Children’s handbells.

New leaf blower

This is my new leaf blower. Not only is it heavy, but it also sucks.

No, really, it vacuums.

Christmas lights and Santa

We visited Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources to see Christmas lights and Santa.

Garvan Gardens Christmas lights

I took my daughters and grandson to Garvan Gardens in Hot Springs to see the Christmas lights. It was a wonderful family experience.

Odds and ends photos.

We visited the zoo in our state capital with her school.

Destiny made friends with a stick bug outside our home.

Like most cats, our cat can and will sleep just about anywhere, including in a recliner.

But I bought her a new bed to sleep on in the window, instead of just a pillow. She seems to like it.

Most pets also like to drink water from a flowing source of water, rather than just from a bowl. Our cat would always beg for us to turn on the bathroom sink faucet when we were going to the bathroom. I bought her an electric, filtering water fountain she can drink from anytime she wants.

Church picnic

Yesterday was our church’s annual picnic.

We get together each year in autumn to have a picnic together, play games, go horseback riding, and just have fun together.

It was unseasonably hot this year. I choose to stay inside where it was air conditioned. Destiny stayed with me. We watched Bowden while Suzanne went horseback riding.

Boiled shrimp, fried shrimp, fried chicken, fried catfish, hushpuppies, French fries, coleslaw, potato salad, pickled green tomatoes, and onion, cucumber, tomato salad, with sweet iced tea and a fudge brownie.

Needless to say, after eating all this being the gluten I am, I could hardly move, and didn’t eat for the rest of the day.

Suzanne’s birthday dinner

Today is my older daughter’s birthday. We had her birthday dinner last night. I prepared her request of spaghetti carbonara, lima beans, garlic bread, and chocolate cake.

I also bought a music album for her that she wanted to get.

Mother’s trip to the Ark Encounter

Mom traveled by bus with her childhood best friend and several others to see the Ark Encounter this past week. My her step-daughter was able to drive to join her for this and they had a great time.

See You at the Pole

This past Wednesday, I took my daughter to school early so we could take part in, ‘See You at the Pole’.

‘See You at the Pole’ (SYATP) is an annual gathering of Christian students at school flag poles, churches, and the Internet for the purposes of worship and prayer. The event is student-initiated, student-organized, and student-led, and it usually takes place on the fourth Wednesday in September.

Prescott Raceway

Red Spider Lily

Flip Sunday

Flip Sunday is when my church, once a year, changes the order of church on Sunday morning to introduce Sunday school to people who normally only come to worship service.

We usually have Sunday school at 9:30, dividing into smaller classes by age or gender, and study parts of God’s word together. Then we come together at 10:45 to have a worship service with singing, prayer and a sermon from our pastor, who is an excellent teacher.

On flip Sunday, we have worship service first, and then Sunday school. After that, we have a potluck, where everyone brings some food to share. I have made a salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, black olives and pasta, with an Italian dressing.

Here are some links to our pastor’s blog, videos of our Sunday morning worship services, and to a movie about Jesus’ life, which you can watch in 2,149 languages.

Hot Springs Labor Day weekend

I decided to take both my daughters and my grandson on a mini vacation in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

We stayed in a hotel and ate in restaurants. We went shopping and saw several of the local attractions, as most tourist might normally do.

Because it was three people, instead of two, and we were not camping and cooking, it cost me around $800 for the three day weekend.

We left Saturday morning, and the drive was only two hours, so we had lunch and then before we even checked into the hotel, my daughters wanted to go to the cinema to watch ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’.

After checking into the hotel, they wanted to go shopping.

The next morning, we attended a nearby church before having brunch.

We went to ‘Mid-America Science Museum’ in the afternoon. We have been here many times. The Tesla Coil can be kind of loud, so Bowden had headphones. He wasn’t quite sure what was going on.

Sunday evening, while Bowden and I stayed at the hotel to rest, the girls had fun at an escape room.

Finally, on Monday, before returning home, we went to the Alligator Farm Petting Zoo.

Destiny’s birthday

1) Big sister Suzanne with baby sister Destiny. 2) Destiny just before we moved to China. 3) Grandpa taking Destiny to her first school. 4) Now she is 15 years old.

We called my daughter to the table and had put a single candle in a dozen mini blueberry muffins, told her, “Happy Birthday’, and that was it. But then we surprised her with her favorite meal, cheesy chicken spaghetti and corn. I fixed the spaghetti. My mother cooked the corn, as well as, asparagus and butter beans.

For desert, my daughter wanted a coconut cake, which I surprised her with. I don’t like coconut, so I also had a chocolate pie.

Shrew

Baby found another shrew right outside the house front door and was just playing with it. I’m not sure the shrew was having fun. At one point, I thought the shrew was hurt and caught it, but it was fine. When I let it go again, it got away. Baby was sad.

Tractive GPS pet tracking

We can now see everywhere the cat goes. The dark blue thing on her collar is a GPS. We can monitor her using an app on our phone or tablet. The orange tile can help us find her using Bluetooth and plays a song.

Storm damage

My gazebo got flattened. A nearby neighbor’s tree was blown over. And a building at the end of the street had part of it’s roof ripped off.

Back to school

First day of 9th grade.

Rattlesnake

It was only a matter of time before Baby brought a snake home.

Family