Tent Meetings, Etc.

I'm finally catching up! :)

Most of this post covers our church's annual Tent Revival Meetings, the rest of it catches you up-to-date on our lives. Enjoy looking at the pictures... There's 89 of them! ;)

The Meetings were scheduled for August 3-7. This year, a group of people from Wyoming came out to share the Sacrifice of Praise songs from this year. Those that had been in the choir also sang. It was a blessing to share all of those songs again! Since so many people came, we had to scramble to find lodging for everybody! We had 16 people at our house, including our family. It was fun, though! I can't even begin to describe to you what an immense blessing it was to have all of those people here supporting us! Sheila and her girls volunteered to do the food, which was all fabulous! We ate like royalty all weekend! :) Ken and Nancy Draves and family volunteered to be on cleanup duty. Dave and Charlou Hochstetler and family came to sing and just be an encouragement. Dave was our director for the SOP singing since Ben Good obviously couldn't come. :) He did a wonderful job! Then, of course, Ken and Lisa Lowry from Colorado came. Ken was our special speaker. We were so blessed to have them with us! (Lisa is so much fun!) Our church felt incredibly blessed over that week. Never before have people come in like that to just be a blessing and lift us up. We pray that God would bless all those abundantly from Cheyenne Christian Fellowship who came out to bless us.

We'd scheduled our annual church deep cleaning day for Tuesday. Mom, Abi and I got up bright and early to go to Sweet Joy's, where I saw this magnet, before heading over to church. We also wanted to get there an hour early to get a head start on the cleaning.

Our biggest goal was getting the apartment cleaned above church. It. Was. GROSS!!! The person who'd lived up there had just trashed it, then left it in a huge disgusting mess. Mom and I had gone to pre-clean on Monday. We packed up all the papers and other personal belongings that the guy had left, then cleaned a few things. The guy had left dirty dishes sitting around in the kitchen. The pots and things in the sink had been left dirty with water in them. I started to wash the dishes so that they'd be out of the way for the big cleaning day. I pulled some stuff out, and lo and behold, there were maggots all over in the one pot. It looked like someone had thrown up and just left it. I told Mom, "I think I'm gonna throw up. I am not going to wash this!" Seriously. So, we threw it away, along with other things that were so disgustingly gross. For all of you who know what I'm talking about, it ranked up there with Marty's house, minus the animal feces. Y.U.C.K.

The kitchen was covered from top to bottom in grease.

Lois Ann and I were assigned to the apartment kitchen. We started by scrubbing the cupboards, inside and out. They were so greasy that Lois actually scrubbed some of the finish off and it was still greasy under that!

Mom was wiping baseboards, so Lynna took advantage of it. :b

Eventually we got some more help as the other's finished their jobs. We were sure glad for the extra help! We emptied all the dishes from the cupboards, then washed them all, pitching those things that were too greasy to get clean.

Lunch break!

Everyone left shortly after lunch. Mom and I stayed to finish up. This is a before picture of the kitchen floor.

Before... I spent a total of 8 hours in that kitchen...

After...

After...

Abi had to harvest the rest of the potatoes that week. We called this a Sponge Bob square pants potato. :) We also got a bunch of corn from the Meyers. We had a lot of late nights that week trying to finish putting up our produce...

I finally got Abi and my pictures hung! Nate and Gin gave them to us as wedding thank you gifts.

Someone had built a cup tower by the water fountain.

Wednesday night was our first actual night of meetings. :) God blessed us with a gorgeous sunset!

There was a big storm south of us.

There were giant mosquitoes this year!

I made iced coffee on Thursday for our late night snacks. I made it decaf and extra strong. Strong coffee is the best!

Loren and Kelly Fanton and family arrived Wednesday night. They were staying at Leons, but Leon had to leave town for a Rapid Relief meeting out of state. So, we family's took turns having Fantons over to relieve Emma. We invited Fantons to our house for lunch on Friday.

Thursday was house cleaning day! We cleaned our house from top to bottom. Was I ever tired when we finished!

Our first guest, Elisabeth Johnson, came Thursday night with the Lowrys.

Late night snacks are the best! :)

We met on Friday to run through our songs. It actually went very well!

Dave was talking about how interesting that people, especially girls, move in packs... or herds... or flocks... They couldn't decide which, but finally settled on flocks since the Bible compares us to sheep. :) Well, on Saturday, Dave set chairs out in a circle, but put three chairs right out front of some of the girls. Lisa said she didn't mind being different, so they gave her one of the special "hot" seats. :P It was hilarious!

Practicing...

As you can see, nobody sat in the hot seats. ;D

Sheila and girls did an awesome job on all of the meals!

I snapped a few pictures before service began. Dave had all of us SOP singers file in special order and sit toward the back of the tent.

We had a lot of people from the community show up this year!

Some things are better left unsaid...

Some people needed to decompress after the meetings. :)

Chupps set up their volleyball net for Sunday evening after everything was all cleaned up. 

Oh, boy! :)

We had had so many cake balls left over from Nate and Gin's reception that we decided to freeze them for Tent Meetings. There were still four left over afterwards! I was going around, practically begging people to please eat them! 

We have a cute little tree frog that hangs out nights by our back door.

Edward and Joel came on Sunday night as they had some work in the area that needed finished. Some of our company left Sunday afternoon while the rest left on Monday morning. Since it was our busy week right after the meetings, Mom and I had to clean two houses on Monday. Ugh. 

Joel brought his bow along so the boys spent a few evenings target practicing. They left Thursday afternoon from our house. We'd had company for a week straight!

On Tuesday morning we all met to clean the church again. Aunt Carol carpet cleaned the sanctuary. It looked so much better!

The carpet cleaner couldn't get the carpet wet enough so Brie and I dripped water all over. It was actually a lot of fun! :)

You don't  get to pour water on the floor everyday!

Abi wanted to try pumpkins again this year. She's been sprinkling diatomaceous earth on the plants to try to protect them from squash bugs. Nasty critters.

Goofy Dawse!

Breaking News!

I finally bought myself a car about a month ago. :) For all you information freaks, it's a 2008 Ford Taurus Limted with 165k miles on it. It's a beaut!

Shortly after I'd bought it...

We ran into some really bad weather on the way home! Wonderful test for the wipers and lights! :)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, everybody was having fun out in the high winds that came with the storm. :)

They were all waiting for me to get home. :)

My grandma Grice had shoulder surgery awhile back. My uncle needed a break from taking care of her, so Mom and Abi went to sit with her. 

Mom and Alaina watched us play foursquare one evening. :)

I detailed my car the first free afternoon I had (which was several days later!).

Isn't it gorgeous!?

My car is the fanciest model you could get for that year range of this kind of car. :)

It has all tan leather interior, pristine carpet, an aux port, heated seats, auto lights... You name it, it has it! :)

This Volkswagen Beetle was in that car lot by Chestnut Street in Atlantic. For those of you who recognize this car, Go Herbie! :b

Abi made a stovetop chicken pot pie

It was yummy!

Sweet sisters!

Amen!

Goof.

And, just as a bonus, here are a few crummy quality pictures of the bridal party from Nate's wedding.

Oh, yes... And the best parents ever!