What a week!

I am exhausted today! Last week flew by because I was so busy the whole week. I really don't like to live life that way...jumping from one thing to the next. When all of the kids were at home still and involved in band, cheerleading, basketball, etc we DID live like that and it was rough. Now that they have all moved out and it's just me, Greg and Dakota at home and Dakota isn't playing ball anymore or involved in any outside activities other than church our life is pretty slow on a day-to-day basis.

We had two dear friends who had surgeries last week. I've previously posted about the one that happened on Monday - my friend who had cancer. I spent all day Monday at the hospital with her and her family.

The other friend is a young couple from our church with 5 children (3-mo-old boy, 19-mo-old girl, 8-yr-old girl, 12-yr-old twins). The mom stays at home with the kids and has just recently begun homeschooling the kids in the last 4-5 months. The father is a great father but a workaholic who tries to provide for his large family - and he does a wonderful job. They were out looking at a foreclosure house to buy (since they need a much larger house now) and he wanted to check out the back yard. Since there was a lock on the gate he decided to climb over the little 4-foot fence to go take a look. On his way back over the fence it broke and he fell...breaking his knee from his tibia bone in the process. Wednesday he had surgery to have three screws put in his knee. I sat up there with his wife all morning and took care of the baby...this was a sweet treat! He is precious and I don't get too be around babies too much anymore. (Our children's director at church took the other kids for the day.)

Thursday is our weekly homeschool park day - of course we woke up to rain in the forecast - this ALWAYS seems to happen! I told the rest of our homeschooling group that I had to go out anyway AND I had offered to pick up the twins (from my friend who had surgery the day before) and take them with us to the park so we were going whether it rained or not. The kids could just play in the rain. We played for about an hour at the park, it drizzled off and on while we were there but the kids had a great time playing. I checked the weather on my cellphone and saw that we had just gotten under a tornado warning so I told the kids we needed to go ahead and leave. We went across the street to a Pizza Hut for the buffet. As soon as we got seated the skies opened up. Thunder, lightening, high winds and hard rain - the entire time we were inside Pizza Hut. Praise God - I was so glad we left when we did!!

Once we left Pizza Hut I had a couple of errands to run and then we ran by the hospital to see CJ (my friend who had surgery on Monday.) One of the twins is also a cancer survivor and she and CJ share that common bond...CJ is very close with this young family and loves and adores these girls as much as they love her. They were so excited when I told them we were going to go visit CJ at the hospital for a few minutes.
This picture is from a Relay for Life event 2 years ago. One of the twins and her mom (turned around in the blue shirt) and CJ walking behind them - they are all walking the Survivor lap.
Friday night Dakota had a friend spend the night and I went to my monthly Stampin' Up hostess club. I was so tired from everything that had gone on all week I really didn't feel like going but I had two friends coming who had never been before so I wanted to make sure they felt comfortable and knew what to do.
This is what we made this time. It was more involved so we only made one project this month.
Saturday was a shopping day for Greg and I. My sweet husband helped me so much!! I coordinated a Block Party for a housing complex Sunday afternoon for our monthly Meet the Church community outreach we do. We were expecting around 250 people for the cookout/party so Greg and I went to Sam's Club to purchase all the hot dogs/hamburgers, paper supplies, chips, drinks, charcoal, etc to cook for & feed this many people. Our truck was loaded - I couldn't have done this by myself. After we unloaded this stuff off at the church then we went grocery shopping for our house. I had made two separate lists so we could divide up and get it done quicker. I put Greg in charge of purchasing the meats (since I don't eat it - ugh, I hate picking out meat!)
BTW - Winn Dixie has a GREAT sale on chicken this week!! We loaded up on the chicken.
Sunday after church we got our team together and started loading trucks with all of our supplies for the Block Party. We got out there at 2:00 to start setting up and firing up the grill. We had a good time. The turnout was nothing like anticipated but those that did come out sat around and talked to us and seemed to have a very nice time. One of the other ladies from my church and I walked around door to door inviting everyone to come out and join us. I felt so sorry for these people as we knocked on their doors...1/2 of them wouldn't open their doors - they would only holler out to us through their locked doors asking us what we wanted and those that did open their doors opened them just a hair...enough so we could see their eyes poking around. It's so sad to me that they live in fear like that all the time. Here's some pictures of yesterday's block party:

The food line

Spanish Pastor from one of the other churches talking to residents

Dakota enjoying the water slide

The kids lining up waiting for their turn on the water slide - good thing it was in the 80's yesterday!My awesome cooking man - Bill - love to have him on my team at these block parties - he handles EVERYTHING as far as the cooking goes!

As word got out that we had an awesome water slide available for the kids to play on, they multiplied...lol

The terrific serving team - they just come in and take over the serving tables - they know exactly what to do! They are so awesome!!

Dakota pouring ice down Greg's back while being "encouraged" by his friends perhaps?

After shutting this event down and loading everything back up into the trucks and then unloading at the church we went by the Carter's house (the guy who had knee surgery) and took them some food that we had left over from the block party. We sat and visited with them for about an hour or so while the kids played outside. When we finally arrived home it was almost 8:00 - we were exhausted! Greg and I were both in bed sound asleep by 9:00 pm! LOL

I am looking forward to this coming Friday...we are going to Orlando for a mini-vacation!