A Sabbath Weekend

The word sabbath is in the title, and I hope that doesn't scare anyone away.  I'm not going to get preachy or weird or make anyone feel guilty.  It's just a good summary of what this weekend looked like for me.  I had a full Saturday, and Sunday was full of slowness, sitting, relaxing, and joy.  

Friday was full of excitement.  Everyone in the house feels the weekend coming.  We eat out.  We have John home.  We hang with friends.  We go on little adventures.   During the day, texts were flying between my girlfriends.  All it takes is for one husband to leave town, and next thing I know I'm at a girls' night in making silly iPhone movies and talking about guns until 1 am.  Who do I think I am staying up that late?  I've got babies to take care of!  It was well worth it.

Saturday was full.  I mean packed, and our Saturdays are never packed.  They are actually pretty chill.  Let's do the rundown: John's run. Touch a truck. Naps.  My run.  My cleaning job.  Hit the assignment sale.  Little downtime.  Dinner with friends.  Bada-bing, bada-boom.  

Let's do that in pictures: 

TOUCH A TRUCK-a free event where kids can go climb on a variety of cool trucks and public vehicles.  Diggers. Police cars.  City buses. Tractors. Dump trucks.  Everyone there is kind and enthusiastic about letting the kids explore everything about these vehicles.  Even I was pretty intrigued with it all.

Driving the semi.  Pushing the buttons.  Honking the horn.

I was all about this firetruck!  I found the heat sensor gun, which was pretty fun to play with once they showed me how it worked. 

The firetruck was Burl's favorite.  It's big.  It's red.  It's loud.  It's got tools and helmets.  

The smallest of the trucks, but the friendliest guy.  He was so sweet teaching Burl how to honk the horn.  The horn matched the truck: tiny compared to the rest. 

Burl quickly found the suckers.  He hasn't seen Cars the movie, so he has no idea how cool that truck is. 

Besides the firetruck, Burl's favorite thing was the bear, which John quietly pointed out was an otter.  Fooled me.  I was blind to the details of whiskers and a long, flat tail.  I guess I was too caught up in the hype.  

DINNER PARTY:  We took the kids with us to Laura & Tom's house for dinner.  (Remember, she wrote about bees and her daughter, Cameron, wrote about hospitality.)  These are friends that I don't see very often, but they are so easy to be with and I feel like formalities are quickly forgotten and they're playing with my kids and we're talking about guns.  For the second time that weekend.

When I offered to bring something, Laura said, "oh don't worry about it.  I'll take care of it, ok?  See, it's more fun that way isn't it?"  I have to say, it was.  It's especially fun when all the food is healthy and delicious.  

Fish tacos with crab that Tom and Ryan caught this summer?  Yes please, I'll go back for seconds!

 Tom and Burl talk.  Oh my.  Apperently the boys table talked about great ways to make kale while the girls literally talked about guns.  "If you're going to shoot someone, you've got to shoot to kill."  Yeah.  Like I'm ever going to do that.

Fern and Burl felt the ease that came with good friends and had no problem playing and snuggling with everyone. 

That cow painting?  Burl so needs one of those! 

Since it was way past the kids' bedtimes, we put the kids in their jammies let them fall asleep on the way home.  

We left full and well loved.  Good times.

The next day was Sunday, my Sabbath.  I had no work to do.  No climbing planned.  Nothing.  Instead, I went to church with a congregation full of friends, then out to eat with four other families.  We returned home and put the kids to bed while John and I watched a full movie without falling asleep.  The rest of the day was casual and easy and we enjoyed the change in weather.  The night was picturesque.  

Wow.  That was a long post.  Again, no deep thoughts or convictions about the Sabbath.  I'll only say that it was fun and special to have a day set aside to go stop and go slow.  Even though my life is pretty simple and not very chaotic, I still enjoyed the pass that I gave myself to take it extra-easy.  Somehow, my Monday is going so much better.  I hope that everyone else is enjoying a good start as well.  

Also, I just want to say thank you for reading my blog and thank you for your kind encouragements sent email, texts, or comments.  It's all very kind!