Surprises of all Kinds

We started off our morning early: driving the kids to 3 schools all by 8am. Upon some misunderstanding with the middle school, we learned that Michael did NOT have to take standardized tests today, so we found ourselves with a completely free morning. Being unprepared for Melissa's birthday this Friday, we decided it wise to make a quick (and successful) shopping trip before Michael had to be back for Band at 10am. On the way, we heard our church was being featured this week on the local Christian radio station. We listened to interviews with one of our favorite pastors as he spoke about our ministry and partnership in Malawi, Africa, and the upcoming expansion of our already massive and spectacular children's programming. This comes after a particularly powerful message yesterday about how "We get to be the Church", and spreading the love of Christ through all of our spheres of influence wherever we have been placed in life. What a great way to reach out to others and let them know where we are....through the radio waves!


Special treat at open skate this afternoon: we had a coach with us. Michael's hockey coach from his regular season had graciously offered his services to my neighbor and I during our usual Monday noontime practice. This was a really good thing, because though we have been going to lessons, we have spent more of our time practicing at open skate times kind of like the blind leading the blind, thinking we are improving when in some cases, we are simply getting into some bad habits. It was great to get some good feedback, helpful tips, and instruction on stride and stick handling. My neighbor is much more athletic than I, so while she was grasping the concepts, I was struggling a bit to just do it correctly. Skating quickly with a good stride? This, I can do. Skating quickly (or slowly for that matter), and handling a puck with a hockey stick? Not so well. Coordination has never been my strong point...thus the reason I chose to run Track in high school and college. Nevertheless, it was another great workout session, no one kicked us off the ice, and no emergency calls from the kids at home, so we worked up a good sweat for over 1-1/2 hours.

Short break at home, then to riding lessons we went. Tubby fell asleep in the truck on the way. After getting Melissa all geared up, I left her in the arena for the first time, and waited in the truck while Tubby slept. I don't know if it gave her more confidence while I was away, or if she was so relieved when I came back halfway through the hour, but my little girl, who is normally a quiet little mouse, was a total chatterbox! She was asking questions, making comments, telling people about her ideas, and all of this at an audible level. As we left, she YELLED across the parking lot, "Bye, Abby!" to one of the other girls in her group. Wow! What has gotten into her today?! What a fantastic change this will be if it sticks! Another thing added to my recent list of Things My Kids are doing that Surprise Me.

Grandma wins the Kind Neighbor Award tonight....she took Jonny to his Cub Scout meeting. After such busy Mondays, it is always so hard to keep going with his late meetings (plus I still felt a bit wobbly from all of the earlier skating). With Grandma at the meeting, I was able to regroup a bit, regain some control over the house, catch up with school papers and homework, and give my poor neglected baby some much needed attention. Grandma got lucky too, because the meeting was interesting.....the kids were handcuffed, locked in the back of a police car, rescued from medical emergencies, all while enjoying the nice evening weather outside. I hope that she had a good enough time.....I am sure it was not quite what she had planned when she spontaneously biked over to our house this evening!