LANO!!! (Ladies' ALL Night Out)

Friday night was our monthly Ladies' Night Out at church. This is always a good time for the women of our church to get together and talk, eat, play games and just get to know each other better. There is a core group of us that have been meeting monthly for quite some time, and there are others that come occasionally too. We're happy to have anyone join us, and it's always the second Friday of the month, in the fellowship hall.
Here are Cindy, Regina, Jody and Christina, playing "Things" along with Lisa, Sarah, Anna and me. It was a fun game, but because there were so many playing, and we were getting tired, it was really hard to remember who had already asked whom, what questions...if that makes any sense.

The littlest "lady" there, was Jody's brand new baby, Tessa, (held here by Sarah), who was born January 8th. She was born a few weeks early, and is just a little peanut, but is absolutely perfect and adorable.

Here's Anna, holding little Tessa. They were both wearing the same shade of pink, and I just had to take a picture of them.

This last one was one of our "later" LNO's with 5 of us staying into the wee hours of the morning...we left the church parking lot at 4:00AM. I was about a mile from home, when I received this text msg from my husband. "Are you COMING home?" I called him and assured him that I was indeed almost home, and he said, "I knew it was called Ladies' Night Out, but I didn't realize it was going to be Ladies ALL Night Out!" So...I think we have to change the name of our monthly outings at church to "LANO" now, whatdaya think??

Look (Grand)MA, No Training Wheels!

About a week and a half ago, my grandson Christian, who will be five years old in October, learned to ride his bike without training wheels. Here he is on his tiny 12" bicycle.

After a few days, with the seat up as high as it goes, he and his mom decided he was ready for a bigger bike.

Jessica is in the Air Force Reserves, and will likely be going to TX for training for 10 weeks, starting October 1st. If she does, she will miss Christian's birthday again. While she was in the AF, her 5 month tour of duty in Iraq just happened to be over his FIRST birthday...and though she did get to spend his 2nd with him, she was once again sent to do some training (I don't remember where) over his 3rd birthday. We celebrated early at a water park, before we took him home with us for 6 weeks that year. Okay, so she was able to spend his 4th birthday with him last year, but now, since it appears they will again be apart for his birthday, Jess decided to get him an early birthday present. Besides, he will get a lot more use out of it for the next couple of months than he will the months following...here during our Minnesota winter anyway.

She ordered a brand new bike online, and it arrived yesterday evening...

with "some assembly required"

Jess was able to get it all put together, before Grandpa Ray got home. She had him check it over, just in case she hadn't tightened things up enough. After inspection by Grandpa...and a bit of initial hesitation on CJ's part, he got brave enough to try out his new big bike (all 16" of it). Yay, CJ!

Winning It...Again! Way to go, PEFC!

Last year, I blogged about our church's softball team playing in their tournament and "Winning it." That same week, the kids' softball team also won first place. Unbelievably, both teams repeated that feat this year, with the kids winning on Tuesday night, and the adults taking home their 1st Place trophy on Thursday night. Here are the guys, (there was one girl playing this year also, but she was not present) posing for a picture BEFORE the game. The local newspaper was there taking pictures of them, since they were obviously going to (at least) place at this point. I took advantage of the already-posed team. Notice how clean and un-sweaty they are in the above photo.

Since I am not a sports fan myself, (understatement of the year), and wasn't paying a lot of attention, I borrowed my husband Ray's commentary from Facebook on the following pics:

"Joel O. has been our coach and mentor for a few years and he led us to our second championship in as many years - he deserved our accolades ....

.... and the ice water shower to follow"

"Umpire Don presenting the First Place Trophy and game chart to commemorate our victory."

"We beat a good team from (a nearby town) 8 to 7 coming from behind in the 6th inning with a rally started by Nathan S. I present to you the 2009 "P-town" Free Church adult Championship softball team. We were also awarded the first ever Sportsmanship Award, which will be presented at next years organizational meeting."

Congratulations guys! Especially on the brand new "Sportsmanship Award," that's pretty cool! The Ump told them after presenting the trophy, that he and another umpire had decided to initiate such an award just the night before, and it took them both about 5 seconds to blurt out, "PEFC" in unison, as the first winners of it. That speaks volumes about what godly men and women they are...even when they're not actually in church, and is an awesome reflection of God's love. They won't receive this award until next Spring, but the ump told them that until then...they have "bragging rights." Of course, all glory and honor goes to HIM!

Fun With Finn!

After the tragic loss of my grandson CJ's dog "Bart", all he could talk about was getting a NEW dog. His mother, Jessica searched on Craig's list for one that would be a good fit for our family. She wanted one that was not too big, not too small, one that loved children and was okay with not being the only dog in the house...and one that wasn't going to cost a whole lot of money. At last, the search is over. She and CJ and I went to go pick up "Finn" yesterday, while Molly was gone to Valley Fair with her youth group.

We surprised Molly with him last night when we went to pick her up at church. He's about 2 1/2 years old, and is a purebred Papillon. "Papillon" is the French word for butterfly, and these dogs are so named because with their ears erect, their faces have the look of one. They told us that he's actually on the large side of the scale for the breed, but that's okay. He's about the same size as Bart was...which makes him quite huggable for a 4 year old boy.

Jessica was able to adopt him for FREE and his previous owners even threw in his bed, crate, toys...and a "Coach" collar. The couple that had him had two little girls, ages 5 and 3 and had just added a baby boy to the mix 4 weeks ago. They decided that with the new baby and all, they just didn't have time for Finn anymore, and they were pretty excited that his new owner was a rough and tumble 4 year old boy that would love to play and wrestle with him.

So far, Finn seems to be a pretty good dog, and I have heard that as a breed they are very smart, good with children and are known to be "eager to please." We shall see. The thing that I do not like, is that he seems to have taken a liking to my bed. I am NOT really a dog person, I mean, I can tolerate them living in my house, I just don't want them in my bed! The worst thing was, he decided to jump up there right after his bath last night! Eeewwww, wet dog smell, not my favorite "oderant". I stripped the bed and washed everything. He's going to have to learn not to do that again, if him and I are going to get along. I'd just close my bedroom door...but it's hard to lock a curtain.

(Finn, laying at his master's feet)

Girlfriend's Duluth Weekend Getaway

Sarah graciously agreed to be our driver for the weekend. She has the biggest vehicle, so that worked out well. Actually, her van is the exact make and model that mine is, but mine has not been running since shortly after the start of the year. After she and baby C had picked up Anna, then Lisa and then me, we all headed over to Jody's to pick up her and baby K. Here we are in Jody's driveway, about to set out on our journey...with 5 ladies, 2 babies...and a bunch of stuff.

When we arrived in Duluth, we were hungry, so we stopped and ate at a Chinese buffet. The food was very good, but they must have been getting ready to close or something, they were almost out of everything...and they didn't seem to be restocking anything. Oh well, I probably didn't need to eat any more than I did anyway.

By the time we reached the hotel room, the babies were both fast asleep. They did a lot of that over the weekend, and I must say, they were both very good babies.

Shortly after we arrived, we decided to get a group picture, laying across one of the beds. I had the fun part. I set the timer on my camera, set it on a half-wall and had 10 seconds to run over and jump on the end of the bed and assume the pose that the rest of them were in already.

Well, almost. I didn't hear the part about raising just my right foot here. There was one other one I took, that I was laughing really hard because I almost fell right off the bed. I won't post that one.

Our hotel room was right on Lake Superior, with a very cool view. This is an old lighthouse we could see from our window.

On Saturday evening, we looked out our window and saw something way off in the distance...could it be a ship? Yes, it was! We wondered how long it would take to get in. Anna called down to the desk and they said it should arrive in about 10 minutes. She, Jody, baby K and I all took a walk down to the pier to see it come in. I got a video of the lift bridge going up, and then this one of the ship making it's way toward us. It was HUGE.

There, my ship has finally come in. Well...at least A SHIP has finally come in. It was pretty cool to see up close like that. Here is a video of it going under the Lift Bridge:

After the ship passed under the bridge, I turned around and got this picture of the lighthouse. There were seagulls flying all around so I waited until there were a couple of them in my viewfinder. I like the results...especially the gull that looks exactly like people draw them in pictures up there in the right hand corner.




After we saw the ship come in we walked around to the front of the hotel, this picture was taken from the hotel's driveway. That's how close we were to the lift bridge. It was a very nice hotel too.

I had to take this picture of two little ones...aren't they adorable??

The girls decided they need to do some slumber party/girly-girl things too. Here's Lisa applying some cute little butterfly decals to Anna's fingernails, while Sarah dyed her and Jody's hair in the bathroom. I was sort of babysitting the little ones during all this and enjoying every minute of it.

After that they really got silly and a few of them thought it would be fun to have an old fashioned jumping-on-the-bed pillow fight! It did look like, fun but being the "token old lady", I decided I'd better behave myself and chose not to join in. Jody (Make a Joyful Noise), must have been really tired, because she and baby K slept through all the noise, and didn't participate either. I didn't get any pics of them, because I didn't want to leave baby Cole on the bed to go find my camera, but I'm pretty sure if you go to Lisa's (Our 7 QTPies), or Sarah's (Sassyfrazz) or Anna's (Moving Forward) sometime this week...you'll be able to see a picture of these silly girls. For some reason, about 10 minutes after they were finished with their pillow fighting...security showed up and the door and asked us to quiet down...I have NO IDEA why they would do that! LOL!



After a fun-filled weekend, and cleaning up our very messy hotel room, (can you imagine what the bathroom looked like after 5 women were using it for 2 days?) we checked out, packed up the van and walked down to the shore to get another group shot. There just happened to be another ship leaving at that time. A very nice gentlemen offered to take the picture of us...so I agreed and gave him my camera. Little did he know that 3 other women were going to hand him their cameras too! He said he didn't know what he was getting into when he offered...but he was a good sport and took a picture with each of our 4 cameras!

Here's one last picture of the babies on their "first date". Who knows, this could be a budding romance... And if they end up married to each other some day, they may just want to go back up to Duluth for their honeymoon.

We had a wonderful weekend, and I want to thank all my buddies for inviting me. Also, thanks to Jody and her husband Dan for allowing us to use his hotel points for a free 2 night hotel stay. Many thanks to Sarah too for driving us all up there in her van. We'll have to do it again sometime!

Surviving "SURVIVOR: Laughter Island" Weekend!

(A lot of the decorations were loaned to us by Carol and Larry B. We named this guy "Crush" after the one in Finding Nemo")

This past weekend was our annual Women's retreat at church. Our theme was Survivor: Laughter Island. We are all survivors of something in our lives, for example I have survived unwed motherhood (twice), divorce, open-heart surgery, losing my sister to breast cancer...and turning 50. Not to mention 6 teenage children/step-children (so far), and a twelve year old who has been acting like a teenager for as long as I can remember.

Anyway, since 3 of my bffs are on the women's ministry team at our church, they recruited me to help out. Lisa AKA Our 7 QTpies is the chairperson, and Jody and Anna, (who is moving forward and happily), are the others on the board. On Thursday night, while Lisa and Anna went to borrow some "totally awesome" decorations from another church member, Jody and I went shopping for groceries and supplies for the retreat. We were not at Wallyworld long, when the other two called and said they'd meet us there. After shopping, we decided to go to Applebees for half-price appetizers and ended up staying there until midnight...and then went to church to drop off all the groceries etc that we had bought. It was after 1:00AM that night before we got home. Yes, we are crazy...but I love my crazy friends!

Friday night, the retreat started out with an "ice-breaker" game, literally. The contestants had to get as many marbles out of an ice-filled tub as they could...with their toes. We were afraid some of them would get "cold feet" and not want to play this game, but they were all good sports. Above is my daughter Jessica, searching for her marbles. Below, is our bloggy friend, "Daisy" trying her hand...er... feet as it were...at it. Looks like fun, huh?


Next, we had a delicious meal, prepared by our good friend, Jody (who also has a blog called "Make a Joyful noise, even if it hurts Momma's ears!)" It was called Javanese dinner and was a mixture of all sorts of things, like chicken, gravy, rice, veggies, pineapple, and coconut. Some people were a little nervous about trying all those things layered together, but it tasted absolutely wonderful! Thanks so much Jody!



After dinner, we were treated to a hilarious skit by Betty and Cheryl. I won't go into the details...it was not recorded and no pictures were taken of it...which is a good thing! It just wasn't the type of thing you'd want to fall into the wrong hands! I did hear rumors of one picture existing on someone's cell phone, however. After the skit, it was time for our awesome speaker, named Karla Heeter. Karla is a cancer SURVIVOR, the author of "The LMNOP's of Surviving Cancer" and one funny lady! I didn't actually get any pictures of her at the retreat, as I was too busy laughing while she was speaking to us. This is a picture of her though:

She was talking about the importance of pap smears and mammograms etc. as ways to prevent cancer...not exactly things you would think being humourous, but she brought up some of the things that we ALL do when we go in for these tests...for instance, why do we hide our underwear inside of our jeans when we are told to disrobe from the waist down and cover up with a large paper towel??? I know I do...and you know you do too...which is why we were all laughing hysterically. Check out Karla's website here.





After Carla's entertaining and informative talk, we listened to another good friend of mine, Sarah (AKA Sassyfrazz), sing "Held" by Natalie Grant. Here is a short video snippet of her singing:















Then it was time for testimonies. We heard 3 very moving testimonies from 3 of the ladies at the retreat. Obviously, I will not go into any details, or even tell you who these women were, in the interest of privacy. They are not my stories to tell...but they are definitely all SURVIVORS!

When the "formal" part of the evening was finished, we had fun just sitting and sharing snacks and fellowshipping with one another. We had some other games and things planned, but everyone seemed to enjoy just spending time together. Above is Jody's little one, "K". She was the littlest lady there of all. We also had 2 grown men (running the sound and video), and one cute little man there as well...but I didn't get a picture of him. I had the bandana on my head, but K kept grabbing for it, so I put it on her. Pretty cute, don't ya think?

Eventually, everyone who had decided to stay settled in for the night and some of us were watching a Tim Hawkins video. Everyone else only lasted about 15 minutes into it, but I SURVIVED and OUT LASTED everybody! Since no one else was up at that time, I took a picture of the clock to prove how late I was up. I'm sure I could have stayed up the rest of the night, but what does one do all alone in a church overnight while all their friends are asleep?

(if you look closely here, you can see the two men that were allowed to be at most of the retreat)

The next morning, as Jody was flipping pancakes and making sausage for us, the ladies played a few more games. One was an egg/water carrying relay. That was great fun, but I didn't get any pics of it. Another fun game that morning, was digging for plastic bugs in "used" kitty litter.

Above, fellow blogger, Cindy, (Canoearoos) is trying to find treasures among the soggy wet kitty litter. Actually, it was brand new kitty litter, with a few appropriately places tootsie rolls in it. Anna had gotten a little carried away with the amount of water she'd poured in this tub...but that made it even more fun. I just noticed I do have a picture of the "little man" that was there. He's being held here by Betty. He is Sassyfrazz's youngest.

After breakfast, was a fun Fear Factor style eating contest. Above, is Kathy preparing Betty for her particpation in it. The ladies were waiting for their course of the dinner to be revealed here.

Below, Padma makes a lovely expression after downing her "hundred year old ostrich egg", which was really an apricot floating in sauerkraut juice! Mmmm....I actually love sauerkraut juice myself, but even I would have a hard time with the apricot in it. Ewww!

All of the ladies were great sports about it though, And Carol H. even lucked out with a yummy cupcake for desert...but she had a hard time swallowing the gummy bug topper on it.

The retreat ended with door prizes handed out by our amazing Ladies Ministry team shown above. Thank you so much, Jody, Lisa and Anna, a great time was had by all...How are you going to top this one next year??

More Karaoke Night Fun!

We had a pretty good turn out for karaoke night at church this month. I'd say there were 20 or so people there at one point, with a few of the youth joining us for the event. That's Jason, (in the baseball cap), who entertained us with some Elton John songs, and some other oldies but goodies. Sisters, Christina and Shelby and their friend stopped by too, as well as Cedie and her friend. With a little more practice, Christina and Jason could be American Idol contenders someday. Not everyone sang, but I think they all had fun, or at least enjoyed the food and fellowship. Jody had told me on Wednesday, that she was bringing a pot of chili. She said her family doesn't care for chili beans, she makes it with potatoes. I thought chili sounded like a great idea on such a chilly night, so I decided to make a pot as well. My family happens to LOVE chili beans though, so I made mine with lots of beans and chicken instead of beef. They both went over quite well, mine was gone first, but I'm pretty sure that's just because our family ate it. We hadn't had supper yet.

Some of the usual crew was there, Jody and baby K, (her dh Dan was out of town), Lisa and Donnie, Anna and her daughter, Ashley and niece, Tammy Jo. Here they are singing a song:

Sarah and Terry usually come too, but have been rather busy lately, what with having a baby a week and a half ago and all. Sarah said she was going to come, until her little girl got sick and started puking. And unfortunately, our friend Padma was a bit under the weather also, so was not able to make it either. Unbeknownst to her, she had apparently passed whatever she had on to Lisa earlier in the week during their bible study, and poor Lisa started feeling ill by the end of the night too. Before that happened, she did get up and sing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" with Anna and Jody though. I thought they did a great job, but Ray told them they probably woke the lion up with their singing. He can be so mean.


Donnie sang a few songs, including "America Will Survive", and I think he did "The Streak", and also joined Lisa in that all-time favorite, "Summer Nights".

Kim O. decided to bring her whole family out to celebrate her 50th birthday with us. If I'd known she was coming...I'd a baked a cake. Seriously. Her husband and son sang quite a few songs, and Kim said she might even get brave enough next time. Come on Kim, you can do it!

Tim even stopped in to say hi. We couldn't get him to get up and sing either, but he did show us his multi-tasking abilities, by holding K while enjoying a bowl of her mother's delicious chili. I was impressed.


Even the little ones got into the act. Kim's daughter (in the pink) and her little friend in the purple, (hidden behind the TV) sang quite a few songs, and Trinity graced us with "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Mom had to help her a little bit with the words, since she can't read yet.

Trinity may not be able to read yet, but she does know how to pose for the camera. Here she is with CJ. I guess we'd better keep an eye on these two, CJ seems a bit enamored already.

Come on out next month if you're in the area! You just don't know what you're missing!