A Weekend in August

We ate dinner Saturday night with Bill and Verna Weber, Donovan and Jocelyn and Ruby and Nora, and the Webers' friends from South Africa, Phil and Irene Hughes.
The Hugheses had been visiting the Webers as a part of their four-month visit to the U.S. this summer. We had wanted to connect with Webers--we hadn't seen them since a couple of brief hellos at the NACC. They suggested we meet them on their way out of town (they had come to visit with Donovan's family for the day) and back home to Indy. So we drove over to the Bob Evans on North Bend Road and enjoyed a nice early supper with them.

"Thanks for coming over here to eat dinner with us," Verna said as we were breaking up.
"Hey, this is the high spot of our weekend," I said.
"Oh, I hope not!" Bill replied.
Well, maybe it was. But the whole weekend has been pleasant.
Friday we had a big night out with a Groupon-discounted dinner at Mimi's followed by frame shopping at Hobby Lobby.
Saturday I spent a couple hours weeding, trimming, and watering outside. I decided to take some flower pictures while I was working.. The pictures look better than the yard. We haven't had rain for quite awhile, and the grass is pretty brown.

Then I got a good start on my final batch of notes to folks to tell them about the Alaska trip we're helping host next summer.
After we got home from supper, we watched the latest Muppets movie via Movies on Demand from Time Warner.
Evelyn and I worked the Welcome Center at church, and she and I each had meetings at church at noon.
I went to the grocery on the way home and bought a can of soup to eat for lunch. Then I finished my Alaska invitations and took 'em to the post office late in the afternoon.
We had a nice talk with Jen on the phone after supper.
A simple weekend. A pleasant weekend.

Happy Birthday, Nora!

Pictures of the Day:

We were pleased to be invited to Nora Weber's birthday dinner last night, hosted by her parents,
Donovan and Jocelyn, enthusiastically joined by her sister, Ruby, and also attended by grandparents Verna and Bill Weber, good friends who moved away to Indianapolis more than a year ago.
Jocelyn had a wonderful supper featuring a new recipe for vegetable soup with homemade croutons, and the birthday cake was a tower of mini cupcakes adorned with candles and topped with the number announcing Nora's age.
It was great to reconnect with the Webers. We hadn't talked with Donovan and Jocelyn since they brought the girls to our house for dinner and trick-or-treating 'way back in October. He was anticipating a new ministry then and is settling into that ministry nicely now. And Jocelyn is serving in a new position, a counseling job at Oak Hills High School as part of a program sponsored by Children's Hospital, where she's been employed for some time.
I can't even remember when we saw the senior Webers last--sometime last fall, before the holidays. Bill just returned from an extended trip to Myanmar, accompanied by his grandson Noel Brooks, and it was great to hear about the trip as well as just generally catch up in our fine evening together.

Ruby (right) was eager to help Nora blow out the candles on her pyramid-of-cupcakes birthday cake.

Every time Evelyn and I are around parents of preschoolers, she remarks, "Now I know why God gives children to young parents. Today I'd never have the energy to keep up!" And when I see the patience and consistency of good parents like Donovan and Jocelyn, I'm reminded of how tired it must make God when I whine or cry to get my own way or resist what he tells me, as if I know better than he what I ought to eat or how I ought to act or when I ought to go to bed!

Quote of the Day:
"God's first word in his command to Abram was 'go.' And Jesus' last word in his command to his followers was 'go.' "
—Trevor DeVage in this morning's sermon at Christ's Church at Mason 

Makes you think God wants us to GO, doesn't it?

A Life Well Lived

We went to the memorial service for Verna Weber's mother, Mildred Holmes, this morning at 11:00. She passed away quietly earlier this week after being moved from the hospital to hospice care at Mason Christian Village on Monday. She had been sick all that weekend after suffering a small heart attack, stroke, and two different infections. "It took all that to finally get her down," her granddaughter, Miki Brooks said. Miki and her brother, Donovan, sang "Amazing Grace," and Bill Weber offered the eulogy. He was concerned that he wouldn't be able to get through it without breaking down, but he did a fine job. When his voice momentarily broke or his eyes watered, we all thought, Well of course! How could you not show some emotion about a person you loved so much? 
Mildred had just celebrated her 97th birthday. Her life story is too varied and full of adventure for me even to remember, let alone try to chronicle here. She overcame illness, obstacles, the deaths of husbands and children, and more with a firm commitment to Christ and the church in the midst of a lifetime of service. "Plucky." "Spunky." "Determined." All those words describe her.
It was our special pleasure to know her. We were in the habit of getting together with the Webers for various holidays, and often Mildred was with us. Sometimes we picked her up at her apartment at Mason Christian Village and took her to the party at the Webers' place in Price Hill. Sometimes some of the Webers brought her to our place.
Donovan and his wife, Jocelyn, asked Jennifer if she would write a history of Mildred's life and compile it in a book to give to the rest of the family several Christmases ago. The result contains all those details I can't remember. In the process of spending hours and hours with her taking notes for the project, Jennifer fell in love with Mildred, and it seemed the feeling was mutual.
In his talk this morning, Bill said his sister-in-law, Mildred's daughter-in-law, said, "All our memories of her are good and positive and happy."
That's not hard for me to believe. And one more legacy Mildred has left is the challenge to each of us to live so that those closest to us will say the same about us when we're gone.
Today's pictures are two I posted last December (search "Mildred Holmes" in the blog for the diary entries). The first is on Christmas Day as the Webers were getting ready to go home after our Christmas dinner and I snapped Mildred smiling with great granddaughters Nora and Ruby.
The second was taken a few days later when Jennifer was in town for the holiday and went to visit with Mildred at Mason Christian Village.

A Fine Easter

We had a nice Easter dinner at about 5:00 with Bill and Verna, Donovan, Jocelyn, and Ruby and Nora Weber. They came about 3:30 and left around 7:00, and we had a fine time together. Evelyn had prepared way more food than we ate, so we called Dan and Cindi Cooper and invited them to come for supper tomorrow night to help us eat leftovers!

Evelyn and I went to church at 9:00 this morning--a packed house for one of six services at CCM. It was an excellently produced, very moving service with compelling use of video and a great sermon. 

We ate brunch at Panera's after that and then spent the rest of the afternoon finishing up preparations for company.

We were able to talk with Jennifer awhile after our company had left and all the dishes were done. Its been a good day.

 Evelyn saw the above idea on Shannon Penrod's Pinterest page:  Robin's egg "nests" made of Chinese noodles coated with melted butterscotch bits. We decorated the table with them; each person got one beside his dinner plate. Ruby and Nora opened Easter baskets from Grandma and Papa. Nora demonstrated her ability to make herself comfortable in a variety of positions on just about any piece of furniture. :-)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Easter

Once in awhile I go with a friend to the Honeybaked Ham store for lunch. They have great sandwiches and soup, and they're just five minutes from the office. But once or twice a year I go there to get a ham for a company dinner, and those two occasions are usually Christmas and Easter.
This year's no different. I stopped by on my way home from work today to get the meat for our Easter dinner. We're hosting Bill and Verna and Donovan and Jocelyn and Ruby and Nora Weber Sunday afternoon, and we're looking forward to the get-together.
I'm looking forward to a three-day weekend. I had a coupon for two free muffins from Mimi's, and I stopped there too, to snag a treat for our breakfast.
Today was a typical day-before-vacation day: a long list of tasks to accomplish. I achieved the most significant of them: read the proof for the May issue of Christian Standard, including checking a bunch of names among the 344 churches listed in that issue--it's our annual statistics issue. I had to write some late copy and change some copy for it as a part of the process. Also had an art-selection meeting with Scott Ryan and handled correspondence about Christian Standard-related activities at this summer's NACC.
I got there about 7:30 this morning and didn't leave till 5:30, and I was READY to depart by then!

A Little Different, a Lot Nice

A nice Christmas--different, when I come to think about it--than any Christmas I can remember.
Evelyn and I were alone today, except for our fun dinner with all the Webers who were at our place from about 2:00 till maybe 5:30.
We had a nice, relaxed morning and spent a lot of the time getting ready for dinner. We had Honeybaked Ham, cheesy potatoes, fresh green beans, and applesauce Jello. Verna brought a tasty beverage for us to enjoy with our cheese ball and crackers, and Jocelyn brought wonderful Christmas cookies to add to ours  and the Graeter's ice cream we had for dessert. It was a respite from packing for them; they're still planning to load and move on Thursday. And if the snow will allow, we plan to go help them pack tomorrow afternoon.

Mildred Holmes, "Oma," had a pretty smile
while Nora and Ruby wiggled for my snapshot
just before they left this evening.

They're predicting 4+ inches for Butler County tomorrow, preceded by freezing rain, so we're hoping it's not as bad as they're expecting so we can get to Price Hill to help a little. Jen and Matt and the kids are planning to make the trek from Pennsylvania here tomorrow, and I'm nervous about the bad weather they may be facing.
After Webers left this evening, I got on line and bought tickets for the 7:00 showing of Les Miserables at the Rave. We got there by about 6:20 and waited in line behind 50 or 75 people till the theater was cleaned from the previous showing. We had great seats, high in the theater, right in the center of the row, for the best movie experience I can remember in a long time.
A hoard of my Facebook friends went to see the movie today. One of them said he started crying when it started and cried through the whole thing. He would have had good company with the young girl sitting beside me who sniffed and wiped her eyes intermittently throughout the film.
I was surprised to find myself moved to tears more than once during the musical. It was compelling, not so much because of the familiar music but more because of the remarkable portrayals, especially by Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman. Kudos should also go to Eddie Redmayne, Helena Bonham Carter, and Sacha Baron Cohen. Of the major players, I was least impressed with Russell Crowe, but he was sufficiently evil enough to make us want him to lose.
Evelyn and I came home and snacked on dinner leftovers, checked Facebook, and watched the threatening weather reports on the TV news to end the day.
It was a good Christmas, like I said, just a little different than most Christmases we can remember.

Halloween Is for Children

Communities throughout the mid-Atlantic and Northeast postponed Trick or Treating this year, including some towns not far from here. But the weather here wasn't bad enough to postpone it, just drizzly and cold enough to make it less than fun.
But we had our Halloween party anyway. Donovan and Jocelyn Weber brought Nora and Ruby to see us, and Grandma and Grampa Verna and Bill Weber came along too. They brought all kinds of good bread and crackers and cheese to go along with Evelyn's vegetable soup and hot cider, and we had a big time.
Even though it was something close to miserable outside, the younger Webers visited several of our neighbors, and Ruby especially was excited to see her stash of goodies after they got home. We skipped our tradition of sitting in the driveway with hot cider for the neighbors and stayed inside to visit with our friends instead. We made the cider anyway, and it was great. The younger Webers especially enjoyed it after being outside in the chill.
Maybe we've established a new tradition.

Out With the Crew

After working in the yard and the heat all morning and into the afternoon yesterday, I met Bill and Donovan Weber and Tom Thatcher at 4:00 p.m. to drive to Columbus and catch a professional soccer game pitting the Columbus Crew against the Chicago Fire. 

The Crew prevailed 2-1 in an exciting game on a warm evening made pleasant by a prevailing cool breeze. It was a great night to be "out with the guys."

The Hooligans were in a shouting/drumming/chanting match with a similar crowd of drum beaters from Chicago
outside the stadium before the game started. Throughout the game they stir up the crowd from a section
reserved just for them.

A big attraction of the night was a post-game concert by an Irish Celtic rock band called Flogging Molly. We decided to stay for about 30 minutes of their 90-minute concert. It's the first time I've ever seen a live mosh pit. :-)  Actually, Bill Weber and I both agreed we liked the band better than we thought we would. 

But staying for the concert made it a late night. I got home after midnight, which meant I couldn't record yesterday's blog post yesterday.

Easter with Friends

For some reason we still haven't figured out, we decided to go to the 8:00 service this morning. (Christ's Church at Mason offered five services: one at 8:00 and two each at 9:30 and 11:00.) There was a healthy, but not overflowing, crowd for the first service, and Jennifer got to see several friends. We had a reservation for 10:00 at Bronte Bistro for brunch, and we were home before noon.
Jennifer took a nap. Evelyn made food for our afternoon at the Webers place. I reread two editorials, looked at the sermons I'm preaching at Round Lake Christian Assembly, and got my clothes together for the trip. (I'm driving part way tomorrow evening and the  rest of the way early Tuesday morning.) Then I took a nap too.
We left about 3:30 to go to Bill and Verna Weber's place, where we enjoyed an Easter supper with them, Donovan and Jocelyn and Ruby and Nora, and Dave and Lisa Farris.

Ruby helped her mom blow out the candles
on the birthday cake while Grandma and Nora
looked on.

We enjoyed a bountiful spread of snacks, appetizers, dips, veggies, fruit, ham sandwiches, potato salad, and more. Tomorrow is Jocelyn's birthday, so birthday cake followed our meal, as well as hunting for candy eggs "hidden" prominently around the condo, and a game of conversation starters: "Tell the naughtiest thing you ever did," "The most unusual food I ever ate," "I wouldn't care if I never               again." Etc.
Lots of laughter. Lots of catching up. Lots of EATING. A great way to spend a holiday afternoon and evening.