Regrouping

Pastor's Log - Sabbatical Date: 2-1-20 14:45
(A recap of Week 3)

After a full week last week, this week is giving us a chance to regroup.  Sunday, we went to church at Bethel for the VBS wrap-up.  Beth was the worship leader and did a great job.  I sat in the balcony which made the kids happy because they are always asking to sit up there.  It also gave me a chance to experience what it is like to worship up there since I never do.  This seemed like an important thing to do given that we have people at Bethel who sit up there consistently.  That says to me that while many in the congregation do not understand why, there must be a reason why they prefer to worship in the balcony.

After church, we came back to the house and celebrated Father's Day with my parents and sister.  Then Beth went to get her Grandma and Grandpa Hardman from Fletcher.  Once she returned, my parents and sister, watched our children while Beth, her grandparents and I went to Columbus to meet her older brother and his family and Beth's parents and her younger brothers.  We went to the Columbus Fish Market to celebrate Beth's parent's 40th anniversary. The food was really good.  I had the fried cod.

After dinner, all of us, except Beth's older brother and his family, came back to our house.  Beth's parents picked up their dogs that we had been watching for the week and took her grandparents with them back to Perrysburg for an extended visit.  We then made a quick trip to the video store to return what was due and to use up more of the kid's certificates.

On Monday, Rick and I worked out and then I ran errands in the morning and got my blood test done.  In the evening, I worked on the garden some more.

Tuesday, Beth took Silas and got away for a bit while I watched our other three.  I had a referral  appointment for my blood clot with a specialist in Bellefontaine.  Elam had his weekly art lesson.  Maggie, Josiah and I killed an hour at McDonald's playing Spiderman and Friends Yahtzee and eating ice cream before picking Elam up.  I fixed supper and Beth took Elam and Maggie to the video store.  Josiah, Silas and I went to the community garden to water it.  When we got home, Silas achieved a new milestone.  He climbed up four steps all by himself to the landing.

Wednesday, Rick and I worked out.  Beth and I set up the tent to waterproof it.  We did some laundry and house cleaning to get ready for our up coming camping adventures.  That evening, my oldest and I went fishing at Kiser Lake.  We spent about an hour and a half there and caught nothing.  In the process, he lost 2 hooks and one bobber.  It wasn't a great fishing outing, but I think that it was good for him to see the other side of fishing.

Thursday, I got up early, loaded my bike in the van and drove to Bellefontaine.  I dropped the van off to have a tow package installed so that we can pull a pop up camper that we will be borrowing for our camping trip to Hocking Hills in July.  After getting a little air in my tires (should have check that before loading it), I got on my bike and started the ride home.  I haven't ridden a bike that far in quite awhile and the last time I did was in Northwest, OH which is very different geography from Logan County.  But after and hour and a quarter of riding through the rolling country, I made it home and showered.

Then we hosted a friend and his daughter for a couple of hours.  I had a good time catching up with him, while Beth tutored her in the ways of living a gluten free lifestyle.  Hopefully this will have as big if not bigger impact on her life as it has on Beth's.  Then we had a friend over for lunch.  With a little assistance from Beth, I grilled some BBQ chicken while Beth prepared some red potatoes from our garden.  We also had sugar peas from our garden and ice cream cookie sandwhiches that Beth and the kids made last night.  We had a good chat together and then it was time to work on laundry for the weekend.

Unfortunately, our dryer is not working very well right now.  Thankfully it is a warm, dry day outside so I put up a clothes line and things are drying pretty quickly.  Beth went to get the van from the shop while I continued to work on laundry.  When she got back, we had supper and started to watch a family movie, The Iron Giant,  until Beth and I had to go to get the tents ready for the weekend.  Then I watered our garden.  It was a good week of spending time together and getting some things done around the house.