The Louisville Science Center

Last December, our dear friends the Schwenkes moved away.  It was really awful.  We are all still pretty sad and not at peace about it, I'll just be honest.  Many friends move away because they are done with seminary and find jobs.  The Schwenkes had to move because they couldn't sell their home in Eastern Kentucky and the people (the state?  the gov't, whoever) wouldn't allow them to rent it any longer.  And a few months ago, Matt got his orders from the US Army...he'll be leaving for Afghanistan soon...for over a year.  :-(  They have three children ages 8, 6 and 5 (something like that).  Please pray for this sweet, precious family.

We are reading the story of Joseph right now.  The story always convicts me and teaches me,  more and more every time I read it, that God's plans are the best plans.  That there is a bigger picture we can't see.  That He does love us so very, very much.  

I don't know why God has taken the Schwenke family away from us.  Josiah doesn't understand why I don't let him have whatever he wants, either.  He lets me know through frequent temper tantrums that hurt my heart, my feelings and make me angry.

He doesn't understand because he is two.

He is small.  He's short-sighted, selfish and immature.

You see what I'm saying, here, right?

Every now and then, the Schwenkes visit us.  They make us go crazy places like they always used to.  Jenn always planned our home school field trips.  She got us all motivated to drag our clan to places us moms would probably never go by ourselves, without our husbands, because it is quite a chore!  But in a large group, we watch out for each other, and it all works just fine.

Plus a lot of people leave when they see our big group coming...

On Tuesday (yesterday) we went to the Louisville Science Center.  We all had earned free passes anyway with the Louisville Free Public Library Summer Reading Program.  So this trip was almost free.  I paid for my ticket and we all packed our lunches.  We left at 9:15 am and got home at 2:30.  Shwew.  It was quite a day!  

Waiting outside the doors for all our friends to arrive.

Our 5 and 6 year old friends  really know how to get into character.  We love playing with them!

Josiah was an excellent bus driver, even though he was convinced it was a train.  Choo choo!

He spent an hour playing in the water, getting soaked.

The rain jacket didn't help much!

He loves to make tea for Mommy.

I l-o-v-e this picture of our sweet seven year old friend, Kaylee.

The tubes of air...shot balls out, so cool!

"We need these blocks at our house.  These are REAL blocks!"

Shopping for shapes!  The kids could grab a list of shapes to "buy" and checked out at the register.  

Maryn apparently had a very, very long list.

Building a rollercoaster!

After our friends left, we stayed a while since Owen finally fell asleep.
I got to play with them finally, and we all built a couple castles.  :)