Wondrous Weekend

This past weekend was the only weekend in the month of October in which I will be in town, and it was wonderful! 

Friday night, Will and the kids went to the Bergman bonfire/pumpkin patch event at a local pumpkin patch. I was at a work banquet and missed the fun, but it sounds like the best part was the giant pit of corn. Lots and lots of corn. 

Saturday lunch was our exciting Pizza Lunch with the Hagemans! We started this a couple of weeks ago and are trying to do it once or twice a month, where we have an open invitation for lunch for anyone who wants to come over. We had so much fun - 11 families, 43 kids (19 adults, 24 kids), and a great time had by all!

Part of the crew of adults in the kitchen, the location of the food.

Some of the children, gathered downstairs. I am sure that Lego Batman 2 (not to be confused with Lego Batman 1) was being played.

More eating action.

A rousing game of Apples to Apples.

Brynn and Byrn with our Giant Stuffed Husky.

Later on, the family room (aka TV room) seemed to organically become a Boy Only zone.

The girls moved outside to draw monster pictures.

Will and Kirk swapped running stories, aka, running injury stories. Lots and lots of stories. ;)

It was such a beautiful day that later in the afternoon, I hid outside and read for a while. It was delightful.

The kids each had a friend stay the night this weekend - our friend Abby was out of town and Emma stayed over, and Daniel had one of the rare sleepovers in his life with his buddy Collin from school and church staying over.

Saturday night - Game Night! Lots and lots of games. Will and Julie are each scarred from experiences of playing Taboo with me in younger years, but we did manage to play a full game of Taboo without me screaming or attacking anyone. I have totally mellowed in my old age.

Beautiful night to try out the new fire pit. It cracks me up that this fire pit came on Amazon Prime with free shipping.

Will was super excited to make s'mores with the fancy new contraptions he bought, and the rest of us were only too happy to eat them.

Can you spot Annika up in the tree?

Emma up in the tree.

The boys, engaging in some kind of a Bounty Hunter/Star Wars imaginative game.

We were busy bees at church this morning. As our 4-H club leader, Will made an announcement about National 4-H Week.

The Cherub Choir sang and cuteness erupted. Note Daniel on stage! We are making progress.

I gave a special stewardship moment today to kick off the fall campaign. Being the chair of stewardship and finance is totally stressing me out this year, but one thing that never stresses me out is speaking during worship - I love it.

I stole one of Annika's new dresses today. It is super awesome having a Clothing Buddy.

Children's Moments! Oh, and I also played with bell choir. I have made the tough decision of deciding that weekly practices are not something that I am going to take on this semester, but I love playing and was thrilled that I got to play with bell choir during worship today.

I helped teach children's church as well, which involved showing up late for a video that I missed since I was playing bells, and then going outside to play. Yay! Collin and Daniel were getting in on some tree action here at church.

This afternoon, the big event was the CROP Hunger Walk, an international effort to fight hunger both locally and globally. CAUMC typically has a strong presence among the local churches for the event and our family was excited to participate for the first time (the ABO conference I  attend is usually the same weekend, but it is slightly later this year).

Heather and Emma walked with a really cool idea - actually carrying a bucket of water to symbolize the multiple miles a day that so many women and children must walk while carrying water.

Our whole crew! We decided to do the 5k as a family since this was longer than Daniel had ever walked. Next year, it is 10K or bust! Standard disclaimer about how Daniel hates posed pictures, etc. etc., applies.

Signs along the way.

Some of the girls.

Will and Daniel. I was so proud of both kids - no complaining at all and they said they had fun. Huge home run win!!

We were very pleasantly surprised to run into Brady (our friend Jen's son) and his best friend.

More signage.

Our crew in the last mile. The kids definitely slowed down the last three-quarters of a mile or so.

Heather in action with the water bucket! While the balance is tricky, she determined that it is actually easier to walk with the water bucket on your head than carrying it.

After the CROP Walk, we went home and got ready for family swim! We do this through UFM and it is a great time to have the K-State natatorium pool pretty much to ourselves and other families. Following that adventure, the kids and Will went to our friend's house and had pizza for dinner (thanks, Geuthers!!!) and then walked the 2+ miles to church to retrieve the car that we had accidentally left this morning when we took two cars. Meanwhile, I went to go see the movie "Gone Girl" with dear friends Christine and Jen, and really enjoyed the movie even though it is just as messed up as the book.

Now it's midnight and I am behind again on the start of a new week, but I can't stop smiling because of what a wonderful weekend we had - so many chances to connect in fellowship and community.

22 Things We Wish We Knew at 22

Today, our college brought in a distinguished lecture to give a talk called, "10 Things I Wish I Knew at 22." I was unable to attend, and then thought - hey, who needs what *one* person knows when I can ask over 100 intelligent women what they think?! So I asked the women on two of my Facebook groups (aka my "online friends," a running group and a working moms group) what they wished they would have known at 22. Here are 22 Things We Wish We Knew at 22:

1. Having kids will make it highly unlikely to finish school or get ahead in paying off debt. 

2. Take care of your credit - it may not seem important at 22, but you really do need it and it is hard to repair once it is bruised. 

3. The need to ask for and demand what I want, not just assume I'll be noticed and promoted. 

4. Ask more questions. I realized I could have caused a whole lot of people (including myself) a lot less work if I had just spoken up earlier and asked those critical questions earlier. 

5. Don't hide from ugliness or scariness. Meet it head-on. It will only get uglier/scarier the longer you bury it. 

6. Don't chase after titles or money. Do what you want to do or love to do. 

7. My strengths are my strengths - not my weaknesses. 

8. The importance of budgeting. 

9. How to say no. No to another shot, no to expensive dinners I couldn't afford....

10. How to love unconditionally. 

11. Choosing a different career - that I could have tailored my career around studying running or exercise. That old-fashioned print journalism would become irrelevant. That I had gone to med school, not business school. That acing the LSAT is not necessarily a good reason to go to law school. That I had picked a different degree. 

12. That life was going to turn out just fine. And harder things would be on the way. 

13. No matter how many all-nighters you pull, it in no way prepares you to be awake with a child all night. 

14. I would have told myself that I am just fine where I am at, and so is everyone else. 

15.Make yourself happy first. If you're not happy, you'll never have happy people around you. 

16. If you're doing something and you can't give it 100%, stop doing it and do what you can give 100% or more to. Don't stick with something just because you're "supposed to." 

17. Giving 100% to everything is not possible. Give up on the dream of having it all or doing it all. There will be sacrifices in life, and that is okay. 

18. Don't put off doing something or trying something because you think you can't or someone has said you can't do it. Don't back away from conflict; how you deal with it will make you stronger. 

19. Travel. 

20. No regrets! Every decision I did sculpted who I am today. Without the learning experiences, even the bad ones, I wouldn't be the same person. Everything happens for a reason. 

21. Failure is often your greatest teacher and experience. You'll learn more from it than your successes. 

22. Have that extra piece of cake.

What things do you wish you would have known when you were 22?? 

Random Mid-Week Update

It's the middle of the week, so what better time for a random photo dump!?

Photo from our World Vision child, Daniel, who has the same birthday as our D. 

I love this report because his drawing is exactly something that our Daniel would make!

Annika and Rachael: Tweens in the Morning.

The family, minus their sane mother, watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Sigh.....

We had a fire evacuation at work last week and I was able to use the time to donate blood at the Union. First time donating to the American Red Cross (well, donating blood and not money) and no one appeared to be a vampire like I feared.

Beautiful sunset with a low sun.

Will and the Manhattan Cross Country Club kids were in the K-State Collegian. We had no idea, but Pastor Larry is awesome and brought us a copy. One of D's friends at school brought him a copy, too. D is in yellow and A is in pink in the picture - can you find them?

K-State All University Campaign! Easy to get excited when you are a double alum.

Daniel and Bryn writing their names in charcoal at running club practice.

Team poster for cross country club!!

The kids were so excited that they rushed home to hang it above their beds. Oh. And it is apparent that the wallpaper that was in the house when we bought it should really be changed in D's room....

Twinning!!! With shifts from Maurcie's, our favorite store. This is when we were going to buy more skirts and dresses Chrissy at the aptly named My Favorite Skirt.

Awesome birthday present from Jen. It is water. Flavored water. Magical flavored water.

K-State Electrical and Computer Engineering Awards banquet. Will is being honored for the Distinguished Faculty Award for the year. Way to go, babe!!

Making birthday cards for sweet cousin Greg who is already 3 years old already (!?!?).

Checking out the presents.

Watch out, Grandma! Annika is rapidly catching up. She is tied with me in shoe size (8.5), which makes the two of us have bigger feet than every other female family member.

Loving Greg's balance bike.

Awesome chicken nugget platter!!! We don't 100% agree with everything that every single person involved with the store thinks, but hey, when do we? And their nuggets are very tasty. Very.

Chowing down.

Opening presents!

The big hit - Ukulele!!! Greg promptly burst into a completely made up, imaginative song for about 5 minutes straight while he played the ukulele. The best was when he went into a falsetto for a high note and held it for a long time.

 Greg's homemade birthday cake. At his request - strawberry cake with blue icing and sprinkles.

Annika, playing the guitar and looking more and more like a teenager every day.

3 years old!!!

Someone else wants a ukulele, too. With dragons. Naturally.

Blocks....towers and DESTRUCTION!

Our fearless bike rider had a great time showing Grandma and Grandpa his awesome new skills.

Finally, a book with Annika's name!!! Of course, it was a Swedish book translated into Dutch.

Cats at the Manhattan Arts Center on Saturday night! Awesome small community theater production of what is traditionally a large-scale and large-budget show. Will and I were extremely impressed with how well everyone pulled it off.

Two of Annika's fellow Bergman classmates were kittens. Great job, Alexis and Heidi!

Selfie before the show started.

Selfie before Daniel realized what was happening.

After the show. Awesome job and everyone in Manhattan should go see it this weekend while it is still playing!

Peeps! This is Annika's picture that I posted for her on Facebook on her behalf. Lots of Peeps!!

Daniel's two-page story home from school. Spelling and grammar are lacking but adorableness in emerging literacy totally makes up for that.

I made the very tough decision of taking a break from ringing in handbell choir for this semester. This did mean, though, that I had time for a 30 minute dinner, complete with dinosaurs and a photobomb.

Both of the kids have expressed an interest in playing basketball this year. We are thrilled that they are more willing to try new things, especially physical activities. However, the true love of both remains drawing. I love this drawing below of a "basketball game" in which someone is attempting to climb up the pole and gets "disqualified."

Will and some church friends watched part of the Royals game last night. They left around the 7th inning when things were down and it looked like a likely loss. Hours later, after the craziness baseball game in history, I think, the Royals are going to the playoffs!!!

Let it be noted that Annika still loves to draw. This is of the front, back, side, etc. views of a dragon. Naturally.

What are you in the middle of this week?