just a little more to the left.

It shows the field between our yard and my parent’s house. The burn pile is down in the middle, and the little white speck is my dad’s goat, Nanny. She lives in the doghouse in the middle of the field.

This is the last photo in the tour of our neighborhood.

The white speck in the upper right hand corner is my mom and dad’s house. I lived there for the rest of the time until I went to college. It’s nice that my kids will be running the same dirt as I did, only I didn’t really run in the dirt that much.

Anyway, this has been your tour of our garden and our neighborhood.

See ya!

So, for some reason I can’t remember right now, I really wanted to get some chickens this summer. We did. And we even built a fantastic chicken yard, since we live in town and have to keep them contained. (Stinkin’ rules…I’d much rather them be free-ranging, but alas…)

Here’s Marc, putting the finishing touches on the door of the yard:

Amanda was trying to catch one of them so that she could have her picture taken.

She finally caught the rooster. Aptly named "Prince Charming," he’ll fit right in among his 8 princesses- I mean, hens.

Bethany is a chick in love. Get it? Chicken love! Ha!

Anyway, I just had to share. Fresh eggs for sale, starting in August or so. Come on down.