Catching up...

Well last week started out kind rough, but it ended on a good note. Ben left Monday morning to go to Dallas for work stuff, and Monday night, I started getting a really bad sore throat. I had already made plans for Tuesday morning, and thought it was just one of those sore throats that would go away on it's own, so we kept our plans to go to the library and lunch with a friend from church. By Tuesday afternoon, my throat was hurting MUCH worse, so I got my next door neighbor to watch Isabelle and I went to the doctor, and found out it was strep throat! ugh! Luckily the doc put me on antibiotics and they kicked in pretty quickly, so by Thursday when Ben got home, I was starting to feel like myself again. Let me tell you, strep throat and pregnancy nausea is not a fun combination!

Here are a couple pictures from Tuesday. The local zoo brought some of the animals to the library for story time. I thought Isabelle would really enjoy this, so we invited one of her friends from church to go with us. She liked seeing the animals, but was not all about sitting still or being quiet. The lady kept saying, "okay, we have to be really quiet and still so we don't scare the animals." About that time, my little angel would wriggle out of my arms and run away, or start yelling something like "play, play". So maybe she wasn't quite ready for story time, but that's okay, we still had a good time.

Tree Frog:

Snake:


Owl:

There were several other animals, but I didn't get pictures, cause I was too busy chasing my child around.

Isabelle was so excited when her Daddy got home Thursday night. She would run up to him and show him all her toys, as if he had never seen them before. It was so sweet. They had a good time playing together. That night, she also put on my purse and said, "I go work." Guess it looks kinda like Daddy's briefcase, because mommy never says that.

Trying to put her clothes on:

Late Friday afternoon, Ben left again, just for one night, to go on a men's retreat with the church. Saturday morning I was feeling much better, so I was able to go to the first workday of the season for Ekklesia Acres. (For background info, click here.) We had a great turnout! There were probably around 50 people there to help (if you include the kids), with close to 150 volunteer hours altogether!

The garden is actually in a different spot than it was last year, and is 4 times as big! Virginia Tech owns several hundred acres of land in Catawba, and they were looking for a way for it to be used. My brother met the lady in charge of it just by chance (or I guess you could say by Providence), and she got really excited about Ekklesia Acres. He got to meet with a board of people from Tech, and I guess the rest is history! There is so much excitement about this work this year, whereas last year, he was having a hard time getting people to show up for workdays. God is so good! Thank you for the prayers!

My brother Don, Executive Director of Ekklesia Acres:

Even the kids helped pick up trash:

There were a lot of VT students from the Blacksburg church of Christ that showed up to help:

My sister and brother-in-law working on the fence around the garden (To keep deer out. There are lots of them around there!)

My sister Susy (in the blue) and my two nieces:

Unloading materials for the fence:

This guy belonged to one of the Tech students who is working on the land as part of her school project:

My brother working on the fence:

Digging up old posts:

Digging up weeds next to the building that will be the new office for Ekklesia Acres:

Scraping paint off of an old barn that will be used for storage:

Anyway, it was a great day! You could feel the excitement in the air! We didn't get to do any planting, because it was too cold, but we still got lots of work done! Can't wait for the next one!