A Weekful (and Mouthful) of Happenings

I am so off my game this last week!  No routine, moderate chaos, planning only from one minute to the next, can't find anything because it's packed or I packed the place that it belongs, 2 poison fast food meals, 3 or 4 other unmentionable-cleaning-out-the-freezer "meals", piled high laundry (I'm thinking of just doing swimsuits this week, lol!), and here I sit on the computer. :o      Despite it all, we are all excited and I can't even begin to explain the deeper trust I have in the Lord because of it all. He is so very faithful and has worked in such very clear ways in the last several months.  So... what have we been up too?

*Took a The Dalles Damm Tour on Saturday morning.  After living here 6 years, it's about time!  The damm tours had been closed for a long time.  It was very interesting and the kids enjoyed it--  especially the part that we could say "we're having a damm tour"  ha!ha!ha!

*Had a Chouinard Children Farewell party for all their friends in the Game Room at the Corps.  They had such a good time, although it was sad that many of them we were seeing for the last time.  I let each of the kids pick a junk-food for the party.  David picked Doritos, Elijah picked Mint Oreos and Fig Newtons (not junk in my book ;)  , Ann picked Nutter Butters, Hannah picked generic chocolate cookies because it was the closest thing to her face.  They played video games, foosball, air hockey, etc. and I was able to get a picture of them with their friends. 

*Last trip to the Library. Boo hoo, we love that place.

*Our last Advisory Board was well attended and I got a good group photo and lots of hugs.  One of the Board members gave me a hand-spun-hand-made wool shawl that she had made.  I looove it!  I stuck the kids in the kitchen with their lunch and a Bible Man movie.  Mary made her rounds with the Board members. She's so spoiled.

*A very nice (but sad) good-bye lunch with a good friend.  God has blessed me with a handful of wonderful women friends in The Dalles.  It's too bad I have to say good-bye. Thankfully our time here is short and heaven is forever. 

*I watched a National Geographic video on Stress this week.  Quite informative, made me ask myself some hard questions too.  And just today, the kids and I watched Food Inc. after my friend talked about about it and I said to myself,  "Self- you've had that que'd forever, you keep hearing people talk about it, why don't you just sit your booty down and watch it once and for all?" So that's exactly what we did.  This afternoon, we sat around the computer for an hour and a half and watched it.  Fascinating for sure.  I have been hoping that with San Francisco being all "hippie" and everything that organic foods will be more affordable.  Right now we do about 25% organic (rice, eggs, yogurt, pnt butter, bread, ground beef, berries, certain fruits and veggies, and maybe some other sale items,   but when money is tight, organic is the first thing to go) and about 65% real (whole) foods. (convenience food mixed with home-made)  I would like to one day go to an entirely organic diet, but, you know $ca-ching-ching$.   Even making everything homemade is what I want to do, but then there's the time involved with that that I have to consider.  "Sorry, Divisional Commander, I was making home-made worchestire sauce for my freshly killed deer meet stew"  LOL!    The other thing I could do is quit eating!  Or at least pay attention to how many times the fork goes in my mouth!

*Let the kids watch far too much TV (at least they really like the "educational" ones like Mythbusters, Sliced, Dogfights, Dora, etc.) because they are not involved in anything right now, all the toys are packed, the weather has been yucky, and I'm too pre-occupied with Farewell Briefs, Cleaning and Packing! 

*One of our staff and her husband, who we have really enjoyed knowing, took us out to a good-bye lunch, all 7 of us and gave the kids some departing gifts.  Very, very sweet. 

*Kicking myself for all the things I wanted to get done at and with the Corps (Church) but never did.  There's no going back now but there's still so much I want to do :(

*Had our farewell interview with the newspaper.  The kids were so excited to see it in Friday's news, all I could see were Hannah's eyeballs going sideways. 

*Let the boys invite one friend each over from school to spend the night (2 separate nights).  Friends they will probably never see again.  Ann got to invite her friend from church to spend the night and those girls stayed up until 10:30pm talking! Seriously, what in the world do 5 year old girls have to talk about all night long??? 

*Celebrated our 13th Anniversary!  Got a babysitter one last time so Paul and I could go out for dinner at Highway House and to see "Prince of Persia" (I loved it!).  It will probably be a while before we can go out again, so we savored it!   We shared a lobster tail just like we did in Rockefeller Center on our honeymoon in New York City.

*And a verse that I've been thinking a lot about lately...  

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."  Romans 8:28

For some the above verse is valuable because it is from the Bible.

I hate to leave anyone feeling left out so,

if you don't believe the Bible, then let me rephrase it...

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

-Paul

PS I have fiddled around with my settings and I can't figure out what's wrong with my comments.  Sorry!