An evening service

Hello! Welcome from Seattle! I hope that this finds you well; we are fine here although Tim and I have been a bit washed out this weekend! Our refugees are STILL here but I am hoping that they will be gone mid week! It is a long story but the organisation that brought them here have not done their job as well as we think that they should have done and so the family have received very little attention and they have not found them an appartment yet.

The family themselves are very pleasant but I am increasingly concerned for the grandma who has taken to spending long periods of her day lying in bed. It is not surprising really as she probably would have preferred to stay in Thailand with her friends and family I should think. Anyway, Mum and Dad and the little boy are very sweet and all of the children get along reasonably well! Silas and the boy fight over the same toy from time to time, but that is to be expected at their age. The boy is going to miss having a companion and two big sisters to play with and entertain him when he does move into the appartment in the next week ( I hope)!!!

Anyway, that aside, we have had a good few days. I took the girls to camp on Thursday and Friday, which they thoroughly enjoyed. Esther says that all of it was her favourite and Naomi really enjoyed the science and the story time with my friend Jen. On Thursday Silas and I took the family down to Kent where they might end up living and they managed to meet some of their friends there whom they knew from the camp so they spent a happy day there and came back much happier and animated, which was good!

As I knew that the family were not likely to be home very early, I took our children to see the Troll under the bridge in Fremont and then onto the Seattle Children's museum for the afternoon. They all had a wonderful time; it was such fun for me to see them enjoying themselves all together and then I took them to the Carousel. I can't remember if Silas went on the Carousel in England but he loved it! His little face lit up when it started and he had such a fit when I had to take him off!!! He wanted to ride again, but Mummy was mean and said no!!

On Friday afternoon we went to the park with the family for a short time before coming home for tea. Tim came home from Atlanta on Saturday morning whilst we were all out at the market eating (no, sorry, buying) raspberries, blackberries and other bits! I was saying to Esther today how proud I was of her because she is eating so much fruit these days and enjoying them too. She loves the raspberries and blackberries as well as the cherries that we have bought recently! It isn't that long ago that all the fruit she would eat was apple slices or apple pots! I know that I can't get these in the winter but at least she is eating them at the minute!

Yesterday afternoon, Melinda and Chad came round for the afternoon, which was lovely but I ended up going to bed for a couple of hours as I had a bad headache. I have felt a bit spaced out today but feel better this evening. It was a shame though as I hadn't seen Melinda and Chad for ages, but the sleep helped a lot!

Today we decided that as both Tim and I were feeling a bit off this morning we would take it easy and go to the park this morning and go to the evening service at church instead. I have never been to this service and wanted to see it and we thought we would also see some friends who usually go to that service but then they weren't there!! Still, it was a nice service, small and calmer than the morning one but the children were entertaining, which was very funny!

Esther cannot be quiet. Seriously, she has to always sing, talk or hum to herself at all times. Her teacher (at school) has told her numerous times (daily!) to be quiet and when we have spoken about it at home she says that she likes singing and only sings quietly! I have tried to explain that she will disturb other people but she just replies that she sings nicely!! anyway, this evening we must have told her 10 times to be quiet and not sing or talk to her dolls or talk about the book she is reading, but with only a limited success. At one point, the girls had attached their play Mobil to the thin metal bar underneath the chair and so I turned round to see about 15 dolls hanging spookily in mid air! It was funny!

In the end we took the children into the room set aside for babies so that they could eat their tea and then came back into the service at the end. However, our 'newness' to the service became apparent when we stood up to sing the blessing with the children (like we do at bedtime) only for it to be another song before we sang that! During this final song, Silas, who had got hold of my label with my name on, was caught trying to push it down the air vent! Then finally, when we were singing the blessing, Naomi stood over the air vent and was watching her skirt bellow outwards much to her delight! By then end of all this, Joy, Pastor Ray's wife, was laughing loudly! It was very eventful and I can see why we have a children's ministry! Having said that, I would do it again over the summer as it did mean that we had the day at home and got to church too.

Naomi has been writing a book this weekend! She suddenly decided yesterday when we were webcamming Mum and Dad that she would write a book about a cat having a birthday and so she did! She wrote it and then painted it! She is very clever! Esther was clever too as she wrote a little card to Tim yesterday with lots of hearts on and saying "to Dad, frm Esther"! She knows most of her letters now but that doesn't stop her from trying to write! She likes to copy Naomi so much!

Silas is fine and spent a happy 10 minutes watching the skate boarders today at the park! He is such a yank!!! He likes to be with Tim when Tim is around and was very happy yesterday when Daddy took just him to the shop with Uncle Chad!

Well, that is it for now. I am going to bed - going to do the ironing tomorrow I think! Lots of love to you all!