Am I A Slacker?

I am having about the same luck with blogging that I had with emailing people -- I get way behind. But at least I know that everyone is behind, and that I haven't emailed one or two people a few times with news, and others get nothing. So now you all suffer together!

Since the last post there has been a lot going on. Lou and I spent 3 days at Trinity Lutheran Camp at Flathead Lake, Montana, at a continuing ed conference for LCMS pastors. Of course, he does not qualify on that account but his Uncle George (LCMS retired) has invited him for the past 3 years, ever since he's begun to have more of an interest in theology. The first year he wasn't able to go (short notice), but planned on it last year, and then this year said I needed to come along too. For the wives and kids, it is a vacation, with nothing to do but relax, read, lounge, swim, etc. It's a beautiful place, and the weather was pretty good for us. So we were there from Aug. 3-6, missing the last 1.5 days in order to be home to catch back up on pig and paperwork chores. On their way back home, George and Terry and the St. Louis seminarry prof who was teaching the continuing ed to the men stopped here for dinner and overnight on Friday.

The next day we headed to Oregon for Aaron's ordination service. Another of our famous "quick trips," church in the morning of the 10th, ordination in the afternoon with dinner following, and back home again that evening. We took advantage of Chris' invitation to stay at their place overnight on Sunday so we didn't have to kill ourselves driving home late. Thanks!

On Wednesday I sewed a baptismal gown for granddaughter Thea.

August 16-17 was our big family weekend here. Rachel and Jason's ceremony on the 16th was postponed to give them some more time to assimilate back into normalcy together before making a public affirmation of their marriage vows of January 16, 2007. We still had a houseful for the weekend as kids, grandkids, cousins, uncles and aunts, grandparents and friends all came to Moses Lake for Thea's baptism on Sunday with Dayna and Shane's former pastor, Pastor D. Lund. presiding. It was a nice church service, filled to the gills with about 85 people, cake and punch afterward, and then a backyard reception/lunch for those who wanted to come out to our house for the afternoon. It was blazing hot both days this past weekend, the hottest of the year so far, but about 35 people braved the heat and joined us here. A full day for an introvert like me, Lou said.

Yesterday a big dust storm blew through at about 12:30 as we were eating lunch in the house. We couldn't see the scales from here ... good thing that didn't happen on Sunday! By evening, the clouds had some in and it was raining lightly when we went to bed. I like the smell of that. What a relief it must be for the pigs today, with the temperatures back down to tolerable again. I will appreciate it too. There were apparently some severe thunderstorms passing by east of us last night, with reports of loud thunder and nickel sized hail over by Spokane, but we saw none of that. Boris did spent about an hour in the dining room after forcing his way into the house as I came back from turning off the lawn sprinklers. He is my big weenie dog if there is any threat of a storm brewing. But at least he stays in one spot.

Tomorrow is baby day for Tanya. We await the announcement of the healthy birth of little Miss G.