Weekend: Community, among other things

      We don't usually take a long Memorial Day weekend.  The store is open Monday, and the way it works out, John usually works.  He definitely makes up for it other times, so I don't really mind.  But that means that we just had two days to soak up the ceremonial start of summer weekend.  We kicked it off with a bang by doing a service project with our community group.  We have been enormously blessed with a community group full of people that truly desire to serve the Lord and want to find practical ways to do that here in Little Rock.  We have gotten involved with our church's missions department to help serve missionaries who are here on furlough or getting extra training by updating the places that the church has for them to stay, and in some cases, helping to move them.  This weekend, everyone was able to help out, and most of us worked to move a family who is preparing to start a church in Hong Kong, while two very brave women stayed back with our 11 children 4 and under.  Here are a few of the guys unloading boxes - thankfully this project actually went much faster than we imagined it - which almost never happens.



We went to pick up the kids, who it sounds like did pretty great, except for a poop explosion in the ball pit. Yes, you read that correctly.  What an unfortunate, albeit hilarious, happening.  It is easy for me to say that, because I was not there - the moms who did stay with the kids should get a major badge of honor.  We did let all the kids play in the yard once there were more people to corral them.  It was controlled chaos.







Seriously, it is such a privilege to live life with these people.  So much fun and so encouraging.  ♥

The rest of the weekend, we have been doing projects around the house - the bottom kids' deck is almost finished.  We are loving it.  Here's John working on some of the final touches, and the girls as we watched from the top deck.





We walked and ran at the River, taking in these scenes.



After church and lunch and naps, I found the girls on the couch like this.  I hadn't realized that Lily could break into a case of Puffs from Sam's.  She can - to the delight of both girls.





All in all, we had a fabulous weekend.  We even got to see our friends who have moved to Birmingham, and it was such a joy to spend time with them.  I marvel at the way the Lord provides community in our lives - we are richly blessed.  We also went swimming - it was Bella's first time ever, and those pictures will be in tomorrow's post - they deserve their own post entirely.  Happy Memorial Day!