Eric's Visit

I've been joking that Eric is Seth's BFF, because it makes me laugh. It's also probably true.

Seth and Eric met freshman year at TMC and were roommates sophomore through senior year of college. They were best men in each other's weddings and they even planned to get pregnant at the same time - twice (ok, maybe it wasn't actually planned, but that's how it happened).

Eric doesn't have any local sports teams to root for, so when he was a kid he picked the Cowboys as his team. But Dallas is a far trip to make for a game, so since Seth convinced him to root for the Seahawks as his #2 team in college, every other year or so Eric flies up to go to a Hawks game with Seth. This year they bought tickets for the Giants game.

Eric flew in Friday night and then Saturday we ventured to the brand new Bass Pro Shop to see what the hype was a about, got BBQ, and then the guys went to a movie. And on Sunday they of course went to the game and then Eric flew out Monday morning.

One of the many things I appreciate about Eric is how well he loves our kids. Ezra was probably just as excited as Seth to see Eric and Eric made Ezra feel as if he had come just to hang out with Ezra and Isaac. Of course, Ezra made Eric promise to bring Mommy's friend (Rachel), his friend (Jesse) and Isaac's friend (Jude) next time (which isn't that far away! January!).

Paintball!

Seth and I get to be involved in the high school youth ministry again this year. Seth is teaching Sunday School and I get to help with some of the lesson planning, as well as event planning. We have such a "huge" (comparatively speaking) group of high schoolers this year! And, a month in, attendance has been great.

We're determined to plan at least one event each month, alternating the focus of each event between service and recreation. In August we painted the youth room. Several things happened in September that postponed what was to be our inaugural youth event: paintball!

So, on the first day of October we took the entire day and did our service activity and then, after lunch, went paintballing.

Early Saturday morning, Seth and a number of the youth went over to help one of the families from our church prepare their new house for their upcoming move. I went to church with Ezra and Isaac and played with them in the nursery (yay! for Ezra having a positive nursery experience! acclimation!) and got food prepped.

Then my mom came and picked up the boys and we all drove out to South Prairie. I'd originally planned to stay home with the boys, but once my parents found that out they sacrificed their rare afternoon off to take the boys to a Greek Festival/street fair and Emily's volleyball game. And I'm so glad I went. It was really fun to hang out with the youth and get to know them better and watch them enjoy one another's company.

Painting the New Youth Room!

Seth and I are teaching the high school Sunday School class this year (year three, here we go!) Our church hasn't ever had a very large youth presence, and for the last ten years or so, hasn't had a very cohesive group of "kids". That looks to be changing, though, which is very exciting! We're trying to do as much as we can to facilitate that, and to that end the council gave us a large budget to redecorate our new-to-us youth room.

We set up a work day and bought paint, but we weren't sure how many kids would be able to come. Out of the 17 (!?!) kids signed up for Sunday School, ten showed up to help paint!

Seth got called away to work for a while, so it was Isaac, the kids and I, but I was so impressed with our progress by the end of the day! And even better, by the comradery that was so obvious. Yay!

The room still needs touch ups and furniture, etc., but it looks so great!

Update: Seth and Isaac and I went back to do touch ups and move in furniture. Phase one is complete!

"We Going To Chico, California!" (part one)

Well, I suppose the title is misleading in that I'm writing this post after the fact. But Ezra was so cute the week before our trip, announcing "we going to Chico, California!" that it became how I myself thought/still think of our trip.

Seth left on Sunday to drive a UHaul down to the Laguna Beach area for a customer, then took a train to Chico. Dad, David, the boys and I all drove down Tuesday, leaving at 4pm and arriving in Chico at 5am.

Though I was anticipating Isaac struggling in his carseat for the long drive, he did worse than I thought he would. Ezra, however, did much better than I thought he would.

We spent Wednesday and half of Thursday at Uncle John and Aunt Shelley's house. Wednesday evening Aunt Shelley BBQed a big pork loin and everyone (John Ryan, Gregory, Trent; Aunt Lori, Uncle Brian, Andrea; Grandpa Jack and Melba) hung out all night.

When Aunt Shelley got home from work, she came out to the patio and sat down to talk with us. And absent-mindedly took off her shoes. Which Ezra couldn't take his eyes off of. And thus began his obsession with her clothes and shoes. He quickly started helping himself to her closet.

Thursday we went to lunch with Grandpa Jack ("Grandpa Beezer") and Melba, then when we realized Ezra was getting sleepy we hurriedly threw our stuff in the van and drove to Walnut Creek earlier than we'd originally planned. The boys mostly slept the whole time, which was really nice. Dad and David stayed in Chico.

The Meldrums got caught in a mudslide Thursday night, so they didn't arrive until midnight at least. So the four of us hung out in our hotel room. Friday morning we packed up and headed to the Oakland Zoo. I'm a bit embarrassed that this was Ezra's first zoo trip. Ooops. But he loved it. We were all pretty amazed by the giraffes - there were so many of them and so close up! And the boys loved the petting zoo.

For several exhibits it seemed like a zoo keeper was following us around to eavesdrop on our conversations and then correct us on the correct animal taxonomy. You know, like when we told our two year olds that this was a monkey:

Well, no. It is a gibbon. Which is an ape. Not a monkey. (The difference, it seems, is that apes do not have tails and monkeys do.)

It was so good to spend the day with the Meldrums. Jesse is three months older than Ezra and Jude is four days older than Isaac.

We then went to the "welcome dinner" at a nearby park and had Chipotle (obviously; it was a dinner for/with Kaleb) and yummy ice cream. While Seth and Eric (and Isaac and Jude) talked to everyone, Rachel, Jesse, Erza and I went up and played on the toys.