Day 1 at the lake! Monday

Well, the day that we have been planning for all summer is finally here! We are on vacation at Lake Murray in a perfectly awesome house! The boats are at the dock right now after we spent a relaxing, peaceful evening on the water. After searching for fishing spots, we put the knee board in the water and Nathan was able to try it out! He didn't get up on his knees the whole way, but had a good first try! Dave and Corey also went kneeboarding. Joey and I are waiting until tomorrow. But we all enjoyed a beautiful sunset!




Today was a day without Camden-I left him with my parents in Columbia in order to be able to enjoy boating for one day without worrying about him falling overboard! He comes up tomorrow evening and will get to sleep in the loft with Nathan! It should be fun!!


I plan on blogging this week, but it may be a lot of the same! Boat, water, repeat! I usually take busy vacations, so we will see how I handle one that is more of a real vacation! Maybe working on my tan can work it's way into the order of things without having to add sunburn in the mix!!



I do think that the loss of a toenail will also happen! Nathan lost his tooth today and of course expects the tooth fairy to come. I told him that I think there needs to be a toenail fairy! No pictures of this yucky thing on my blog, I promise!!

Dave's new venture

Dave has started a new project that I totally support, although my role in it thus far is one of chef! He is interviewing the charter members of our church and then is going to compile their stories into a book of sorts. So far we have conducted 2 interviews, both following Sunday lunch at our house, thus the title of chef! I had fun planning the 2 menus, etc, but then thought that I could just make the same thing everytime and noone would know! Nathan was appalled to think that we would eat the same thing every Sunday! Of course if I said let's go to Nakato's every Sunday, I don't think he would complain!


Our first interview was with the McDaniel's; the door greeter at our church and his spitfire wife. It was neat to hear their stories and see them in a different light! I never knew that Mr. McDaniel was such a prankster! When the first pastor of CBC made the challenge that he would be tarred and feathered if the SS attendance reached a certain number, Mr. McDaniel started hiding feathers in all sorts of places for him to find! And Mrs. McDaniel had a Citadel cadet interested in her and this is what prompted Mr. M. to make his move!

The goal of this project is twofold: first to get a written history of our church before the charter members are no longer around. Dave had contacted one member to talk to and then she died a week later. And Mrs. Mc. is starting to have memory problems. Unfortunately they won't be around forever. Dave and I started attending CBC in 95 and when I look around at some of the people, I can see how they (and we) have aged. We don't want their stories to go with them and we as a church need to understand what they went through in starting our church. A small group of men and women were committed to the church that God had called them to begin. We need to know the history of our church to appreciate where we are now.

The second goal is to try to meet more older people. It seems that there is not much interaction between old and young at our church, and Dave was burdened about that during lay renewal. So this is the beginning of what we hope to do to bring generations together. We can't do it all, but we can do our part. And I get the challenge of seeing if I can make a different meal for every lunch we have at our house!

One more camp picture!

I almost forgot my favorite picture from camp! These two girls were paired up together and became great friends during camp. They both had feeding issues and the one on the right does not like to feed herself. She has made great progress with this, however, over the past 2 summers, but this day had a little help from her friend! It was one of those situations where you first say, "Hey, let her feed herself, but wait, let me take a picture first!" It was great to see them get along so well (at least most of the time!!) and really enjoy each other!

Well, I have finished the busiest part of my summer! My 5 week job at Pattison's camp is over and although I loved my work, I am very tired from it. It is a very physical job involving moving chidren from wheelchairs to standers to the floor to a bike, etc. The focus of camp is involving the children in as many activities as possible and providing effective Physical, Occupational and Speech Therapy. Being the ST of the group, I target communication needs and co-treat with the OT for feeding. This summer I was excited to be able to program 2 Dynavox's for children that received them after I wrote up evaluations for them to get them after last summer. Took awhile to get them, but these can open up a whole new world for these 2children. BTW, a Dynavox is a $7000 communication device that is computerized and talks for the child. It is an awesome device and a lot of fun to work with!



Although it made my 5 weeks CRAZY (esp trying to juggle childcare, camps for Nathan, etc.; and a big thanks to all who helped), it was very worth it. I told my boss at camp that I might not be able to work the first week due to wanting to help with VBS at church. (Fortunately there was no conflict) She joked and asked which was more important, camp or God's work. My response was that I consider Pattison's God's work for me. It may not be Christian environment, but I do believe God called me to work there this summer!

My big question for tonight (along with how I had a dead battery in my car in the morning and in the afternoon locked the keys to my friend's car inside her car; all in the same day! She told me to make sure I did not leave without giving her her keys and I had to tell her that wouldn't happen since they were safely locked inside her car!), is do children who do not believe in the tooth fairy still receive money from her? Nathan has only lost 6 teeth so far (a little behind most of his friends), but he has stopped believing in the tooth fairy. I think she should save her money!! It's sad to see your kids grow up, but nice to see how they are still little!

The Kiawah Island Dig!

On the 4th we took our boat out with the Finks. We had a great time tubing and skiing, and then we anchored at a beach on Kiawah. It is part of the island that is hard to get to except by boat, and although there were many boats there, it did not seem too crowded. Part of our day we spent walking down the beach (I think that is where the back of my knees got sunburned!) looking for shells and sand dollars. We found lots of shells, a dead horseshoe crab, and a half buried crab.




This was exciting for the kids to dig up! They were very careful with the digging and did not break any of the legs off-too bad the dog who ran off with it later did not have such manners! (Nathan does not know about the dog, but has forgotten about the crab thankfully!)

But the most amazing find was by Camden! He actually found a whole, intact dinosaur! And it is still green! He was extra happy with his find!

All roads lead to Rome!

What a week! We had backyard Bible club at our house this week and the theme was the underground church in Rome and Paul's letters to them. I had a lot of fun and I hope have planted a lot of seeds for salvation of young hearts. Another lady and I hosted the backyard Bible club at my home and we had 9 children from the neighborhood and several kids from our church. Most of the kids said they were Christians (or were 4 yrs old and not clear on how to answer the question), but 2 are asking questions about salvation. One of these 2 does not come from a Christian family, I don't think. I'm not sure of some of the others who said they are Christians, but they did hear the gospel this week and know they can't just be "good" in order to be saved. I will continue to pray for these kids as they are precious to God.





At nighttime VBS during the same week, I was asked to "just do snacks"! There is no such thing as "just" when snacks are involved!! My partner and I were able to serve some "authentic" Italian dishes! Well at least they were tasty!! It was a treat to get to see all the children come through, and a challenge to not kill the children who have allergy concerns!! Yes, my feet are very sore as I am starting this blog, but I am sure I will forget all about my sore feet by the time I am asked to help in VBS next year!!

I do love VBS and BYBC and plan to do it as long as I can. I remember my Grandad did the snacks at his church's VBS when he was in his late 80's and early 90's! I hope I can continue to help in VBS when I am that old, even if it is "just" to do snacks :)