Happenings

Whirlwind! That's how I describe our life the past few weeks. :) But its been a good kind of whirlwind.

On the 12th, after the evening service, we left to drive straight through to PA. Got to my parents around 11 a.m. on Monday...feeling just a tad road weary but glad to be "home". Tues we go up and drove to see my Gram and Aunt and Uncle that she lives with. Had lunch with them and visited. Then drove to surprise our great friend, Gordo, who wasn't where he was "supposed" to be! Lol!! Since he was nowhere to be found, we drove to our motel and went swimming/playing pool volleyball for a few hours. Finally decided we were starved and ordered food from Brothers! We were all so famished for their tremendous food that we ordered our favorites. Then Troll proceeded to sit and laugh at me as I looked from one dish to the other trying to decide which one I wanted to eat the most of! Lol! Our friends came to the motel and we had a great time visiting.

Wed, the 15th, we got up and drove to Penn View to surprise people there. :) It worked!! Got to see the new Rine's Auto Sales place, shocked Mrs. D in her office where she was working on getting things set up for all the new girls she'd be getting soon, visited with Woog and some of her gang, had the most awesome Curried Chicken ever a the Shrouts, then went to the Rines til rather late. :) Beeg managed to bust out a friends tooth down to the root while playing basketball. Put a rather nice gash in Beeg's elbow which we had to keep butterflied for 3 days til it stopped gaping so badly! Thankfully the tooth was able to be fixed so the poor kid wasn't gaping too long! Drove back to my parents late that night and fell into bed.

Troll started with board meetings for camp Thurs/Fri. Got to see my dad's dad/mom and uncle Dave on Thurs eve for supper, too. Sat was mini camp with services and banquet. Durkees did the singing/preaching. It was great to hear them. They do an amazing job together. I missed the banquet do to a migraine so that was kinda a bummer. Sat nite after the service we drove 1.5 hours to stay at my Aunt's house. There were 18 of us in their 4 bedroom home!! LOL! Talk about people everywhere and feeling like you were in a dorm! It was great! Got to see my cousin from Alaska that I'd not seen in years. Went to bed a little after 1 and back up at 6 to eat breakfast, iron massive amounts of clothing and headed out the door at 8:10 to get to church in Richfield. Walked in church to surprised faces! :) No one knew we were coming. It was neat. After church we went to some friends to have lunch with the family. Left there around 2:45 to drive to meet my parents on I-81 to pick up 60 quarts of freezer corn they did for us. :) Then drove to Lexington, Va to meet Troll's parents for supper.

After eating supper, we left Lexington around 9ish to start the LONG trip home. About 45 min later the truck started protesting. I immed thought "great!!". Of course VA has gorgeous mountains and hills and etc. We'd go as fast as we could down the hills/mountains to get a boost to go UP the next one. Truck was groaning, shaking like it was cold and could barely go 50 mph up the hills/mts. Check engine light would flash like crazy the whole time. Then we'd get to the top, hit the gas and FLY down it. It'd stop shaking, check engine light would go off and we'd be ok.....for the next few seconds. Then all over again!! Shaking, flashing, creeping!! We did this the rest of the way home!! So for 12 hours we felt blenderized :)) At one point Bia woke up and said, "Mom, my butt is shaking!!" There was such a serious vibration going on that it felt like your teeth were being shortened!! Got to the point when we were at redlights that we had to put it in neutral, rev it like a motorcycle to keep it running and then quickly change into D when the light turned. Lol!!! We sound/look like a motorcycle engined washing machine! I've changed the trucks name from "the big green pickle" (as all the penn view students called it) to "Lerch"! Lol!! Thankfully we made it home around 10ish Mon morn and unloaded successfully. Lerch will be taken to the garage tomorrow.

After unloading I went into the bedroom to work on paperwork and stuff. Around 11:30 Doody asked me what was for lunch. I told him to give me a minute to think about it. I laid down on the bed to visit with Merch and next thing I know, its 4:30 and time to think bout supper!!! My poor kids!! We opted for McD's as we had to quick get showers and head to school orientation!

This morning school started for the kids. The youngest three going to Christian school, the older two doing virtual school at home. This is the first year that Beeps' is away from home. She was consistently asking me if I was going to miss her :) When we got to school she bolted into general assembly with the boys as if she'd been there her whole life. :) I'm thankful for that and hope they all did great on their first day!

Troll got called around 10 to see if he could go to work. He was supposed to work 3:30-9:30 today. His best friend from PA, Gordo, is here so he didn't know what to say. However, all manner of people had called off today so I ended up taking him in and he has to work til 9:30! Gona be a long one for him.

So...life goes on RAPIDLY!! Was so thankful we were able to go North. i was missing everyone like crazy. Got to see and spend time with my best friend up there :) Had an absolute blast "DS". Great to spend time with my parents, too. Even though it was partially broken up with the board mtgs. and us traveling thither and yon! Looks like it will be next August til we are up again. IF we can all go.

Ok, that's the scoop with us! Trust everyone has a fantabulous week!!!!