Weekend Update

My weekend update won't be as clever as SNL but here goes:

Friday:
We signed up to be on the bread ministry and this was ^J^'s week to bake communion bread for the big chapel on campus. When he signed up I figured I'd be taking over his duties once the weight of deadlines hit him. However, ^J^ loves making bread and he was able to get all the dough mixed, kneaded, and set out to rise before he left for a study session. That left me with the tasks of rolling out, scoring with a cross, and baking. Here are our joint effort bread results:

I was pleased with the result and was overwhelmed by how good it made the house smell...all day long! I was so tempted to break into that bread and slather butter all over it, probably not the best thought to have about bread meant for a grander purpose.
^J^ had training all afternoon and evening Friday so the kids and I ran errands, watched movies, and played outside. I started Water for Elephants and I'm hooked. It's the first book in a long time I pick up and read at every spare moment. It's about a circus in the 1930s and it's just so interesting. There is a small-scale circus coming next week to our closest nearby town and I'm torn about taking the kids after reading all the behind the scenes stuff. I know they would love it, but I wonder about the treatment of animals and other goings-on and whether I should be supporting that. I'm sure practices have changes since then, but I'm not really sure how much.

Saturday:
We headed to the mini farmer's market and took home local honey and beautiful Macintosh apples. We're starting to learn who to avoid, who is a rip-off, and who's produce we really like. There is one farmer in particular we really like, he always has nice looking produce and good prices. Also he lets the kids grab a yellow pepper to munch on while we walk around. *A* started this the first time we went, she just reached up and grabbed on and started eating it, so of course (H) wanted one too. Now it's a tradition. I don't know what we'll do when pepper season is over, I guess we'll have to move to apples.

After that we went down the mountain and found a yummy country food breakfast place. We all ate and were stuffed for $12. We had heard there was a fair going on in this town so we tried to find it. We finally found it and found they were not starting the rides for a while but we went in anyway and watched some 4H demonstrations. The milking demonstration was our favorite, the kids were competing to see who could get the most ounces in 2 minutes. I love the idea of 4H and hope our kids can do it someday. The fair was pretty pathetic, especially since they weren't running rides, but we figured we'd saved money that way.

Later we headed over to the football game but it was in the 4th quarter with 3 minutes left so we left and went to the park. We had *A*'s next-door neighbor friends with us and then we left to go to a friend's 50th birthday party.

Sunday:
^J^ went to church at the local convent. They serve biscuits and honey afterwards and he brought some home. YUM. It is not a kid-friendly service so we're switching off weeks to go alone. Apparently behind the altar is a huge window that overlooks the valley.
The rest of the day was spent doing laundry,
getting Fall clothes out, having play picnics,
and resting.
O.k., if you're still with me, you deserve a cupcake. This post is way too long and expository. Have a wonderful week, Fall is on it's way, yay!